Uranian (sexuality)

Uranian (from the Ancient Greek Aphrodite Urania (Ἀφροδίτη Οὐρανία, Aphrodítē Ouranía)) is a historical term for homosexual men. 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'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.^[1] The term was used by activist Karl Heinrich Ulrichs in a series of five booklets from 1864 to 1865 collected under the title Forschungen über das Räthsel der mannmännlichen Liebe (The Riddle of Man–Manly Love).^[2] The term uranian was adopted by English-language advocates of homosexual emancipation in the Victorian era, such as Edward Carpenter and John Addington Symonds, who used it to describe a comradely love that would bring about true democracy.^[3]^[4] Oscar Wilde 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."^[5]

The term Uranians also designates a group of writers who studied 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 is also sometimes referred to as Uranian.

^ 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.
^ Ulrichs, Karl Heinrich (1994). The Riddle of "Man-Manly" Love: The Pioneering Work on Male Homosexuality. Translated by Lombardi-Nash, Michael A. New York: Prometheus Books. ISBN 978-0-8797-5859-2.
^ Carpenter, Edward (1921). The Intermediate Sex: A Study of Some Transitional Types of Men and Women. London: George Allen & Unwin.
^ Smith, Timothy D'Arch (1970). Love in Earnest: Some Notes on the Lives and Writings of English 'Uranian' Poets from 1889 to 1930. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press. ISBN 978-0-7100-6730-2.
^ Holland, Merlin; Rupert Hart-Davis, eds. (2000). The Complete Letters of Oscar Wilde. New York: Henry Holt and Company. p. 1019. ISBN 978-0-8050-5915-1.

[1] 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.

[Ulrichs-2] Ulrichs, Karl Heinrich (1994). The Riddle of "Man-Manly" Love: The Pioneering Work on Male Homosexuality. Translated by Lombardi-Nash, Michael A. New York: Prometheus Books. ISBN 978-0-8797-5859-2.

[Carpenter-3] Carpenter, Edward (1921). The Intermediate Sex: A Study of Some Transitional Types of Men and Women. London: George Allen & Unwin.

[Symonds-4] Smith, Timothy D'Arch (1970). Love in Earnest: Some Notes on the Lives and Writings of English 'Uranian' Poets from 1889 to 1930. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press. ISBN 978-0-7100-6730-2.

[Wilde-5] Holland, Merlin; Rupert Hart-Davis, eds. (2000). The Complete Letters of Oscar Wilde. New York: Henry Holt and Company. p. 1019. ISBN 978-0-8050-5915-1.

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