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HORACE (65-8 B.C.) More Visible (And As Such, More Threaten­ Latin Lyric and Satiric Poet of the Ing to the Homosocial Groups!

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HORACE (65-8 B.C.) More Visible (And As Such, More Threaten­ Latin Lyric and Satiric Poet of the Ing to the Homosocial Groups! • HOMOSOCIALITY munitiescan be seen as a byproduct of this phie Freundschaftseros einschliesslich process of declining homosociality. Homoerotik, Homosexualitiit und die Whereas in former times much homosex­ verwandte und vergleichende Gebiete, Frankfurt am Main: Dipa Verlag. 1964. ual behavior existed under the cover of GertHekma homosociality, with the decline of male bonding, homosexualsituationsare stand­ ing more apart and are thus becoming HORACE (65-8 B.C.) more visible (and as such, more threaten­ Latin lyric and satiric poet of the ing to the homosocial groups!. GoldenAge. QuintusHoratiusFlaccuswas With the advent of the homosex­ the son of a freedman who cared for his ualidentity, thehomosocial male (soldier, education. In Athens he studied philoso­ seaman, cowboy, outlaw, fireman, cop! phy and ancient Greek literature. As a became the typical object of desire for supporter of Brutus he fought at Philippi, homosexual men, and when in the last thenreturned to Rome, whereinthe spring decades thisbordertraffic betweengay and of 38 VergH and Varius Rufus introduced straight societydiminished, somegay men him to Maecenas, thegreat patronofLatin in their IIclone" stereotypes tried to realize literature, who after nine months admit­ these homosocial types in themselves. ted him to his intimate circle. Horace Conclusion. Thesubjectofhomo­ thereafterlived withdrawn, diningoutonly sociality, and more specifically, of female at Maecenas' invitation. The friendship and male bonding, has great relevance for lasted to the end of their lives, and in 32 gay and lesbian studies. First, as a sphere Horace received from Maecenas a Sabine where forms of homosexual pleasure are estate. engendered, andsecondly, becauseitbroad­ As a poet Horace is remembered ens as well as changes the perspective of for his Odes, EpodBs, and Satires. The gay and lesbian studies. As a concept, it Odes are modeled on the Greek poems of alerts researchers to the differences exist­ Alcaeus, Sappho, Pindar, and Bacchylides, ing between gay and lesbian culture. Fi­ with the added refinement which the nally, itis an extremelyrich field which is Hellenistic era gave to the short poem. insufficiently studied, especially the male The Satires are inspired by Lucilius, but variants, and one in whichgay studies can composed inhexameterverse, thoughfreer display its strengths. than in epic poetry. The subject matter­ See also Friendship, Female as befitted the son of a freedman-was not Romantic; Friendship, Male. ruthlessly personal and political, but apo­ litical and universal: the vices and follies BIBLIOGRAPHY. Janet L. Barkas, FriemiBhip: A Selected, Annotated ofprivatelife, stoicparadoxes, andhisown BibliogrQphy, New York: Garland, 1985; friendship with Maecenas are the themes. Lilian Faderman, Surpassing the Love of TheEpistles inverse are philosophicaland Men: Romantic Friendship and Love literary discourses modeled on Lucilius, between Women from the Renaissance Mummius, and Catullus. The language of to the Present, New York: William Morrow, 1981; Thijs Maasen, De the poems ranges from the popular to the pedagogische eros in het geding, Utrecht, most literary and formal; it is rich in 1988; Peter Parker, The Old Lie; The imagery and symbolism. Great War and Public School Ethos, In his private life Horace was London, 1987; Carroll Smith-Rosenberg. certainly bisexual, witha preference inthe Disorderly Conduct; Visions of Gender in Victorian America. New York: Alfred homosexual direction. The love poems to A. Knopf, 1985; Lionel Tiger, Men in women-to Lalage, Chloe, Lydia, or Groups, New York: Random House, Pyrrha-strikethemodem readeras artifi­ 1969; E.mst Gunther Welter, Bibliogra- cial and insubstantial, despite the severe 562 "':"~i::': HOUSMAN, AILFRED] EIDWARD] ... grace of language and structure which the College, London. He held this post until poetinscribedinthem. Thepoet's account 1911, when he was appointed Professor of of his love for handsome boys and youths Latin at Trinity College, Cambridge. As a rings far more true and sincere. The very Latinist Housman devoted himself to the intensityof hisaffection for boysprecluded arduous and painstaking editing of the his deeply loving any woman; all the Astl'Onomicon of the poet Manilius women that he portrays or addresses seem (1903-1930), an austere subject that could lifeless, and really unhappy love for a interest only thespecialist, notthegeneral woman never troubled him. In spirit Ho­ reader. race was never young, never knew the Housman's poetic output in his intensity of youthful passion, and as he lifetime was limited to A Shropshire Lad grew older, he became more and more a (1896) and Last Poems (19221. More Poems spectator of life and love, counseling his appeared after hisdeathin 1936. TheShrop­ reader to observe the golden mean, even if shire of the poems is a contrived pastoral he can be momentarily enthralled by the settingwhich if idealized is scarcely Arca­ beauty of a youth. The poet regarded the dian in that its youthful inhabitants are phenomenaof sexuallife withawonderful burdened by life's frustrations and disap­ humor that gave him a magic touch over pointments. Time and happiness vanish; them all, but maturity had distanced him the young and beautiful die; the army and from the spontaneous ardor of the lover. even thegallows taketheirtoll.Housman's His ideal was that of the wise man who verse forms are simple, yet fashioned with remains unperturbed in the face of every classical precision and a fine balance of event, from sheer happiness to unrelieved contrast and paradox. The underlying sorrow. emotionof the poems is often homoerotic, though the implicit tensions, when pres­ BIBUOGRAPHY. Otto Kiefer, Sexual ent, are too subtlefor the average reader to Life in Ancient Rome, London: Rout­ ledge and Kegan Paul, 1934. appreciatefully. Theunforgettablephrases Warren Johansson of the poems betray a melancholy over male love and male beauty forever lost, but still alive in dreams. HOUSMAN, A[LFRED] Thepersonalityof thescholarand E[DWARD] (1859-1936) poet was opaque to his contemporaries, English poet andclassicalscholar. whom he kept at a discrete distance by The son of a solicitor, he earned prizes for mannerisms that gave him the reputation poetry at Bromsgrove School and won an of being frigid and unapproachable. Those open scholarship to St. John's College, who knew him suspectedadeeply wounded Oxford, in 1877. He pursued his classical and repressed personality, but in his life­ studies so single-mindedly that he ne­ time the subject of his sexual orientation glected the rest of the Greats examination had to be whispered; it could not be dis­ and failed hisfinals in 1881, but received a cussed inprint. While an undergraduate at pass degree the following year. For some Oxford he had been passionately in love nine years he worked as a civil servant in with a tall, handsome young man, Moses the Patent Office in London, while pub­ Jackson, whomhelosttothelatter'sbride­ lishing a series of papers in leamed jour­ a source of profound bitterness and emo­ nals on such authors as Horace, Proper­ tional deprivation for him. Rejected by the tius, Ovid, Aeschylus, Euripides, and man whom he loved, Housman had to Sophocles. By 1892 his reputation was accept the fact that not onlywas hehomo­ such that he could enlist seventeen top sexual, but that he loved someone who scholars in support of his application for could never return his affection. The fur­ the vacant Chair of Latin at University ther burden that the Church condemned 563 "':':*;:::::.
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