19 pages • 38 minutes read
William MeredithThe Illiterate
Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1958A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Background
Literary Context
William Meredith was an influential poet, teacher, and editor. After his career in the military, he taught at Connecticut College for nearly 30 years. He made friends with, and aided, a variety of writers who were at differing stages of their careers. As Janet Gezari noted at a memorial to Meredith, “several of his more celebrated contemporaries—Robert Penn Warren, John Berryman, and Robert Lowell—relied on his responses to their poems and drafts of poems” (See: Further Reading & Resources). However, he was also noted for his kindness to those starting out in their careers, including such writers as Blanche McCrary Boyd, Julia Alvarez, and Michael Collier. Critically, his work is renowned for its straightforward diction and precise adherence to strict rhyme schemes and form. Although he could not initially discuss his life as a gay man early in his career, he later became well known for being openly gay. His appointment as Poet Laureate Consultant to the Library of Congress is considered a significant milestone in the history of LGBTQ+ poetry. Meredith is also known as someone who worked effectively to regain his language skills, while managing excessive aphasia after a stroke. Effort at Speech (1997), his final collection, has been placed within the poetry of disability movement.
Historical Context: The 1950s Lavender Scare
After the crisis of World War II (1939-1945), there was a rising fear that American morality was in a state of decline. This, along with a fear of Communism as a growing threat known as “The Red Scare,” caused certain groups to be targeted by authorities in the government and by the police in the late 1940s and 1950s, particularly in Washington, DC. Senator Joe McCarthy and his ilk began to incite panic by connecting members of the gay community with Communism, suggesting gay people and Communists were working to overthrow the government by undermining the sanctity of traditional marriage and the nuclear family. During this period known as the Lavender Scare, facets of gay culture became “deviant,” and campaigns were begun to eliminate such “perversion” (Atkins, Judith. “‘These People Are Frightened to Death’: Congressional Investigations and The Lavender Scare.” Prologue Magazine, The National Archives, 2016). Politicians behind the Lavender Scare argued that those who weren’t heterosexual were more susceptible to blackmail by foreign agents and might reveal government secrets because of their “weak moral fiber.” In April 1953, the spring before “The Illiterate” was published, President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed a law that banned gay men, lesbians, and those who were bisexual from working in the federal government as well as any company that served as a consultant to the government. Given the backdrop of The Lavender Scare, it makes sense that Meredith, who was serving as a United States naval pilot, would deal with any gay sentiment he meant to convey in “The Illiterate” obliquely.
