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Overview
At the time of his death in 1951, having won the Nobel Prize in Literature only four years prior, André Gide was considered one of the most important literary minds of the twentieth century. In Corydon, initially released anonymously in installments between 1911 and 1920, Gide speaks his most subversive and provocative truth.
Citing myriad examples that span thousands of years, Gide’s Socratic dialogues argue that homosexuality is natural—in fact, far more so than the social construct of exclusive heterosexuality, the act of systematically banning or ostracizing same-sex relationships.
Corydon, named for the pederast character in Virgil’s Eclogues, caused its author “all kinds of trouble,” according to his friends, but he regarded it as his most important work. The courage, intelligence, and prescience of Gide’s argument make it all the more impressive today.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781497678910 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Open Road Media |
| Publication date: | 04/07/2015 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 160 |
| Sales rank: | 914,378 |
| File size: | 2 MB |
About the Author
André Gide (1869–1951), winner of the 1947 Nobel Prize for Literature, was a celebrated novelist, dramatist, and essayist whose narrative works dealt frankly with homosexuality and the struggle between artistic discipline, moralism, and sensual indulgence. Born in Paris, Gide became an influential intellectual figure in nineteenth- and twentieth-century French literature and culture. His essay collections Autumn Leaves and Oscar Wilde, among others, contributed to the public’s understanding of key figures of the day. He traveled widely and advocated for the rights of prisoners, denounced the conditions in the African colonies, and became a voice for, and then against, communism. Other notable works include The Notebooks of André Walter (1891), Corydon (1924), If It Die (1924), The Counterfeiters, and his journals, Journal 1889–1939, Journal 1939–1942, and Journal 1942–1949.
Read an Excerpt
Corydon
A Novel
By André Gide, Richard Howard
OPEN ROAD INTEGRATED MEDIA
Copyright © 1925 Editions GallimardAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4976-7891-0
CHAPTER 1
FIRST DIALOGUE
In the year 190_, a scandalous trial raised once again the irritating question of uranism. For eight days, in the salons as in the cafés, nothing else was mentioned. Impatient with theories and exclamations offered on all sides by the ignorant, the bigoted, and the stupid, I wanted to know my own mind; realizing that reason rather than just temperament was alone qualified to condemn or condone, I decided to go and discuss the subject with Corydon. He, I had been told, made no objection to certain unnatural tendencies attributed to him; my conscience would not be clear until I had learned what he had to say in their behalf.
It was ten years since I had last seen Corydon. At that time he was a high-spirited boy, as gentle as he was proud, generous and obliging, whose very glance compelled respect. He had been a brilliant medical student, and his early work gained him much professional approval. After leaving the lycée where we had been students together, we remained fairly close friends for a long time. Then several years of travel separated us, and when I returned to Paris to live, the deplorable reputation his behavior was acquiring kept me from seeking him out.
On entering his apartment, I admit I received none of the unfortunate impressions I had feared. Nor did Corydon afford any such impression by the way he dressed, which was quite conventional, even a touch austere perhaps. I glanced around the room in vain for signs of that effeminacy which experts manage to discover in everything connected with inverts and by which they claim they are never deceived. However I did notice, over his mahogany desk, a huge photographic reproduction of Michelangelo's "Creation of Man," showing Adam naked on the primeval slime, reaching up to the divine Hand and turning toward God a dazzled look of gratitude. Corydon's vaunted love of art would have accounted for any surprise I might have shown at the choice of this particular subject. On the desk, the portrait of an old man with a long white beard whom I immediately recognized as the American poet Walt Whitman, since it appears as the frontispiece of Léon Bazalgette's recent translation of his works. Bazalgette had also just published a voluminous biography of the poet which I had recently come across and which now served as a pretext for opening the conversation.
i
"After reading Bazalgette's book," I began, "I don't see much reason for this portrait to be on display here."
My remark was impertinent; Corydon pretended not to understand. I insisted.
"First of all," he answered, "Whitman's work remains just as admirable as it ever was, regardless of the interpretation each reader chooses to give his behavior ..."
"Still, you have to admit that your admiration has diminished somewhat, now that Bazalgette has proved that Whitman didn't behave as you so eagerly assumed he did."
"Your friend Bazalgette has proved nothing whatever; his entire argument depends on a syllogism that can just as easily be reversed. Homosexuality, he postulates, is an unnatural tendency ... Now, Whitman was in perfect health; you might say he was the best representative literature has ever provided of the natural man ..."
