Oscar Wilde prefigured : queer fashioning and British caricature, 1750-1900 / Dominic Janes.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Janes, Dominic, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Caricature--Social aspects--Great Britain.

Caricature.

Gay men--Great Britain--Caricatures and cartoons.

Gay men.

Dandies--Great Britain--Caricatures and cartoons.

Dandies.

Gay men in art.

Homosexuality and art--Great Britain.

Homosexuality and art.

Homosexuality--Great Britain--History--19th century.

Homosexuality.

Homosexuality--Great Britain--History--18th century.

History.

Social aspects.

Great Britain.

Genre:

Caricatures and cartoons.

Cartoons (Humor)

Physical Description:

xiv, 279 pages ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Chicago : The University of Chicago Press, 2016.

Summary:

I do not say you are it, but you look it, and you pose at it, which is just as bad," Lord Queensbury challenged Oscar Wilde in the courtroom which erupted in laughter accusing Wilde of posing as a sodomite. What was so terrible about posing as a sodomite, and why was Queensbury's horror greeted with such amusement? In Oscar Wilde Prefigured, Dominic Janes suggests that what divided the two sides in this case was not so much the question of whether Wilde was or was not a sodomite, but whether or not it mattered that people could appear to be sodomites. For many, intimations of sodomy were simply a part of the amusing spectacle of sophisticated life.Oscar Wilde Prefigured is a study of the prehistory of this "queer moment" in 1895. Janes explores the complex ways in which men who desired sex with men in Britain had expressed such interests through clothing, style, and deportment since the mid-eighteenth century. He supplements the well-established narrative of the inscription of sodomitical acts into a homosexual label and identity at the end of the nineteenth century by teasing out the means by which same-sex desires could be signaled through visual display in Georgian and Victorian Britain.

Contents:

Introduction

"Dammee Sammy you'r a sweet pretty Creature" Macaronis

Men of feeling

The later eighteenth century: conclusions

"Corps de beaux" Regency dandies

Byronists

The earlier nineteenth century: conclusions

"An unspeakable of the Oscar Wilde Sort" Aesthetes

New men

The later nineteenth century: conclusions.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780226358642

022635864X

OCLC:

940342255