Filosofická fakulta Masarykovy univerzity

The text of “Phaedrus” distinguishes two diametrically opposite kinds of love, “a lower and a higher” (23). The lower one is built on physical affection, random sexual intercourses, and elusive temptation of beautiful youth, while the higher one is a noble spiritual interconnection between two people, who invest in the relationship and both get something back. However, each of them invest and get different things. Physical pleasure is, by no means, excluded from the later, although it “seeks fulfillment in a higher, nobler, and more exciting activity than sex” (Yunis 113). Another aspect of love which “Symposium” suggests is the ideal relationship between the lover and the beloved. And that would be a couple in which “the one [is] capable of communicating wisdom and virtue [and] the other [is] seeking to acquire them with a view to education and wisdom” (1184). Naugle interprets this as student-teacher relationship where the beloved is ideally “a young boy approaching manhood” (15). This clearly indicates an age disparity, which seems to be recommended by Plato also for the sake of the good in society. Young boys will live with their mentor, acquiring education or knowledge, welfare and protection from them. Their lover will savour the beauty of his companion in many respects but he will also assume responsibility for his protégé, financial and moral. Consequently, the society will also become flourishing and balanced, without any single neglected person lacking in satisfaction any of natural physical and mental needs so typical of human beings. As is obvious from the above developed theory, “the fate and fortune of individuals and nations is determined by love” (Naugle 11).

The description of the traditional Greek division of tasks in a homosexual relationship contributing to the welfare of whole nation sounds fairly romantic. However, there are scholars whose attitude towards such strict role-playing of the lover and the beloved is more pragmatic and outright. Dover managed to completely ruin the romantic background of reciprocal assistance of ancient couples by the suggestion that “penis between his thighs or in his anus is the fee which the pupil pays for teaching” (qtd. in Davidson 13). Davidson suggests the fact that Dover protested against “excessive bashfulness” of previous interpretations of Plato’s texts might have had negative effects on the text itself (38). Dover’s “sexualization of Greek love,” according to him, “played down other elements traditionally included in the study of Greek homoeroticism, such as the idealization of the male body, and love poetry” (49).

Moving on to the idea of love represented in the memoirs, it is certainly possible to discover Plato’s heritage in Symonds and Isherwood’s texts, and therefore in their lives. Being heavily influenced by Plato, Symonds refers to homosexual nature as to “something which the old Greek instinct recognizes as fraught with fate or sent by God” (183). Both memoirists had numerous one-night affairs and playful adventures, and Symonds even frankly confesses that he paid for sex several times (277). However, despite their (in Symonds’ case very rare) defenses of short-term sexual experiences and promiscuity, which can be found in the memoirs, and which are determined by Isherwood’s statement that there can be one-night stands, “where you really love a different person each night,” (Heilbrun and Isherwood p. 255) we can easily deduce from the memoirs that they were also looking, at least at some point(s) of their lives, for something else than only physical satisfaction – an understanding, admiration, reciprocity, love and other forms of emotional security. Symonds writes that “mere physical closeness without truly passionate or spiritual closeness” is hollow (207). Another of his contributions to this topic follows: “Of physical closeness I have as much as I can want. Of spiritual closeness I get little … I have learned how valueless, how worse than valueless, how degrading in my own eyes, is mere physical closeness without truly passionate or spiritual closeness” (207). The most obvious aspects described in “Symposium” and “Phaedrus”, which occured in their lives, were the rather unequal pupil-mentor relationship of the lover and the beloved, and the responsibility the lover takes for his protégé. Symonds and Isherwood were both attracted to considerably younger men, or rather boys of about 16-20, uneducated, from working-class families, whose “vulnerability, combined with [their] tough independence” and connection of “manliness of a soldier and warm soft heart” worked their magic on them (Isherwood 3, Symonds 275). Isherwood loved Bubi, Otto Nowak (17 years old) and Heinz during the 1930s. All of them were of working class origin. His memoir ends up mentioning his future life partner Don Bachardy, who was 30 years younger than Isherwood and only a 4-year-old when he came to the United States (187).

