Romantic friendship at public schools
Reading and replying to anything on Tumblr is so close to impossible.
This whole discussion is very interesting (also, Diane Duane!) but I don't know that my scattered reblogs really add up to a conversation.
Here is what I had to say. Looking at it as a Dreamwidth post, it seems a bit thin, but perhaps we can have some conversation over here to tease out the nuances...
1) As fond as I am of “romantic friendship” as a genre, I do read the treatment of Sherlock and John’s relationship, with all those protestations of not being gay and not being a couple, as rather queerbaiting. At least in that I believe the motives of the writers were more “we can’t actually make them a couple” and less “wow, I wish we had more quasi-Victorian romantic friendship narratives on television, let’s write one.”
2) Public schools existed in Britain way before the early Victorian period. (Side point there, but still.)
3) This was basically the situation of the entire British Empire at this time, which is why they had to throw Wilde in prison, because that was what a homosexual was, see? Homosexuality wasn’t romance and higher ideals and art and intellectual, emotional closeness (which had been Wilde’s defense of male love), homosexuality was the explicit testimony of working-class prostitutes and detailed diaries and a record of acts-so, totally different from “higher” ideals of male love.
Hmm, I would say it’s more accurate that the whole Wilde trial helped to define the emerging idea of homosexuality… but then it did come to include not only sodomy, but also aestheticism, green carnations, witty banter, velvet jackets, discussing Classics at Oxford etc etc. Frankly also some of these associations were already in place for those who knew what they were looking for. Walter Pater, anyone?
4) I always have time for long quotes about CS Lewis’s time at school (though I can’t help being faintly amused at the idea of “fagging” being an offensive term). With regard to sources for a later period, I would recommend Stephen Fry’s “Moab is My Washpot” even more than “The Liar,” especially as in the former he discusses homosexuality at public school in historical and literary context.
5) I don’t consider CS Lewis a good source for attitudes towards homosexuality among the working classes. True, he didn’t attend one of the great public schools, but vanishingly few working-class boys would have had an education that was anything similar to his. (They did avidly read school stories, however, though this might be a topic for another time.)
6) What class you were once you got to public school… it definitely, definitely mattered. Too many boys have remembered “who’s your pater?” being the very first question that they were asked when they arrived. Having a father “in trade” could be socially very embarrassing. If I recall correctly, one of the characters in Horace Vachell’s “The Hill” (1905) is portrayed as suffering from just such a background.
This entry was originally posted at http://naraht.dreamwidth.org/550237.html. Please comment there using OpenID.
This whole discussion is very interesting (also, Diane Duane!) but I don't know that my scattered reblogs really add up to a conversation.
Here is what I had to say. Looking at it as a Dreamwidth post, it seems a bit thin, but perhaps we can have some conversation over here to tease out the nuances...
1) As fond as I am of “romantic friendship” as a genre, I do read the treatment of Sherlock and John’s relationship, with all those protestations of not being gay and not being a couple, as rather queerbaiting. At least in that I believe the motives of the writers were more “we can’t actually make them a couple” and less “wow, I wish we had more quasi-Victorian romantic friendship narratives on television, let’s write one.”
2) Public schools existed in Britain way before the early Victorian period. (Side point there, but still.)
3) This was basically the situation of the entire British Empire at this time, which is why they had to throw Wilde in prison, because that was what a homosexual was, see? Homosexuality wasn’t romance and higher ideals and art and intellectual, emotional closeness (which had been Wilde’s defense of male love), homosexuality was the explicit testimony of working-class prostitutes and detailed diaries and a record of acts-so, totally different from “higher” ideals of male love.
Hmm, I would say it’s more accurate that the whole Wilde trial helped to define the emerging idea of homosexuality… but then it did come to include not only sodomy, but also aestheticism, green carnations, witty banter, velvet jackets, discussing Classics at Oxford etc etc. Frankly also some of these associations were already in place for those who knew what they were looking for. Walter Pater, anyone?
4) I always have time for long quotes about CS Lewis’s time at school (though I can’t help being faintly amused at the idea of “fagging” being an offensive term). With regard to sources for a later period, I would recommend Stephen Fry’s “Moab is My Washpot” even more than “The Liar,” especially as in the former he discusses homosexuality at public school in historical and literary context.
5) I don’t consider CS Lewis a good source for attitudes towards homosexuality among the working classes. True, he didn’t attend one of the great public schools, but vanishingly few working-class boys would have had an education that was anything similar to his. (They did avidly read school stories, however, though this might be a topic for another time.)
6) What class you were once you got to public school… it definitely, definitely mattered. Too many boys have remembered “who’s your pater?” being the very first question that they were asked when they arrived. Having a father “in trade” could be socially very embarrassing. If I recall correctly, one of the characters in Horace Vachell’s “The Hill” (1905) is portrayed as suffering from just such a background.
This entry was originally posted at http://naraht.dreamwidth.org/550237.html. Please comment there using OpenID.