Gay and Lesbian Poetry

An Anthology from Sappho to Michelangelo

James J. Wilhelm

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• eBook ISBN: 9781317777618
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Literary Criticism
• Index: Literature

First published in 1995. This anthology focuses on European languages, but also includes Arabic and Hebrew poetry of medieval Spain, arranged chronologically and accompanied by commentary about the poets' lives and work.

SECTION I

CLASSICAL GREEK LITERATURE

Dennis Kratz

The treatment of homosexual love in Classical Greek literature reflects the ambivalent role of homosexuality in Greek culture. On the one hand homosexuality is often portrayed positively. As the range of poems presented in this section demonstrates, numerous poets described the pangs and pleasures of homosexual unions. Nor was homosexual passion restricted to poetic works. In two dialogues, the Symposium and Phaedrus, the philosopher Plato makes homosexual attraction the starting point for his discussion of love as the force that initiates and guides the search for beauty, nobility, and wisdom.

On the other hand Greek literature offers abundant evidence of negative attitudes toward both homosexuality and the homosexual. The comic dramatist Aristophanes made homosexuals, especially those who submitted to anal intercourse, the butt of many jokes. Moreover, homosexual themes and characters are notably absent from Greek tragedy and epic, with the possible exception of Achilles and Patroclus in the Iliad. This failure of classical Greek literature other than lyric poetry to offer positive portrayals of homosexual love might be considered further evidence of a general disapproval of most forms of homosexual behavior.

Even lyric poetry, which provides abundant examples of homosexual themes, is for the most part limited to a specific homoerotic relationship: that between a mature male and a preadolescent boy. In this relationship the older man, called in Greek the erastes (lover) played the dominant role; but he was expected to extend his relationship with the boy, called the eromenos (lover) beyond sexual satisfaction. In many ways, the erastes was expected to mentor his partner, modeling for him and teaching him those virtues valued in a citizen of the Greek polis.

It is the voice of the erastes that we encounter exclusively in Greek lyric poetry from both the classical and the Hellenistic eras. From this poetry emerges a clear view of the rules associated with pederastic relationships. The erastes, smitten by the beauty of a young boy, courts him with gifts and words. The gifts are often conventional and apparently symbolic: a garland of flowers, a ball or other plaything, a bird. Lesbian love poetry from Greek antiquity is limited to the surviving poems by Sappho. Even here, it is the voice of Sappho the erastes, the pursuer rather than the pursued, that we encounter.

The language of homosexual seduction has much in common with the conventions of heterosexual love poetry. The potential lover invokes examples of divine passion—above all, the love of Zeus for the handsome boy Ganymede. The man often warns his beloved of the fleeting nature of his youthful good looks. A common theme of this pederastic love poetry describes the horror of the sprouting beard that will destroy the attraction of the potential eromenos. The boy, for his part, is expected to yield eventually, though not too soon or easily. He should not, however, be too greedy in his quest for tokens of the older man’s affection. The complaints of Greek pederastic poetry are divided equally among the themes of avarice, rejection, and infidelity.

As Kenneth Dover has pointed out, Greek homosexual passion seems to have exhibited the same double standard that can be observed in Greek heterosexual relations. The pursuit by the erastes is sanctioned—his success viewed as a triumph. Yielding easily to seduction, however, is regarded as a sign of weakness. In the lyrics we encounter men who vow abiding love for a sequence of handsome youths.

The lyric poetry devoted to this form of homoerotic relationship offers a remarkably consistent picture from the fifth century B.C. through the Hellenistic era. This consistency seems to reflect both the central role of pederasty in Greek society and the conservative nature of Greek lyric poetry, which tends to refine and repeat rather than seek new forms of expression.

The most important work of recent scholarship devoted to the subject of homoerotic passion in Greek society is Dover’s Greek Homosexuality (Cambridge, Mass., 1978). In her study The Reign of the Phallus: Sexual Politics in Ancient Athens, Eva Keuls offers a perceptive, critical analysis of the attitudes of Athenian males toward both heterosexual and homosexual passion. Finally, in Same-sex Unions in Premodern Europe, John Boswell argues that Greek society had a far more tolerant view of homosexual relations, particularly between two adults, than is generally assumed.

1. SAPPHO

(ca. 630–ca. 580 B.C.)

An epigram attributed to Plato calls Sappho the “tenth Muse.” She is without question the most admired of all the lyric poets of Greek antiquity.

Little is known of her life. She seems to have belonged to one of the leading families of Mytilen...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• PREFACE
• SECTION I CLASSICAL GREEK LITERATURE
• SECTION II CLASSICAL LATIN LITERATURE
• SECTION III MEDIEVAL LATIN LITERATURE
• SECTION IV ARABIC POETRY
• SECTION V HEBREW POETRY
• SECTION VI LATE MEDIEVAL VERNACULAR LITERATURE TO 1400
• SECTION VII ITALIAN RENAISSANCE LITERATURE TO MICHELANGELO
• GENERAL BIBLIOGRAPHY
• INDEX OF AUTHORS AND LONGER WORKS