Contextual twilight/critical liminality: J.M. Barrie's courage at St. Andrews, 1922

J. M. Barrie's 1922 address Courageconstitutes a paradoxical rhetorical text. In his oratorical debut, Barrie offered seniors at St. Andrews poignant and explicit advice concerning life's liminal passages, even as he carefully obfuscated his own identity. This essay offers two readings of the text to illuminate an alternative relationship between text and context in rhetorical criticism. The first interpretation focuses on the obvious textual paradox related to liminality. The second reading moves from the “textual context” to the social and ideological context, and argues that working within the address is the rhetorical form of “the closet.” Recontextualizing Barrie's address from within “the closet,” renders visible a second “invisible context” related to homosexuality, opening a new interpretive doorway for the critic.