Isherwood and Symonds both admired people of humble origins. In Isherwood’s case, it was an act of rebellion against the hypocrisy of the rich and the class of his mother as he writes that “he was trying to disown his class. Because he hated it, he despised the middle class for aping its ways” (15). He loved the animal sexual drive of poor boys and soon he realized that he was unable to relax, to be himself with a member of his own class. On the other hand, it might have been only a pose as he was not able to fully repudiate his origin and a certain standard of living. Once, he tried living in a slum with Otto and his family but he withstood the poor conditions there only a few weeks. Having expressed the “ties which bound [him] to the class of gentlefolk”, Symonds was probably only too naïve or idealistic about the clash of classes. He was also not able to comprehend why people belonging “to different strata in society – if they love each other – could not enter into comradeship” (116). Grosskurth develops the idea that “in his friendships among the lower classes [Symonds] obviously idealized himself as a pioneer of true democracy” (22).

Symonds and Isherwood were fairly responsible towards their beloved. Symonds suggests that there are many “responsibilities connected with this [boy] passion” and that every lover should “be prepared to support his friend with money or with influence” (278). And they really supported their partners primarily financially and in the field of social interaction and education. This point raises more clearly than anything else the question of the misuse of one’s position. Being the superior one in the couple brings a sense of power and possession with it. – But can a human being really be possessed by another one? Paradoxically enough, the modern approach to being a subordinate one gives you also a certain kind of power. The beloved offers his own beauty, vitality and vigour and if he is not satisfactorily secured with the material factors of living, he can leave the partnership anytime. For instance, Heinz threatened Isherwood that he would break up with him if he did not get some money (81). However, Symonds and Isherwood put themselves out for their protégés. Symonds paid for Willie’s musical education (117), coached Norman for essay writing (196), gave a few thousand pounds to Christian’s brother (262), bought a gondola for Angelo and helped him to set up a house for his girlfriend and two children (275). Isherwood mentions Bubi’s “tactful requests for money” (4); and the situation when he spent more than he could afford on Otto’s clothes was described by Spender 40 years later as follows: “This was your most heroic period of poverty and sacrificing everything to buying new suits for Otto” (31).

As already mentioned above, Davidson suggests that, in the nineteenth century, the most popular theory of how to interpret the Platonic idea of love was the notion of purity – a spiritual relationship without physical manifestations of mutual attachment. Perhaps it was Symonds’ motive for laying such an enormous emphasis on inner aspects of comradeships and effortless repeated assuring of their chastity. Regarding all his loves and affairs covered in the memoir, he gives the impression of being a morally superior paragon of virtue. He, for instance, writes that nothing “unworthy of two gentlemen” (196) happened between him and his beloved and that “neither then, nor afterwards, nor before, did any of those things take place between us which people think inseparable from love of this sort” (211). Innocence is indicated also in the following statements: “the deeper sense of mutual satisfaction” (194), “without a thought of vice” (254), “sex being nowhere” (266). Symonds generally depicts the circumstances of his relationships very implicitly, so one can only guess if there was a sexual intercourse or not. However, a few situations in his work are simply incomprehensible and rather contradictory – as for example, Symonds once went to a brothel with a young man, and later says that “nothing shameful happened” there (254). In such cases, the reader somehow does not want to believe him or thinks about what “shameful” means for Symonds and how subjectively interpreted such a phrase might be, especially in context with his description of numerous one-night stands: “I do not deny that I have taken occasional liberties with strangers – soldiers on the streets, sailors, folks who offered themselves in foreign cities, professional male prostitutes, and casual acquaintances. But these adventures gave me little pleasure […]” (277). Platonic conflict between spiritual and corporeal is, therefore, also one of the crucial topics of Symonds’ memoir. He suffered a lot when deciding whether to follow his own animal instinct or the rational reason so typical of the Victorian era. He marks it as a “conflict between desire and conscience”, “dual life – emotional and intellectual – esoteric and external” (122) or “the distinction in my character between an inner and real self and an outer and artificial self” (95). Undoubtedly, Isherwood and Symonds were living in conformity with certain aspects of Plato’s notion of love. However, times have been changing since ancient Greece and not every single Platonic idea is still applicable. Symonds sighs that the Greek ideal cannot be unconditionally followed in modern times. “What is left for us modern men? We cannot be Greek now” (169).

