contra mundum
“The notion of homosexuality as being accepted is really key to that period, in a way. It’s what binds a lot of these people together. There’s a lot of lesbianism as well, because the first lesbian book, The Well of Loneliness, by Radclyffe Hall is published around this time. This is the first time these ‘conditions’, as people would regard them, had been given names. No longer are their sexualities, or their otherness, a means of weakness or of attack, they’re means of strength. The gay characters in Brideshead Revisted, people like Anthony Blanche, who’s based on Brian Howard; these are people who are not effete, but were kind of ‘out’ about it, and very pugnacious about it. They were modern figures, and this is the way they saw the world going.”
- Philip Hoare, author of Serious Pleasures: The Life of Stephen Tennant. (via thebrightyoungpeople)
- Philip Hoare, author of Serious Pleasures: The Life of Stephen Tennant. (via thebrightyoungpeople)