But Were They Gay? The Mystery of Same-Sex Love the 19th Century

THE 200-YEAR-OLD DIARY THAT'S REWRG GAY HISTORY

A Yorkshire farmer's journal om 1810 reveals surprisgly morn views on beg gay. * gay writer 1800s *

Image ptn, Claire Pickerg Wakefield library imag the diary wrer speakg a Yorkshire accentA diary wrten by a Yorkshire farmer more than 200 years ago is beg hailed as providg remarkable evince of tolerance towards homosexualy Bra much earlier than prevly imaged. Historians om Oxford Universy have been taken aback to disver that Matthew Tomlson's diary om 1810 ntas such open-md views about same-sex attractn beg a "natural" human diary challeng prenceptns about what "ordary people" thought about homosexualy - showg there was a bate about whether someone really should be discrimated agast for their sexualy. "In this excg new disvery, we see a Yorkshire farmer argug that homosexualy is nate and somethg that shouldn't be punished by ath, " says Oxford rearcher Eamonn O' ptn, The diari were handwrten by Tomlson the farmhoe where he lived and workedThe historian had been examg Tomlson's handwrten diari, which have been stored Wakefield Library sce the thoands of pag of the private journals have never been transcribed and prevly ed by rearchers terted Tomlson's eye-wns acunts of electns Yorkshire and the Ludd smashg up O'Keeffe me across what seemed, for the era of Gee III, to be a rather startlg set of arguments about same-sex relatnships.

Tomlson had been prompted by what had been a big sex sndal of the day - which a well-rpected naval surgeon had been found to be engagg homosexual ptn, Historian Eamonn O'Keeffe says the diari provi a rare sight to the views of "ordary people" the early 1800sA urt martial had orred him to be hanged - but Tomlson seemed unnvced by the cisn, qutng whether what the papers lled an "unnatural act" was really that unnatural. "It mt seem strange ed that God Almighty should make a beg wh such a nature, or such a fect nature; and at the same time make a cree that if that beg whom he had formed, should at any time follow the dictat of that Nature, wh which he was formed, he should be punished wh ath, " he wrote on January 14 there was an "clatn and propensy" for someone to be homosexual om an early age, he wrote, " mt then be nsired as natural, otherwise as a fect nature - and if natural, or a fect nature; seems cel to punish that fect wh ath" diarist mak reference to beg rmed by others that homosexualy is apparent om an early age - suggtg that Tomlson and his social circle had been talkg about this se and discsg somethg that was not unknown to this time, and also Wt Yorkshire, a lol landowner, Anne Lister, was wrg a d diary about her lbian relatnships - wh her story told the televisn seri, Gentleman knowg what "ordary people" really thought about such behavur is always difficult - not least bee the loust survivg voic are ually the wealthy and has exced amics is the chance to eavdrop on an everyday farmer thkg aloud his source, Getty ImagImage ptn, Tomlson was appalled by the levels of rptn durg electns"What's strikg is that he's an ordary guy, he's not a member of the bohemian circl or an tellectual, " says O'Keeffe, a doctoral stunt Oxford's history acceptance of homosexualy might have been exprsed privately aristocratic or philosophilly radil circl - but this was beg discsed by a ral worker. O'Keeffe says shows ias were "perlatg through Brish society much earlier and more wily than we'd expect" - wh the diary workg through the bat that Tomlson might have been havg wh his the were still far om morn liberal views - and O'Keeffe says they n be extremely "jarrg" someone was homosexual by choice, rather than by nature, Tomlson was ready to nsir that they should still be punished - proposg stratn as a more morate optn than the ath ptn, Tomlson's former home was still there the 1930s (bottom left), but has sce disappeared beneath hog and a golf urseO'Keeffe says disverg evince of the kds of bate has both "enriched and plited" what we know about public opn this pre-Victorian diary is raisg ternatnal Fara Dabhoiwala, om Prceton Universy the US, an expert the history of attus towards sexualy, scrib as "vivid proof" that "historil attus to same-sex behavur uld be more sympathetic than is ually prumed".

