Expanded Perceptions of Identity in Benjamin Britten's Nocturne, Op. 60 Page: 33
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homosexuality as not only singularly important, but as undeniably interrelated.12 Those who
agree with this way of thinking believe that whenever Britten claimed that a given work was
about pacifism, it was likely that he had also included, consciously or subconsciously, a
message about sexuality. Philip Brett explains that in Britain, conscientious objectors against
the war and homosexuals were seen as marginal members of society. And while Britten
himself compared the story of persecution in Peter Grimes with his own experience as a
conscientious objector but excluded any mention of sexuality, Brett claims that for both
Britain and Britten, gay men and pacifists were one and the same.13
Stephen McClatchie suggests that if indeed Britten felt this way, it was because of the
influence of W.H. Auden and his circle of friends. McClatchie implies that because Britten
was discovering both his pacifism and his sexuality while spending much of his time in the
1930's with Auden, anti-war sentiments and homosexual feelings must have been indelibly
connected in the composer's mind. McClatchie exposes these parallel ideas and their
manifestation in music through a reading of Owen Wingrave, Britten's penultimate opera and
his last ostensibly pacifist work. Owen Wingrave, based on a work by Henry James, tells the
story of a young man who refuses to follow the family tradition of a military career because
he feels passionately about pacifism. The Wingraves are so angry with Owen that they force
him to spend the night in a haunted room, where he is found dead in the morning. 14
McClatchie observes that despite the homosocial implications of male bonding, there
are psychological links between the military and heterosexual masculinity for the Wingrave
12This trend, like so many in Britten studies, began with Philip Brett's article from The Musical Times in 1977,
"Britten and Grimes."
13Brett, "Pacifism, Political Action, and Artistic Endeavor," 177.
14Stephen McClatchie, "Benjamin Britten, Owen Wingrave, and the Politics of the Closet; or, 'He Shall be
Straightened Out at Paramore," Cambridge Opera Journal 8 (1996): 59, 65.33
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Perkins, Anna Grace. Expanded Perceptions of Identity in Benjamin Britten's Nocturne, Op. 60, thesis, May 2008; Denton, Texas. (https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc6064/m1/38/: accessed July 18, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, UNT Digital Library, https://digital.library.unt.edu; .