As we witnessed, Plato’s dialogues are, by no means, closed to expositions and speculative suggestions. On the one hand, the quantity of mutually opposing theories can be baffling to the readership of the ancient philosopher as it is unfeasible to follow all the methods of correct reading of the texts. On the other hand, constant publication of new essays, which depict fresh angles of view on how to read his works, keeps Plato’s message, whatever its essence is, in the limelight and makes it timeless. There will probably be no one accepted version of the truth. Humankind has already been compelled many times to reconcile with its own inability to come up with exact articulations of bygone paradigms; and Plato is, unfortunately, no exception. The ambiguity of his thoughts, however, contributes to the assumption that Plato’s primary concern was not to disclose the only universal truth valid for all people but was the effort to make every single human being find own personal truth of existence.

3.3 Intellectual Elite, References to Other Authors

All three writers are closely associated with a particular group of people that can be audaciously marked as the intellectual elite of their time. Symonds, Isherwood and Monette intentionally mention even their minor, undistinguished acquaintances with politician, poets, writers, playwrights, directors, philosophers, thinkers, professors, scholars etc., which are sometimes gained accidentally or indirectly, without any particularly intervention on their side. The reason for this is not mere boasting of leading lives that witnessed and helped to shape the intellectual history and tradition of modern humanist and democratic society. It is an effort to give the reader an idea of the background in which, or rather due to which or despite of which, their personalities were being gradually constituted and later (re)formed. And simultaneously it is a daring pronunciation of their moral obligations to fulfill a potential of major literary aspect. The aspect is to render to the reader a profound intellectual or emotional experience via their messages. These obligations emerge from the background they came from and they are fully aware of the fact that they must convey something timeless, which should live longer than themselves. However, they do not make the effort to define human life as they all are privy to the fact that what is defined, no matter if it is by words, numbers, charts, patterns, formulas etc., ceases to exist, fades out. They do make the effort to transfer to the readership intellectual stimuli that can be derived from the words of wise people, which could have otherwise been forgotten. In their memoirs, they frequently seek wisdom, comfort, inspiration and vindication in referring to the authors they admire, then they transform or ‘recycle’ the original thought in accord with their era and personal view of life and pass it on. The most significant driving force for them is a search for the truth. Unfortunately, it is a never-ending struggle; and a mind afflicted with such suffering inevitably begins to consume itself, which may lead to anxiety attacks, uncontrollable pangs of nostalgia, depressive behavior and self-destructive tendencies. Symonds, Isherwood and Monette obviously went through various life stages during which they longed for belonging to intellectuals or hated being predestined by their ancestry or mental ability for such a relatively responsible way of life. Symptoms of mental sufferings are effortlessly observable in all the memoirs.

Symonds dealt with the most scholarly kind of work out of the three - he lectured at the college and prided himself on an exceptionally sophisticated and educated “aura”. In his autobiography, a list of books he published, translated or edited was included in order to remind us his own credit. Again, it might seem to be an immodest act of mere boasting but it is only an affirmation to an unknown reader to come longer after his death that his mark has not been negligible. Symonds’ work of a special relevance, which significantly contributed to the constitution of the notion of pederasty, homosexuality, and homoeroticism, was published in 1883; and is up to now widely considered as a gay tolerance manifesto. A Problem in Greek Ethics was a small circulation, secretly self-published pamphlet that was predominantly hastily distributed among Symonds’ friends and acquaintances. Bearing in mind the fact that Symonds lived in the middle of the conservative Victorian era, it is needless to add that the pamphlet did not bear his name. Such a courageous deed would end his scholarly career very shortly. The overwhelming majority of the essay focuses on Symonds’ lifelong passion – ancient Greek culture, where he seeks examples of the phenomenon of paiderastia (love of boys), together with its reality, indispensability, passion and intensity, in as influential works as those by Homer, Plato, Sophocles, Aeschylus, etc. He points out that this culture,glorified throughout many centuries, the cradle of sophistication, democracy, and philosophical thinking, which was so highly developed in all aspects, could not have brought into being something essentially inferior or even evil. He also believes that, for instance, Homer’s hints of homosexual affection were interpreted by every succeeding culture differently. As a corollary of this, the original true meaning of his words is difficult to follow (2). Symonds’ own words follow: “[…] here alone in history have we the example of a great and highly-developed race not only tolerating homosexual passions, but deeming them of spiritual value, and attempting to utilise them for the benefit of society“ (1). A social tolerance approach towards the diversity of human nature was Symonds’ ideal. Unfortunately, he did not live long enough to see it. And none of us probably will.

