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Homosexuality & civilization / Louis Crompton.
LIBRA HQ76.25 .C76 2003
Available from offsite location
- Format:
- Book
- Author/Creator:
- Crompton, Louis, 1925-2009.
- Language:
- English
- Subjects (All):
- Homosexuality--History.
- Homosexuality.
- History.
- Gender identity--History.
- Gender identity.
- Homophobia--History.
- Homophobia.
- Physical Description:
- xv, 623 pages : illustrations (some color) ; 25 cm
- Other Title:
- Homosexuality and civilization
- Place of Publication:
- Cambridge, Mass. : Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2003.
- Summary:
- How have major civilizations of the last two millennia treated people who were attracted to their own sex? In a narrative tour de force, Louis Crompton chronicles the lives and achievements of homosexual men and women alongside a darker history of persecution, as he compares the Christian West with the cultures of ancient Greece and Rome, Arab Spain, imperial China, and pre-Meiji Japan. Ancient Greek culture celebrated same-sex love in history, literature, and art, making high claims for its moral influence. By contrast, Jewish religious leaders in the sixth century BCE branded male homosexuality as a capital offense and, later, blamed it for the destruction of the biblical city of Sodom. When these two traditions collided in Christian Rome during the late empire, the tragic repercussions were felt throughout Europe and the New World.
- Louis Crompton traces Church-inspired mutilation, torture, and burning of "sodomites" in sixth-century Byzantium, medieval France, Renaissance Italy, and in Spain under the Inquisition. But Protestant authorities were equally committed to the execution of homosexuals in the Netherlands, Calvin's Geneva, and Georgian England. The root cause was religious superstition, abetted by political ambition and sheer greed. Yet from this cauldron of fears and desires, homoerotic themes surfaced in the art of the Renaissance masters -- Donatello, Leonardo, Michelangelo, Sodoma, Cellini, and Caravaggio -- often intertwined with Christian motifs.
- Homosexuality also flourished in the court intrigues of Henry III of France, Queen Christina of Sweden, James I and William III of England, Queen Anne, and Frederick the Great. Anti-homosexual atrocities committed in the West contrast starkly with the more tolerant traditions of pre-modern China and Japan, as revealed in poetry, fiction, and art and in the lives of emperors, shoguns, Buddhist priests, scholars, and actors. In the samurai tradition of Japan, Crompton makes clear, the celebration of same-sex love rivaled that of ancient Greece. Sweeping in scope, elegantly crafted, and lavishly illustrated, Homosexuality and Civilization is a stunning exploration of a rich and terrible past.
- "How have major civilizations of the last two millennia treated people who were attracted to their own sex? In a narrative tour de force, Louis Crompton chronicles the lives and achievements of homosexual men and women alongside a darker history of persecution, as he compares the Christian West with the cultures of ancient Greece and Rome, Arab Spain, imperial China, and pre-Meiji Japan."--Jacket.
- Contents:
- 1 Early Greece 776-480 bce
- A Millennium of Greek Love 1
- Homer's Iliad 3
- Crete, Sparta, Chalcis 6
- Athletics and the Cult of Beauty 10
- Sappho 15
- Alcaeus, Ibycus, Anacreon 20
- Theognis of Megara 23
- Athens' Rulers 24
- The Tyrannicides 25
- 2 Judea 900 bce-600 ce
- The Judgment of Leviticus 32
- The Threat to Population 34
- Sodom's Gold 36
- Who Were the Kedeshim? 39
- Philo of Alexandria 43
- The Talmud 46
- 3 Classical Greece 480-323 bce
- Pindar's Odes 49
- Greek Tragedy 51
- Phidias 52
- The Comedies of Aristophanes 53
- Plato's Symposium 55
- The Phaedrus and the Laws 60
- Xenophon 63
- Aristotle's Dicta 65
- Zeno and the Stoics 66
- Aeschines' Against Timarchus 67
- The Sacred Band of Thebes 69
- Philip and Alexander 74
- 4 Rome and Greece 323 bce-138 ce
- Sexuality and Empire 79
- Cicero and Roman Politics 82
- Greek Love in the Aeneid 84
