Homosexuality and Civilization

by Louis Crompton

Overview

How have major civilizations of the last two millennia treated people who were attracted to their own sex? In a narrative tour de force, Louis Crompton chronicles the lives and achievements of homosexual men and women alongside a darker history of persecution, as he compares the Christian West with the cultures of ancient Greece and Rome, Arab Spain, imperial China, and pre-Meiji Japan.

Ancient Greek culture celebrated same-sex love in history, literature, and art, making high claims for its moral influence. By contrast, Jewish religious leaders in the sixth century BCE branded male homosexuality as a capital offense and, later, blamed it for the destruction of the biblical city of Sodom. When these two traditions collided in Christian Rome during the late empire, the tragic repercussions were felt throughout Europe and the New World.

Louis Crompton traces Church-inspired mutilation, torture, and burning of “sodomites” in sixth-century Byzantium, medieval France, Renaissance Italy, and in Spain under the Inquisition. But Protestant authorities were equally committed to the execution of homosexuals in the Netherlands, Calvin’s Geneva, and Georgian England. The root cause was religious superstition, abetted by political ambition and sheer greed. Yet from this cauldron of fears and desires, homoerotic themes surfaced in the art of the Renaissance masters—Donatello, Leonardo, Michelangelo, Sodoma, Cellini, and Caravaggio—often intertwined with Christian motifs. Homosexuality also flourished in the court intrigues of Henry III of France, Queen Christina of Sweden, James I and William III of England, Queen Anne, and Frederick the Great.

Anti-homosexual atrocities committed in the West contrast starkly with the more tolerant traditions of premodern China and Japan, as revealed in poetry, fiction, and art and in the lives of emperors, shoguns, Buddhist priests, scholars, and actors. In the samurai tradition of Japan, Crompton makes clear, the celebration of same-sex love rivaled that of ancient Greece.

Sweeping in scope, elegantly crafted, and lavishly illustrated, Homosexuality and Civilization is a stunning exploration of a rich and terrible past.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780674253551
Publisher:	Harvard University Press
Publication date:	10/31/2006
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	648
File size:	22 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

Louis Crompton was Professor of English, Emeritus, at the University of Nebraska.

Table of Contents

Contents Preface A Millennium of Greek Love Homer’s Iliad Crete, Sparta, Chalcis Athletics and the Cult of Beauty Sappho Alcaeus, Ibycus, Anacreon Theognis of Megara Athens’ Rulers The Tyrannicides The Judgment of Leviticus The Threat to Population Sodom’s Gold Who Were the Kedeshim? Philo of Alexandria The Talmud Pindar’s Odes Greek Tragedy Phidias The Comedies of Aristophanes Plato’s Symposium The Phaedrus and the Laws Xenophon Aristotle’s Dicta Zeno and the Stoics Aeschines’ Against Timarchus The Sacred Band of Thebes Philip and Alexander Sexuality and Empire Cicero and Roman Politics Greek Love in the Aeneid Meleager and Callimachus Catullus and Tibullus Theocritus and Corydon Horace's Odes Ovid’s Myths Lesbianism Petronius’ Satyricon Suetonius and the Emperors Statius, Martial, Juvenal Hadrian and Antinous The Gospels Intertestamental Judaism and Paul “Moses” and the Early Church Greek Love in Late Antiquity Plutarch’s Dialogue on Love The Lucianic “Affairs of the Heart” Two Romances and an Epic Roman Law before Constantine The Edicts of 342 and 390 Sodom Transformed Saint John Chrysostom The Persecutions of Justinian The Fall of Rome Visigothic Spain Church Councils and Penitentials The Carolingian Panic Love in Arab Spain The Growth of Canon Law The Book of Gomorrah The Fortunes of Ganymede Scandal in High Places The Theological Assault The Inquisition and Its Allies The Fate of the Templars Secular Laws: The Sowing The Harvest Begins Poets for the Prosecution Dante’s Admirable Sinners A Peach, a Fish, and a Sleeve The Han Emperors Taoism, Confucianism, Buddhism Poets and Lovers From Tang to Song Ming China: The West Reacts Feng Menglong’s Anatomy of Love Fiction and Drama The Qing Dynasty The Peking Stage A New Ethos and an Old Repression in the Italian City States Death in Venice, 1342-1590 Florence: The Price of Love, 1325-1542 Donatello, Botticelli, Leonardo Michelangelo: Love, Art, and Guilt Sodoma and Cellini Rome and Caravaggio The Spanish Inquisition Subcultures in Valencia and Madrid The Inquisition in Portugal Spain and the New World Outings, Protestant and Catholic Calvinism and Repression Henry III and the “Mignons” The Poets’ Revolt Louis XIII, “The Just” Monsieur and Madame Six Generals Les Lesbiennes Queen Christina Silence and Denial Monasteries and the Law Elizabethan Literature Christopher Marlowe The Tragedy of Edward II Shakespeare’s Sonnets James VI and I Francis Bacon Puritanism and the Restoration Between Women William III in England Europe Discovers Japan The Buddhist Priesthood Samurai and Shoguns No Drama and Kabuki A Debate and an Anthology Saikaku’s Great Mirror Tokugawa Finale Policing Paris “Reforming” Britain Souls in Exile Witch Hunt in the Netherlands Law and Religion Romance and Innuendo A Nun and an Actress An Ill-Fated Queen Montesquieu and Beccaria Frederick the Great The Vagaries of Voltaire Diderot and Sade Toward Reform Bentham vs. Blackstone Conclusion Notes Bibliography Acknowledgments Illustration Credits Index

