Abstract
The virgule—or forward slash—plays a critical role in Enrique A´lvarez’s
Dentro/Fuera: El espacio homosexual masculino en la poesı´a espan˜ola del siglo XX, and
not just in the book’s title where it would seem to mediate the relative disclosure
or visibility of, in this instance, a male subject’s sexuality, his in-ness or out-ness
of the closet. The virgule also marks the conceptual signposts of this study by
mediating, along with ‘‘dentro/fuera,’’ binaries such as ‘‘homo/heterosexual’’
and ‘‘poder/saber’’ (14) as well as ‘‘incorporacio´n/transformacio´n’’ (22) and
‘‘silencio/garganta’’ (37). The result is a consideration of the poetry—and
drama and prose—of Federico Garcı´a Lorca, Luis Cernuda, Jaime Gil de
Biedma, and Luis Antonio de Villena that discloses the ways in which ‘‘la experiencia homosexual masculina en las variantes del espacio social espan˜ol a lo
largo del siglo XX determina en gran medida la consideracio´n formal en el
proceso creativo de estos poetas’’