- Meleager and Callimachus 86
- Catullus and Tibullus 87
- Theocritus and "Corydon" 90
- Horace 92
- Ovid's Myths 94
- Lesbianism 97
- Petronius' Satyricon 99
- Suetonius and the Emperors 101
- Statius, Martial, Juvenal 103
- Hadrian and Antinous 105
- 5 Christians and Pagans 1-565 ce
- The Gospels 111
- Intertestamental Judaism and Paul 112
- "Moses" and the Early Church 115
- Greek Love in Late Antiquity 118
- Plutarch's Dialogue on Love 120
- The Lucianic "Affairs of the Heart" 124
- Two Romances and an Epic 127
- Roman Law before Constantine 129
- The Edicts of 342 and 390 131
- Sodom Transformed 136
- Saint John Chrysostom 139
- The Persecutions of Justinian 142
- 6 Darkness Descends 476-1049
- The Fall of Rome 150
- Visigothic Spain 151
- Church Councils and Penitentials 153
- The Carolingian Panic 156
- Love in Arab Spain 161
- The Growth of Canon Law 172
- The Book of Gomorrah 175
- 7 The Medieval World 1050-1321
- The Fortunes of Ganymede 178
- Scandal in High Places 183
- The Theological Assault 186
- The Inquisition and Its Allies 189
- The Fate of the Templars 192
- Secular Laws: The Sowing 196
- The Harvest Begins 201
- Poets for the Prosecution 204
- Dante's Admirable Sinners 208
- 8 Imperial China 500 BCE-1849
- A Peach, a Fish, and a Sleeve 213
- The Han Emperors 217
- Taoism, Confucianism, Buddhism 220
- Poets and Lovers 222
- From Tang to Song 223
- Ming China: The West Reacts 225
- Feng Menglong's Anatomy of Love 228
- Fiction and Drama 231
- The Qing Dynasty 236
- The Peking Stage 240
- 9 Italy in the Renaissance 1321-1609
- A New Ethos and an Old 245
- Repression in the Italian City States 246
- Death in Venice 247
- Florence: The Price of Love 251
- Donatello, Botticelli, Leonardo 262
- Michelangelo: Love, Art, and Guilt 269
- Sodoma and Cellini 278
- Rome and Caravaggio 286
- 10 Spain and the Inquisition 1497-1700
- The Spanish Inquisition 291
- Subcultures in Valencia and Madrid 300
- The Inquisition in Portugal 308
- Spain and the New World 314
- 11 France from Calvin to Louis XIV 1517-1715
- Outings, Protestant and Catholic 321
- Calvinism and Repression 324
- Henry III and the "Mignons" 328
- The Poets' Revolt 331
- Louis XIII, "The Just" 335
- Monsieur and Madame 339
- Six Generals 345
- Les Lesbiennes 350
- Queen Christina 355
- 12 England from the Reformation to William III 1533-1702
- Silence and Denial 361
- Monasteries and the Law 362
- Elizabethan Literature 366
- Christopher Marlowe 368
- The Tragedy of Edward II 371
- Shakespeare's Sonnets 378
- James VI and I 381
- Francis Bacon 388
- Puritanism and the Restoration 391
- Between Women 397
- William III in England 402
- 13 Pre-Meiji Japan 800-1868
- Europe Discovers Japan 411
- The Buddhist Priesthood 413
- Samurai and Shoguns 419
- No Drama and Kabuki 424
- A Debate and an Anthology 428
- Saikaku's Great Mirror 431
- Tokugawa Finale 438
- 14 Patterns of Persecution 1700-1730
- Policing Paris 444
- "Reforming" Britain 451
- Souls in Exile 456
- Witch Hunt in the Netherlands 462
- 15 Sapphic Lovers 1700-1793
- Law and Religion 472
- Romance and Innuendo 478
- A Nun and an Actress 488
- An Ill-Fated Queen 493
- 16 The Enlightenment 1730-1810
- Montesquieu and Beccaria 500
- Frederick the Great 504
- The Vagaries of Voltaire 512
- Diderot and Sade 519
- Toward Reform 524
- Bentham vs. Blackstone 528.
- Early Greece: 776-480 BCE
- Judea: 900 BCE-600 CE
- Classical Greece: 480-323 BCE
- Rome and Greece: 323 BCE-138 CE
- Christians and pagans: 1-565 CE
- Darkness descends: 476-1049
- Medieval world: 1050-1321
- Imperial China: 500 BCE-1849
- Italy in the Renaissance: 1321-1609
- Spain and the Inquisition: 1497-1700
- France from Calvin to Louis XIV: 1517-1715
- England from the Reformation to William III: 1533-1702
- Pre-Meiji Japan: 800-1868
- Patterns of persecution: 1700-1730
- Sapphic lovers: 1700-1793
- The Enlightenment: 1730-1810.
- Notes:
- Includes bibliographical references (pages 584-597) and index.
- Local Notes:
- Gift of the William Way LGBT Community Center.
- ISBN:
- 067401197X
- OCLC:
- 51855520
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