Although he never mentions Plato’s notion of ideal love, Isherwood obviously shares Symonds’ admiration of Platonic philosophy. Unlike Symonds, he predominantly applies his senses and intuition to interpret Plato’s words and his interpretations are chiefly personal, not scholarly. For him, Plato is a primordial essence of human self-reflection. “The more we thought about him, the more he seemed a first principle of all our own reading and travel and yearning for definition” (299). He seems to mention “Apology” the most frequently. Broadly speaking, “Apology” is a quest for the truth and its defense. Bearing the parallelism in mind, perhaps, there was something on Isherwood’s mind that required to be defended.

In 1890 Symonds cooperated via correspondence with Havelock Ellis, English physician and writer, who investigated individuals with inverted sexual inclinations and preferences. This relatively significant project became known as Sexual Inversion. It is important to say, that the final version of the study was revised and edited by Ellis and published after Symonds’ death. Grosskurth believes that he would not have been proud of this co-authorship and “if he had known that Ellis would postulate the view that homosexuality was a congenital aberration” (21). We can safely assume that their views on the issue were in many respects contradictory. Dixon suggests that Ellis edited out “some of Symonds’ contributions to make it more “sexuological” and less literary;” and later continued his effort as “in each successive edition, Ellis rewrote the work further to emphasize its “scientific” character” (73). Ellis and Symonds’ studies on homosexuality, which was then widely considered abnormal, perverted and profane, consisted also in observation and/or analysis of the behavior and psychological processes (family influence, memories, erotic fantasies, first realization of intimacy and genitals) of men romantically attracted to other men that could have affected their later sexual desires. After being drawn up, the analyses where called the histories. Even Symonds himself belonged to the set of their ‘studying samples’. Ellis’ notes on Symonds, where the examined ‘subject’ is addressed as A,⁷ are attached to the memoir by Phyllis Grosskurth, an editor of Symonds’ memoir. Although their form is strictly objective and impersonal, the histories are, in most cases, mere speculative surmises and rather more briefly constituted than one might expect from a serious piece of scientific research. However, it is necessary to bear in mind that the topic was very controversial then, which means that even the researchers themselves must have been very cautious with their statements and conclusions. Three of the most fundamental of Ellis’ misinterpretations of the sense of gayness as well as his subject’s nature emerge in the history of Symonds’ case. His following suggestions: “A believes firmly that his homosexual appetite was inborn […]”, “[…] intercourse with females would have lessened his neurosis and diverted his mind to some extent from homosexual thoughts” and “He has no moral sense of doing wrong […]” attest both then general attitude towards differently sexually oriented people and Ellis’ inadequate research (286,288)⁸. According to Grosskurth, Symonds’ memoir is “a record of profound personal suffering” (1) and it is true. While reading, one must acknowledge Symonds’ strongly developed sense of sinful behavior, obedience, responsibility and obligation. The following words describe his childhood: “[…] I developed a morbid sense of sin, and screamed at night about imaginary acts of disobedience” (39). Ellis was not either fully informed about Symonds’ profound feelings or he completely missed the point in the record of his history. Question(s) might well be raised here - in connection with Ellis and Symonds’ compiled histories of gays. Can a human life be squeezed into a few pages of words? Can even the most extensive notes on somebody’s personality fully embrace his or her true essence? How far are humans able to go to observe, describe, analyze, interpret, and judge, differences among themselves?

