¹ Other contributors to the volume make similar statements, but with a more limited reading audience in mind. Corinne E. Blackmer writes: ‘one of the tasks of gay and lesbian criticism is the uncovering of the embedded meanings of these various “prehomosexuality” vocabularies and narratives and their possible address to readers capable of discerning or decoding them’ (341n5). Patricia Juliana Smith, writing about Turandot, claims: ‘It is incumbent upon the lesbian critic … to identify these historical semiotics and modes of conduct, regardless of how unlikely or unappealing we find them, lest, in their erasure, we find ourselves once more trapped in them, enacting them once more, imagining Turandot as a role model. For this reason, I expose Turandot's lesbian past before it slips from our sight altogether’ (271).Google Scholar

² Wendy Bashant's ‘Singing in Greek Drag: Gluck, Berlioz, George Eliot’ has radical-looking italicised digressions which, however, read more like what would normally be footnoted commentaries.Google Scholar