Symonds and Greek ethics  In 1873, the poet and literary critic John Addington Symonds wrote A Problem in Greek Ethics, a work of what could later be called "gay history", inspired by the poetry of Walt Whitman.Katz, Love Stories, p. 244. Katz notes that "Whitman's knowledge of and response to ancient Greek love is the subject for a major study" (p. 381, note 6). The work, "perhaps the most exhaustive eulogy of Greek love",DeJean, "Sex and Philology", p. 139. remained unpublished for a decade, and then was printed at first only in a limited edition for private distribution.Katz, Love Stories, p. 244. A Problem in Greek Ethics was later published without attribution in Havelock Ellis's Sexual Inversion (1897); see Eric O. Clarke, Virtuous Vice: Homoeroticism and the Public Sphere (Duke University Press, 2000), p. 144. Symonds's approach throughout most of the essay is primarily philological. He treats "Greek love" as central to Greek "aesthetic morality". Aware of the taboo nature of his subject matter, Symonds referred obliquely to pederasty as "that unmentionable custom" in a letter to a prospective reader of the book,Katz, Love Stories, p. 262. but defined "Greek love" in the essay itself as "a passionate and enthusiastic attachment subsisting between man and youth, recognised by society and protected by opinion, which, though it was not free from sensuality, did not degenerate into mere licentiousness".As quoted by Pulham, Art and Transitional Object, p. 59, and Anne Hermann, Queering the Moderns: Poses/Portraits/Performances (St. Martin's Press, 2000), p. 148. upJohn Addington Symonds, in a photo he signed for Walt Whitman Symonds also translated classical poetry on homoerotic themes, and wrote poems drawing on ancient Greek imagery and language such as Eudiades, which has been called "the most famous of his homoerotic poems": "The metaphors are Greek, the tone Arcadian and the emotions a bit sentimental for present-day readers."
Symonds and Greek ethics upJohn Addington Symonds, in a photo he signed for Walt Whitman In 1873, the poet and literary critic John Addington Symonds wrote A Problem in Greek Ethics, a work of what could later be called "gay history", inspired by the poetry of Walt Whitman.Katz, Love Stories, p. 244. Katz notes that "Whitman's knowledge of and response to ancient Greek love is the subject for a major study" (p. 381, note 6). The work, "perhaps the most exhaustive eulogy of Greek love",DeJean, "Sex and Philology", p. 139. remained unpublished for a decade, and then was printed at first only in a limited edition for private distribution.Katz, Love Stories, p. 244. A Problem in Greek Ethics was later published without attribution in Havelock Ellis's Sexual Inversion (1897); see Eric O. Clarke, Virtuous Vice: Homoeroticism and the Public Sphere (Duke University Press, 2000), p. 144. Symonds's approach throughout most of the essay is primarily philological. He treats "Greek love" as central to Greek "aesthetic morality". Aware of the taboo nature of his subject matter, Symonds referred obliquely to pederasty as "that unmentionable custom" in a letter to a prospective reader of the book,Katz, Love Stories, p. 262. but defined "Greek love" in the essay itself as "a passionate and enthusiastic attachment subsisting between man and youth, recognised by society and protected by opinion, which, though it was not free from sensuality, did not degenerate into mere licentiousness".As quoted by Pulham, Art and Transitional Object, p. 59, and Anne Hermann, Queering the Moderns: Poses/Portraits/Performances (St. Martin's Press, 2000), p. 148. Symonds also translated classical poetry on homoerotic themes, and wrote poems drawing on ancient Greek imagery and language such as Eudiades, which has been called "the most famous of his homoerotic poems": "The metaphors are Greek, the tone Arcadian and the emotions a bit sentimental for present-day readers."
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upJohn Addington Symonds, in a photo he signed for Walt Whitman
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upJohn Addington Symonds, in a photo he signed for Walt Whitman