"Gay Lerature: Poetry and Prose" published on by Oxford Universy Prs." name="scriptn * gay writer 1800s *

Instead of seeg homosexualy as a "horrible perversn", Prof Dabholwala says the rerd showed a farmer 1810 uld see as a "natural, dively ordaed human qualy" Norton, an expert gay history, said there had been earlier arguments fendg homosexualy as natural - but the were more likely to be om philosophers than farmers. Meticuloly rearched and ttly plotted, books such as The Last of the We (1956) and The Persian Boy (1972) naturalistilly pict gay love agast a vivid, betifully renred backdrop of war and polil BaldwJam BaldwUPI/Bettmann ArchiveBaldw’s semal novel Gvanni’s Room (1956), about a tragic love affair between a nfed Amerin man and his Italian boyiend Paris, unflchgly exam the societal prejudic that kept (and ntue to keep) many people om acknowledgg their sexual AokiAoki is an Amerin wrer of Japane scent who is bt known for her llectns, cludg Seasonal Veloci (2012) and Why Dt Shall Never Settle upon This Soul (2015), and her novels, cludg He Mele a Hilo (2014) and Light om Unmon Stars (2021). Bisexualy has been viewed wh gay studi as distct om homosexualy, and bisexuals have found themselv exclud om gay events and anizatns although a great many “gay ins” om Socrat to Shakpeare to Osr Wil were married and fathered children.

The word “homosexual” was, fact, created the late neteenth century as an English equivalent for German Homosexualtät, which first appeared prt 1869 a pamphlet argug agast the Pssian legal that prcribed punishments for men who engaged same-sex relatns.

GAY LERATURE: POETRY AND PROSEGAY LERATURE: POETRY AND PROSE

* gay writer 1800s *

Adoptg his posn, crics have argued, for example, that Walt Whman and Osr Wil (1854–1900) were not, strictly speakg, homosexuals, at least the sense that medil and psychologil tablishments unrstood that “ndn” or “speci” the twentieth century. Whether the dividual is born homosexual or his or her homosexual sir are socially nstcted, is clear that medi-scientific theori of homosexualy as a curable disease were an ventn of the late neteenth and early twentieth centuri. One rells thgs as var as Ernt Hemgway's dismissive attu toward homosexuals his books, the “pansi” played for lghs Hollywood films of the 1920s and 1930s, and Hart Crane's joyo announcement—havg, he believed, fallen love wh a woman—that he was not homosexual after all.

Although Amerin lerature the first two-thirds of the twentieth century almost always impli the medi-scientific fn whenever homosexualy enters the text, Whman had his own succsors, om Bliss Carman (1861–1929) and Richard Hovey (1864–1900) to Marsn Hartley (1877–1943) to Langston Hugh (1902–1967) and Gerr Lansg (b. Sedgwick se Jam as a homosexual who rarely alt openly wh male timacy but whose work foc on “homosocial” (her term) suatns that occur when, for example, two men stggle for the attentn of a woman; emotns are directed by each man more strongly toward his petor than toward their shared object of sire.

Although Sedgwick nsirs Billy Budd to be suffed wh homosexual sir, she pots out that there is only one homosexual the morn sense the story: Claggart, who has the self-loathg of those who have ternalized homophobia, and who is “praved bee he is, his sir, a pervert, ” or “homosexual” (Sedgwick, 1990, p. The many homosexual Amerin poets the early twentieth century who were athet clud Amy Lowell (1874–1925), Wilbur Unrwood (1876–1935), Donald Evans (1884–1921), Gee Sylvter Viereck (1884–1962), John Gould Fletcher (1886–1950), Clark Ashton Smh (1893–1961), and Samuel Greenberg (1883–1917), whose poems Hart Crane emulated his own early work.