What People are Saying About This

A treasure trove of compelling information. This marvelous book, covering not simply the Western tradition but China and Japan as well, is sure to become fundamental reading in gay and lesbian studies. Crompton dazzles the reader with his exhaustive research and incisive analyses. Not since the work of the late John Boswell has a scholar brought such a brilliant light to bear on earlier evidence of same-sex affections.

David Greenberg

An encyclopedic survey of homosexuality in Western and non-Western civilizations. Crompton's writing is lively, vivid and refreshing--a pleasure to read. Anyone interested in looking at homosexuality from a comparative and historical point of view will want to own this book.
— David Greenberg, author of The Construction of Homosexuality

Karla Jay

A treasure trove of compelling information. This marvelous book, covering not simply the Western tradition but China and Japan as well, is sure to become fundamental reading in gay and lesbian studies. Crompton dazzles the reader with his exhaustive research and incisive analyses. Not since the work of the late John Boswell has a scholar brought such a brilliant light to bear on earlier evidence of same-sex affections.
— Karla Jay, author of Tales of the Lavender Menace

William A. Percy

A minor masterpiece. Each chapter is a small work of art in itself. Crompton's discussion of Sapphic love is the best general treatment of lesbian suffering that I have seen. Though passionate, Homosexuality and Civilization is articulate, balanced, and theoretically sound--accessible to beginners and informative for specialists as well.
— William A. Percy, coeditor of Encyclopedia of Homosexuality

Richard Labonte

A master work of interpretive scholarship. Before this exhaustive and exhilarating study, a long shelf of books considered the intersection of homosexuality and civilization. Now there is one that does it all. Crompton's lifetime of academic gay activism powers this erudite, entertaining distillation of same-sex politics, practices, and passions across centuries and through cultures. He was born to write this book; generations yet unborn will draw knowledge and strength from it.
— Richard Labonte, Q Syndicate columnist and former general manager, A Different Light bookstores

David Rosen

A one-of-a-kind, page-turning tour through gay history--one of the richest reading experiences in recent memory. This magnificent book educates us, startles us, and, by turns, reassures us as it traces the widespread cultural wellsprings of the changing forces of homosexuality. Crompton has crafted an utterly thrilling tour de force that succeeds in reinventing what we know about gay life across cultures and ages. This impressively detailed, eminently illuminating, and thoroughly enjoyable book should be on every gay person's--and every thinking person's--must-read list.
— David Rosen, Editor-in-Chief, InsightOutBooks

