Historian John Boswell cited Alcuin's writings as demonstrating a personal outpouring of his internalized homosexual feelings. Others agree that Alcuin at times "comes perilously close to communicating openly his same-sex desires", and this reflects the erotic subculture of the Carolingian monastic school, but also perhaps a 'queer space' where "erotic attachment and affections may be safely articulated". According to David Clark, passages in some of Alcuin's writings can be seen to display homosocial desire, even possibly homoerotic imagery. However, he argues that it is not possible to necessarily determine whether they were the result of an outward expression of erotic feelings on the part of Alcuin.