Uranian (from Ancient Greek ) is a historical term for

homosexual men Gay men are male homosexuals. Some bisexual men, bisexual and homoromantic men may also dually identify as gay, and a number of young gay men also identify as queer. Historically, gay men have been referred to by a number of different terms, ...

. The word was also used as an adjective in association with male homosexuality or inter-male attraction regardless of sexual orientation. An early use of the term appears in

Friedrich Schiller Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller (, short: ; 10 November 17599 May 1805) was a German playwright, poet, and philosopher. During the last seventeen years of his life (1788–1805), Schiller developed a productive, if complicated, friends ...

's 'Sixth Letter' in the '' Aesthetic Education of Man'' (1795–96). Schiller claims that state institutions are so jealous they would rather share their servants with a Cytherean Venus than a Uranian Venus.Friedrich Schiller. 'Letters on the Aesthetic Education of Man.' In Harrison, Wood and Gaiger eds. ''Art in Theory 1648-1815: An Anthology of Changing Ideas''. Malden, Mass.: Blackwell, 2000. p. 800. The term was used by activist Karl Heinrich Ulrichs in a series of five booklets from 1864 to 1865 collected under the title (''The Riddle of Man–Manly Love''). The term ''uranian'' was adopted by English-language advocates of homosexual emancipation in the Victorian era, such as Edward Carpenter and

John Addington Symonds John Addington Symonds, Jr. (; 5 October 1840 – 19 April 1893) was an English poet and literary critic. A cultural historian, he was known for his work on the Renaissance, as well as numerous biographies of writers and artists. Although m ...

, who used it to describe a comradely love that would bring about true democracy.

Oscar Wilde Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde (16 October 185430 November 1900) was an Irish poet and playwright. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of the most popular playwrights in London in the early 1890s. He is ...

once wrote to his lover Robert Ross in an undated letter, "To have altered my life would have been to have admitted that uranian love is ignoble. I hold it to be noble—more noble than other forms." The term

Uranians The Uranians were a 19th-century clandestine group of up to several dozen male homosexual poets and prose writers who principally wrote on the subject of the love of (or by) adolescent boys. In a strict definition they were an English literary an ...

also designates a group of writers who studied

classics Classics or classical studies is the study of classical antiquity. In the Western world, classics traditionally refers to the study of Classical Greek and Roman literature and their related original languages, Ancient Greek and Latin. Classics ...

and wrote pederastic poetry from roughly the 1870s to the 1930s. The writings of this group came to be known by the phrase Uranian poetry. The art of Henry Scott Tuke and

Wilhelm von Gloeden Wilhelm Iwan Friederich August von Gloeden (September 16, 1856 – February 16, 1931), commonly known as Baron von Gloeden, was a German photographer who worked mainly in Italy. He is mostly known for his pastoral nude studies of Sicilian boy ...

is also sometimes referred to as Uranian.

Etymology

Ulrichs derived ''uranian'' ( in German) from a dialogue on '' eros'', in particular male love, metaphorized by the birth of Greek goddess Aphrodite from Plato's work ''

Symposium In ancient Greece, the symposium ( grc-gre, συμπόσιον ''symposion'' or ''symposio'', from συμπίνειν ''sympinein'', "to drink together") was a part of a banquet that took place after the meal, when drinking for pleasure was acc ...

''. In this dialogue, Pausanias distinguishes between two types of love, symbolized by two different accounts of the birth of Aphrodite, the goddess of love. was derived from Aphrodite Urania, who was created out of the god Uranus' semen, a birth in which "female has no part", therefore representing love between men. Its counterpart, ''dionian'' ( in German), was derived from Aphrodite Dionea, the daughter of Zeus and

Dione Dione may refer to: Astronomy *106 Dione, a large main belt asteroid *Dione (moon), a moon of Saturn *Helene (moon), a moon of Saturn sometimes referred to as "Dione B" Mythology *Dione (Titaness), a Titaness in Greek mythology *Dione (mythology) ...

, associated with a common love which "is apt to be of women as well as of youths, and is of the body rather than of the soul," representing for Ulrichs men's love for women. Diverging from Plato's account of masculine love, Ulrichs understood male to be essentially feminine and male to be masculine in nature. Ulrichs developed his terminology before the first public use of the term '' gay''. John Addington Symonds was one of the first to take up the term ''uranian'' in the English language and is also responsible for its connection with Ulrichs' .

References

External links

* {{LGBT, history=expanded 1860s neologisms 19th century in LGBT history Gay men Homosexuality LGBT terminology Male homosexuality Sexual orientation de:Karl Heinrich Ulrichs#Urninge und Dioninge

Etymology

See also

References

External links