Literature’s History of Pride

Keira Munslow

Love: shown in all different kinds of ways. Through talking and listening; closeness and space; contentment and grieving; in animals and in plants. Love is timeless and limitless and includes so many beautiful things. A great part of this is who we choose to love. The 21st century holds many iconic figures from the LGBTQ+ community. But what about the past? Who are the icons of Pride’s history? Here are a couple of my favourites…

To start with, I will go way back to the 6th century BC, in Archaic Greece. Once referred to as the ‘tenth muse’ by Plato, Sappho was a Greek poetess whom many girls identify with even today. ‘As far as I knew, there was only me and a woman called Sappho’ says Judith Butler. In fact, it is her who brought about the terms ‘sapphic’ and ‘lesbian’ from her name and her place of birth (Lesbos). Sadly, we have little knowledge of her complete works, having only found seventy fragments with complete lines. However, one particularly interesting fragment was found scribbled onto a broken clay pot, as Sappho calls upon goddess Aphrodite to come into a charming shrine ‘where cold water ripples through apple branches, the whole place shadowed in roses.’ This erotic escapade to the goddess of love is the only melê (hymn) of hers to survive. In smaller fragments, there is a pattern of how she expresses her envy of men who have the chance to talk to the girl she yearns for. ‘He seems to me an equal of the gods—whoever gets to sit across from you and listen to the sound of your sweet speech’.

What is so beautiful about her work is how little description there is of the subject, but the effect they have on the speaker. Over time, critics have argued that the poetess wasn’t writing a first-person account, but with no more evidence than if it were the other way around. Some critics decided to acknowledge that what Sappho felt for her female friends was love, but don’t hesitate to proclaim that it was ‘vulgarly sensual, and illegal’. Nonetheless, a great number of classicists go on to insist her love for women was part of what made her work so beautiful. ‘She is the proof that homosexuality is not new but as old as legends themselves.’ (Harper-Hugo Darling).

Another historical-literary figure, and a personal favourite: Oscar Wilde. Famed novelist of the Victorian era, Wilde stumbled upon his own Dorian Gray in June of 1891. His name was Alfred Douglas: a man who, unknowingly to Wilde at first, would change his life for worse. After making a connection based off wit and humour, time only increased their adoration for each other.

Having also had his wife led aside by another man, Wilde took Bosie (a juvenile nickname of Douglas’) on a trip to Brighton in October 1894. They stayed in The Metropole hotel where Bosie caught the influenza virus. As expected, Wilde lovingly nursed his partner through his entire sickness – offering him lemonade and staying by his side to help when he needed. He did this even at the risk of catching the virus himself, which, inevitably, he did. Instead of returning the favour, Bosie abandoned Wilde, booking a room in a separate hotel and leaving him to suffer alone. Wilde’s hurt was portrayed in his famous love letter ‘De Profundis’ written to Bosie a few years later. Being the romantic he was, Wilde made habit of writing love letters to Bosie and inserting them into the pockets of his suits for him to find.

Unfortunately, some letters had gone unread and remained in the pockets for Bosie’s father (the Marquess of Queensberry) to find. Queensberry grew ashamed, worried for his family name, eventually leading to a trial against Wilde, to which Bosie refused to testify or even show up for. In the end, the trial resulted in Wilde’s imprisonment for ‘Gross Indecency’ from 1895 to 1897. ‘The most terrible thing about it is not that it breaks one’s heart—hearts are made to be broken— but that it turns one’s heart to stone’ (Oscar Wilde, ‘De Profundis’) Whilst Wilde never made a recovery, dying in 1990, he is known today as one of the most influential writers for his ideas on art, beauty and personal freedom. His grave has been seen completely covered in kiss marks. As for Douglas, he died alone with only two people at his funeral.