Editorial Reviews

When Europeans first arrived in the Americas they found men engaged in erotic entanglements virtually on the quayside. They responded with the horror their religion had implanted in them, holding out their bibles and shouting ‘Abomination! Devilry! Witchcraft!’ The problem was they found the same thing almost everywhere they set foot in East Asia. China and Japan both looked on this kind of activity with a cool shrug of the shoulders. But as the Europeans’ colonizing push gathered force, the hangings, disembowelment by mastiffs and burnings alive (especially popular) began to appear in these regions as well… This is a major work… It will be the first book future researchers in the topic turn to, and what they will find is a magisterial survey that delivers the fruits of a lifetime’s study. Everything in the field is touched on and weighed in the balance.

Taipei Times - Bradley Winterton

Brilliantly researched… Crompton, drawing on his immense erudition, contrasts Christianity and its barbaric cruelty toward same-sex love with more benign traditions in Moorish Spain… [He] also discusses the cult of romantic homosexuality in traditional Japan, where relationships of intense loyalty and idealism sprang up between the samurai and their pages.

Los Angeles Times - Edmund White

In Louis Crompton’s sober, searching and somber new history, Homosexuality and Civilization, homosexuality is associated with the inner workings of civilization itself… It begins in the gladness of early Greece, where homosexuality had an ‘honored place’ for more than a millennium, and concludes with the madness of 19th-century Europe. In between is what Mr. Crompton calls a ‘kaleidoscope of horrors’ lasting more than 1,500 years… This is a restrained, careful, clear book of scholarly exposition.

New York Times - Edward Rothstein

At last, a comprehensive, scholarly investigation into homosexuality through the ages. In Homosexuality and Civilization, Louis Crompton discusses in elevated but readable fashion how gays and lesbians have affected the civilized world from ancient Greece to modern America, and been affected by it.

Louisville Letter

Beginning where one would suspect—the ancient Greeks—Crompton puts a particular emphasis on Eastern social history in pursuing his narrative of the evolving place of homosexuality all the way to the Enlightenment. A key Crompton theme is that while much of Western civilization officially persecuted homosexuals throughout the ages, whatever the hypocrisy involved, in many Eastern cultures—including pre-modern China and samurai Japan—‘the celebration of same-sex love rivaled that of ancient Greece.’

Toronto Star

Based on the best recent scholarship and providing an overview of homosexuality from the Greeks to the end of the 18th century, this levelheaded, easy-to-read volume confirms the fact that homosexuality has had a long history (with periods of greater or less tolerance)… The result is the best historical overview of the topic that this reviewer has read.

Choice - V. L. Bullough

Even after the explosion of literature on gay issues since the 1970s, comprehensive examinations of homosexuality in history have been few. An exception is Louis Crompton’s new Homosexuality and Civilization, a sweeping account that was 18 years in the making. Crompton, a professor emeritus of English at the University of Nebraska, presents both a catalog of horrific abuse and persecution in the West and a surprising history of tolerance in some Eastern cultures, such as Japan, where homosexuality was ‘an honored way of life among the country’s religious and military leaders.’

Reason - Julian Sanchez

Crompton’s book is truly the culmination of a lifetime’s commitment… Writing a history of homosexuality is therefore a mission to remind the reader of millennia of oppression and resistance. For Crompton, the commonalities of that disparate history of homosexuality lie in two elements: the fact of common sexual practices, and the possibilities of human love and devotion that survived and contested all that history (‘their’ history) could throw at it. His history is, in part at least, a history of celebration.

Times Higher Education Supplement - Jeffrey Weeks

A master work of interpretive scholarship. Before this exhaustive and exhilarating study, a long shelf of books considered the intersection of homosexuality and civilization. Now there is one that does it all. Crompton’s lifetime of academic gay activism powers this erudite, entertaining distillation of same-sex politics, practices, and passions across centuries and through cultures. He was born to write this book; generations yet unborn will draw knowledge and strength from it.

Richard Labonte

An encyclopedic survey of homosexuality in Western and non-Western civilizations. Crompton’s writing is lively, vivid and refreshing—a pleasure to read. Anyone interested in looking at homosexuality from a comparative and historical point of view will want to own this book.