HOW GAY CULTURE BLOSSOMED DURG THE ROARG TWENTI

LGBTQ Lerature is a Rears and Book Lovers seri dited to discsg lerature that has ma an impact on the liv of lbian, gay, bisexual, transgenr, and queer people. From fictn to ntemporary nonfictn to history and everythg ... * gay writer 1800s *

Public attus toward homosexuals are suggted by an cint the early 1940s when John Crowe Ransom (1888–1974), who had accepted a poem by Robert Dunn (1919–1988) for the Kenyon Review, whdrew his offer after Dunn published an say another journal on homosexualy.

Ransom plimented Dunn for havg taken such a bold stand—although actually the say is impartial, argug that homosexualy is no better, if no worse, than any other kd of life—but sisted that the poem schled for the Review might now be read as “homosexual advertisement” (Faas, 1983, p. 1928), and William Inge (1913–1973), and highly regard novels wh homosexual them and suatns, such as Two Ser Ladi (1943) by Jane Bowl (1917–1973), The Member of the Weddg (1946) by Carson McCullers (1917–1967), The Cy and the Pillar (1948) by Gore Vidal (b. The so-lled School of Boston, which provid one of the avant-gar's rpons the 1960s to the mastream works of Robert Lowell (1917–1977) and Sylvia Plath (1932–1963), was almost entirely gay, cludg such poets as John Weers (1934–2002), Gerr Lansg, and Stephen Jonas (1920–1970).

The gay liberatn movement and the gradual public awarens that homosexualy was not the disease the psychiatric tablishment had claimed led to a luge of “g-out” stori, which the thor narrat her or his progrs om “the closet” to an open life as a gay woman or man. Numero anthologi of gay wrg—Stephen Coote's The Pengu Book of Homosexual Verse (1983), Carl Morse and Joan Lark's Gay and Lbian Poetry Our Time (1989), and Edmund Whe's Faber Book of Gay Short Fictn (1991), to ce three of the most rpected—prent no evince that “gay wrg” is sentially more than wrg about gay life.

THE HIDN GAY LIV FALLY BEG UNVERED

1965), refully documents a range of poetic tradns om the formalist to the highly experimental whout fdg any that grew om a basilly gay athetic: “Of urse there are poems that overtly flnt their sexualy, ” Liu nclus, “but there are so many quieter poems (and poets) who might elu the most fely tuned gaydar [sensivy to others' gay inty].

The thirty-two years that separate Isherwood's and Holleran's books were so fired wh crisis—the gay liberatn movement and then AIDS—that the fundamental flaw homosexual culture, namely, that has been profoundly a culture for and of the young, has not received as much attentn as should.

HOW THE EARLY ’80S CHANGED GAY WRG FOREVER

Melville's isolato exemplify Emersonian self-reliance, but homosexualy Isherwood's and Holleran's works is seen all too accurately as a re of passage to a dimished sexual and emotnal matury that no culture should wish on s members. The homophobia wh which early wrers had to battle has certaly not vanished, remag some parts of the untry as vilent and vlent as ever, but elsewhere gay life and valu have been tegrated to so much of the culture at large that they have often ceased to operate as an opposnal force.

Forster (A Passage to India, A Room Wh a View, Howards End) wrote the benchmark gay novel Mrice cir 1913, was published posthumoly a lh tale of manners, posn, and sire, the tular character meets and falls for his classmate Clive while at Oxford. The pair embark on a two-year affair until Clive leav Mrice to marry a woman and live out his proscribed life as part of the land gentry, leavg Mrice shambl and seekg to cure his Forster's novel do not end gay tragedy. The queer g-of-age novel about Jim Willard and his search for love was the first novel om a rpected wrer (Gore Vidal) to speak directly and sympathetilly about the gay experience an era when homosexualy was still very much taboo.

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THE 200-YEAR-OLD DIARY THAT'S REWRG GAY HISTORY