Homosexuals in History [Paperback]

A. L. Rowse (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 30, 1997

Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, Tchaikovsky, Oscar Wilde, Ernst Rohm, Noel Coward - these men shared a sexual orientation that ran counter to mainstream society and defied their eras' ideas of biology. This analysis of these influential historical figures explores not only the links between creativity and sexual desire, but also how their awareness of their own sexual mores lent itself to the shaping of their genius.

Product Details

• Paperback: 386 pages
• Publisher: Carroll & Graf; 2 edition (May 30, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0786704233
• ISBN-13: 978-0786704231
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.1 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,099,541 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent vignettes on significant gay men, December 24, 2003

By 

Richard Harrold (Chicago, IL) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: HOMOSEXUALS IN HISTORY (Paperback)

A very readable and enjoyable book that provides informative sketches of a wide variety of gay men since the Rennaisance until the mid-20th century. The author provides just enough information so a reader can find other books devoted to a specific individual to read more. My only complaints are two, and one regards one of the book's strengths.

That strength is the lack of footnotes, which makes the text flow wonderfully. However, the author at times draws conclusions about a particular individual without providing any information on how that conclusion was reached. He writes as though to an esoteric audience, and if you're not in the know, you may miss how a conclusion was reached.

The second minor flaw is that in the latter part of the book where the author is describing people he had personal contact with, he goes way beyond what I think is acceptable interpretation of information and begins to editorialize on people and situations in ways I think inappropriate. It is a minor criticism, however. The book remains excellent.

7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An excellent historical biographical sketch of homosexuality, January 14, 2000

By 

Mike Fisher - See all my reviews

This review is from: Homosexuals in History (Paperback)

This book is good as a reading book or as a quick reference for scholarly research in the area of LGBT studies. I personally found Rowse's treatment of King James to be a good starting point for a paper I wrote on homosexuality in Jacobean England.

5 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "Light...calm and desirable...", June 21, 2002

By 

A Customer - See all my reviews

This review is from: Homosexuals in History (Paperback)

Though titled _Homosexuals in History_, this work is
not a dry, heavily footnoted, archly worded, jargon
laced, academic piece. Rather, it is immensely interesting,
engrossing, enlightening, and an excellent background to
serve as base for further academic or personal research
on the time periods and the personalities dealt with in
the book.
Rowse gives his own perspective in the "Preface": "This
book is decidedly _not_ pornography. It is a serious
study -- or series of studies -- in history and society,
literature and the arts. Many men of genius or great
eminence appear in it: kings like James I and Frederick
the Great, artists of the stature of Leonardo da Vinci
and Michealangelo; intellectual giants such as Erasmus
and Francis Bacon; many poets, writers and composers,
scholars and collectors, soldiers and statesmen, patriots,
politicians. The subject offers immense variety, men of
very different psychological make-up, character, tastes,
and gifts. Many more could have been included, but my
aim has been to be representative, not exhaustive. And
I hope, by the way, that these studies may throw some light
on the predisposing conditions to creativeness: in the
psychological rewards of ambivalence, the double response
to life, the sharpening of perception, the tensions that
lead to achievement."
This work is not a mere recounting, but rather an intelligent,
absorbing, often witty, even humorous, and most often very

sympathetic account of these lives and the contexts in which
they found themselves living and involved.
Rowse does not deal with ancient times, for he says that
his interests as an historian began with the Renaisssance,
"the transition from the medieval to the modern consciousness."
There are 16 chapters, titled: Medieval Prelude; Renaissance
Figures; Elizabethans and their Contemporaries; Francis
Bacon and the Court of James I; Courts and Coronets;
Federick the Great and Some Germans; Regency Connoisseurs;
Russia and Some Russians; Eminent Victorians; French Poets
and Novelists; From Ludwig II to Rohm; Edwardians and
Georgians; The Great War; Cambridge Apostles; A Handful of
Americaans; and Cosmopolitan.
Each of these chapters has the lives interwoven with
perceptive, intelligent, engaging comments about the
times, the values and hypocrisies, the acceptance --
or lack of it (both by the societies -- and sometimes
crushingly, by the individuals themselves... many sad
examples of the effects of repression, guilt, fear,
diastrous attempts to "normalize").
The sections of most interest to me, and in which Rowse
really shines, are his extensive knowledge of the ins-and-
outs of British cultural history. For he includes not
merely the eminent persons one might have encountered, but
also lesser known, but highly interesting and influential
people as well. Thus, in the excellent chapter on "Eminent
Victorians," we read: "In the [English] public schools the
classics were the be-all and end-all, the Alpha and Omega,
of education. They portrayed the relaxed and natural
attitude of the Greeks and Romans -- as of all Mediterranean
peoples -- towards sex." Within this context, Rowse continues
to discuss the scholars, thinkers, and writers who were
influenced by that education and by the writings produced
within Victorian times which examined and enlightened the
Victorians about that Classical era of art, philosophy,
and accepted male desire and love. In this chapter, Rowse
recounts the careers of John Addington Symonds, Horatio
Brown, Lord Ronald Gower, the Marquis of Lorne, Roden Noel,
Edward Carpenter (a modern activist for enlightenment,
humanitarianism, and acceptance -- a devotee of Whitman and
Thoreau), Walter Pater (incredibly interesting and absorbing
reading), and Oscar Wilde.
The other chapters which deal with the French, the Germans,
the Russians, and the Cosmopolitan figures like Constantine
Cavafy, the Greek poet of Alexandria in Egypt, in the early
1900's, are also excellent.
Each reader may take away his own assessments and "readings
of history" -- but the text seems to say, repression and
trying to tough it out, or change, or normalize through
marriage have only brought sadness and damage (not only to
the self, its sense of its own value and identity -- but
also to others). But profligate, decadent, hedonistic
pursuit of pleasure and self, using others as objects,
rather than relating to them as persons, is equally
horrendous. The message seems to be about the desire
for caring love, more than carnal pleasure.
* * * * * * * * *