Many of Ellis’ arguments are too abstract and lacking in further illustration to deem the research conclusive. Moreover, as Dixon notices, we can find numerous examples of “powerful religious elements in Ellis’s work” (75), which makes him biased against the idea of homosexuality as a natural component of desire. He firmly believes that proclivity to homosexual intercourse chiefly consists in long-term separation from the opposite sex and can be ‘treated’ by its elimination. Ellis suggests that “persons who, when excluded from the society of the opposite sex, as in schools, barracks, on board ship, or in prison have sexual relations with persons of their own sex” but he is also fully aware of the fact that “the mere sexual act is no proof of the direction of the sexual impulse” (86). It is beyond doubt that human preferences and principles can be easily overcome by force of circumstances. The point is what sex one prefers if both sexes are available to them. According to him, homosexuality is also more likely to be developed in nations of low rank and among uneducated people of low (working) class. Unlike Symonds, Ellis regards Greek people as one of “the lower human races” (1), which is a rather daring statement negating generally accepted conviction. Especially degrading assumptions of Ellis’ concerned with human homosexual nature are pronounced when being compared to sexual behaviors and processes among animals and insects, such as pigeons, squirrels, cockroaches, rats, birds and monkeys (4-8). That is chiefly because, as far as animals and insects are concerned, their primary driving force is a genetically coded instinct and their sexual contacts and other ways of social grouping are merely one of many needs to be satisfied – nothing more than completely thoughtless acts. Unlike them, humans contemplate the consequences of own deeds, which makes the two incomparable in these terms. Moreover, if Ellis considers it rather natural and common among animals, why should it be perverse among people? On the one hand, such claims of his are, in some measure, comprehensible if we take into account the time and place of their origin, on the other hand, they inevitably contributed to further similar approaches and speculations about the curability of homosexual tendencies and their acquisition during life as a response to external circumstances. Disproval of these ideas has been a gradual long process, which is not still completely accomplished. One can rather easily encounter such attitudes even today.

Symonds’ family had a long scholarly tradition and belonged among the powerful and influential people of its time. His great-uncle, Dr. John Addington, “belonged to the small school of advanced thinkers who formed themselves in England of the type of the French philosophes and Hume and Hartley.” He was proud of being invited to the Bastille dinner, and he had regular postal contact with “the leading liberals in politics, religion and philosophy” (56). His grandfather, John Symonds of Oxford, “was a good Latin scholar and wrote voluminous diaries and meditations in the style of Seneca” (55). Symonds’ father⁹ was, in fact, a unique case of a nearly perfect combination of conservative and liberal life attitudes. His sense of traditional values was strong but he was “open at all pores to culture, to art, to archeology, to science, to literature. In large and liberal sense, he yielded his spirit up to beauty and imbibed the well-spring of modern philosophy” (52). “These three generations of men – my grandfather, my father and myself – correspond to the succession of Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides, to the transition from early pointed Gothic to Decorated Flamboyant architecture” (56). Symonds derived a great deal of inspiration from his father’s intransigent and simultaneously amiable personality. He especially admired “his high ideal of purity in language”, which he wished to reach himself (224). He had always done as much as he could to gratify him. However, his father externalized his emotions very seldom. He also projected many ambitious plans and hopes in little John – for instance, he began to teach him Latin at the age of four (56). His father’s friends, who he regularly met in their house, were all sophisticated, inspirational men and innovative thinkers, such as John Sterling, F.D. Maurice, Francis Newman, Professor Benjamin Jowett, a translator of Plato’s dialogues, and others (243). These acquaintances also must have surely left a certain mark on Symonds. Symonds’ mother’s kindred were, in his view, “the backbone of the English nation” that “dedicated all the energies during the two centuries to the maintenance of an ideal” (52). During his studies at Harrow and Oxford, Symonds met a great number of interesting and later also powerful people – Lords, scholars, bankers. “I came thus early in my career to know people of distinction like Goldwin Smith, Charles Parker, Charles Pearson,…” (108). Family members and schoolmates of note must have meant an enormous pressure on Symonds as he was supposed to be their successor. It was not until after his father’s death – after having been released from the chains of obligation to demonstrate own scholarly ability - when his scholarly career began to flourish.