David Greenberg

A one-of-a-kind, page-turning tour through gay history—one of the richest reading experiences in recent memory. This magnificent book educates us, startles us, and, by turns, reassures us as it traces the widespread cultural wellsprings of the changing forces of homosexuality. Crompton has crafted an utterly thrilling tour de force that succeeds in reinventing what we know about gay life across cultures and ages. This impressively detailed, eminently illuminating, and thoroughly enjoyable book should be on every gay person’s—and every thinking person’s—must-read list.

David Rosen

A minor masterpiece. Each chapter is a small work of art in itself. Crompton’s discussion of Sapphic love is the best general treatment of lesbian suffering that I have seen. Though passionate, Homosexuality and Civilization is articulate, balanced, and theoretically sound—accessible to beginners and informative for specialists as well.

William A. Percy

A treasure trove of compelling information. This marvelous book, covering not simply the Western tradition but China and Japan as well, is sure to become fundamental reading in gay and lesbian studies. Crompton dazzles the reader with his exhaustive research and incisive analyses. Not since the work of the late John Boswell has a scholar brought such a brilliant light to bear on earlier evidence of same-sex affections.

Karla Jay

Crompton's book is truly the culmination of a lifetime's commitment… Writing a history of homosexuality is therefore a mission to remind the reader of millennia of oppression and resistance. For Crompton, the commonalities of that disparate history of homosexuality lie in two elements: the fact of common sexual practices, and the possibilities of human love and devotion that survived and contested all that history ('their' history) could throw at it. His history is, in part at least, a history of celebration.
— Jeffrey Weeks

Times Higher Education Supplement

When Europeans first arrived in the Americas they found men engaged in erotic entanglements virtually on the quayside. They responded with the horror their religion had implanted in them, holding out their bibles and shouting 'Abomination! Devilry! Witchcraft!' The problem was they found the same thing almost everywhere they set foot in East Asia. China and Japan both looked on this kind of activity with a cool shrug of the shoulders. But as the Europeans' colonizing push gathered force, the hangings, disembowelment by mastiffs and burnings alive (especially popular) began to appear in these regions as well… This is a major work… It will be the first book future researchers in the topic turn to, and what they will find is a magisterial survey that delivers the fruits of a lifetime's study. Everything in the field is touched on and weighed in the balance.
— Bradley Winterton

Taipei Times

Based on the best recent scholarship and providing an overview of homosexuality from the Greeks to the end of the 18th century, this levelheaded, easy-to-read volume confirms the fact that homosexuality has had a long history (with periods of greater or less tolerance)… The result is the best historical overview of the topic that this reviewer has read.
— V. L. Bullough

Choice

Even after the explosion of literature on gay issues since the 1970s, comprehensive examinations of homosexuality in history have been few. An exception is Louis Crompton's new Homosexuality and Civilization, a sweeping account that was 18 years in the making. Crompton, a professor emeritus of English at the University of Nebraska, presents both a catalog of horrific abuse and persecution in the West and a surprising history of tolerance in some Eastern cultures, such as Japan, where homosexuality was 'an honored way of life among the country's religious and military leaders.'
— Julian Sanchez

Reason

In Louis Crompton's sober, searching and somber new history, Homosexuality and Civilization, homosexuality is associated with the inner workings of civilization itself… It begins in the gladness of early Greece, where homosexuality had an 'honored place' for more than a millennium, and concludes with the madness of 19th-century Europe. In between is what Mr. Crompton calls a 'kaleidoscope of horrors' lasting more than 1,500 years… This is a restrained, careful, clear book of scholarly exposition.
— Edward Rothstein

New York Times

Brilliantly researched… Crompton, drawing on his immense erudition, contrasts Christianity and its barbaric cruelty toward same-sex love with more benign traditions in Moorish Spain… [He] also discusses the cult of romantic homosexuality in traditional Japan, where relationships of intense loyalty and idealism sprang up between the samurai and their pages.
— Edmund White

Los Angeles Times