The Seduction of the Mediterranean: Writing, Art and Homosexual Fantasy

The Mediterranean was the central theme in homoerotic writing and art from the 1750s to the 1950s. Writers and artists delved into classical mythology and history for figures - such as Ganymede and Achilles - through which they could portray a sexuality considered by society as a sin, an illness and a crime. Many journeyed to the south of Europe, particularly Italy, to admire the ruins of Antiquity and the paintings of the Renaissance, escape the social censure of their home countries and find sexual partners. The lives and works of forty writers are examined, from the art historian Winckelmann in the 1700s, through Romantic poets such as Byron and Platen, to Wilde, Isherwood and Forster. Attention is given to the works of such painters as Girodet and von Marees and the photographs of von Gloeden and List. Robert Aldrich sets the phenomenon of homosexual interest in the Mediterranean in its social and historical context. He suggests that different myths replaced that of the homoerotic Mediterranean by the 1960s, as gay liberation diminished the need for the legitimation of homosexuality which the classics provided, and law reform lessened the need for exile. This book brings together for the first time a study of seminal figures in homosexual culture and explains the link - fascination with the Mediterranean - which bound them together.