The Seduction of the Mediterranean: Writing, Art and Homosexual Fantasy

The Seduction of the Mediterraneanargues that the Mediterranean was the central theme in homoerotic writing and art from the 1750s to the 1950s. Artists delved into classical mythology and history for figures--Ganymede, Antinous, Achilles and Patroclus--through which they could portray a sexuality labelled elsewhere as sickness or criminal. The author examines the works of forty writers and artists who used these myths . The author examines the works of forty writers and artists who used these myths of the Mediterranean to portray gay male sexuality, and to live in a less hidden way, apart from the censure of their countries. The period covered by the author, from the 1750s to the 1950s, includes men such as Wincklemann, Byron, Wilde, Isherwood and Forster, as well as the painters Girodet and van Marees, and photographers von Gloeden and List, who made the Mediterranean a focus of their work. Their personal and artistic involvment with the region, its inhabitants andmythology are looked at through tourism, economic disparities and sexual mores of residents and visitors.