"Therefore Whitman wasn't a pederast. I don't see how you can get around that."
"But the work is there, and no matter how often Bazalgette translates the word 'love' as 'affection' or 'friendship,' and the word 'sweet' as 'pure,' whenever Whitman addresses his 'comrade,' the fact remains that all the fervent, tender, sensual, impassioned poems in the book are of the same order—that order you call contra naturam."
"I don't call it an order at all ... But how would you reverse his syllogism?"
"Like this: Whitman can be taken as the typical normal man. Yet Whitman was a pederast ..."
"Therefore pederasty is normal ... Bravo! Now all you have to prove is that Whitman was a pederast. As far as begging the question goes, I prefer Bazalgette's syllogism to yours—it doesn't go so much against common sense."
"It's not common sense but the truth we should avoid going against. I'm writing an article about Whitman—an answer to Bazalgette's argument."
"These questions of behavior are of great interest to you?"
"I should say so. In fact, I'm writing a long study of the subject."
"Aren't the works of Moll and Krafft-Ebing and Raffalovich enough for you?"
"Not enough to satisfy me. I'd like to deal with the subject in a different way."
"I've always thought it was best to speak of such things as little as possible—often they exist at all only because some blunderer runs on about them. Aside from the fact that they are anything but elegant in expression, there will always be some imbecile to model himself on just what one was claiming to condemn."
"I'm not claiming to condemn anything."
"I've heard that you call yourself tolerant."
"You don't understand what I'm saying. I see I'll have to tell you the title of what I'm writing."
"By all means."
"What I'm writing is a Defense of Pederasty."
"Why not a Eulogy, while you're at it?"
"A title like that would distort my ideas; even with a word like 'Defense,' I'm afraid some readers will take it as a kind of provocation."
"And you'll actually publish such a thing?"
"Actually," he answered more seriously, "I won't."
"You know, you're all alike," I continued, after a moment's silence; "you swagger around in private and among yourselves, but out in the open and in front of the public your courage evaporates. In your heart of hearts you know perfectly well that the censure heaped on you is entirely deserved; you protest so eloquently in whispers, but when it comes to speaking up, you give in."
"It's true that the cause lacks martyrs."
"Let's not use such high-sounding words."
"I'm using the words that are needed. We've had Wilde and Krupp and Eulenburg and Macdonald ..."
"And they're not enough for you?"
"Oh, victims! As many victims as you like—but not martyrs. They all denied—they always will deny."
"Well of course, facing public opinion, the newspapers or the courts, each one is ashamed and retracts."
"Or commits suicide, unfortunately! Yes, you're right, it's a surrender to public opinion to establish one's innocence by disavowing one's life. Strange! we have the courage of our opinions, but never of our behavior. We're quite willing to suffer, but not to be disgraced."
"Aren't you just like the rest, in avoiding publication of your book?"
He hesitated a moment, and then: "Maybe I won't avoid it."
"All the same, once you were dragged into court by a Queensberry or a Harden, you can anticipate what your attitude would be."
"I'm afraid I can. I would probably lose courage and deny everything, just like my predecessors. We're never so alone in life that the mud thrown at us fails to dirty someone we care for. A scandal would upset my mother terribly, and I'd never forgive myself. My younger sister lives with her and isn't married yet—it might not be so easy to find someone who would accept me as his brother-in-law."
"Well, I certainly see what you mean; so you admit that such behavior dishonors even the man who merely tolerates it."
"That's not an admission, it's an observation of the facts. Which is why I'm looking for martyrs to the cause."
"What do you mean by such a word?"
"Someone who would forestall any attack—who without bragging or showing off would bear the disapproval, the insults; or better still, who would be of such acknowledged merit—such integrity and uprightness—that disapproval would hesitate from the start ..."
"You'll never find such a man."
"Let me hope he'll appear."
"Listen, just between ourselves: do you really think it would do much good? How much of a change in public opinion can you expect? I grant that you're a little ... constrained. If you were a little more so, it would be all the better for you, believe me. Such wretched behavior would come to a stop quite naturally, just by not having to put itself on show." I noticed that he shrugged his shoulders, which didn't keep me from insisting: "Don't you suppose there are enough turpitudes on display as it is?" And I permitted myself to remark that homosexuals find any number of facilities in one place or another. "Let them be content with the ones that are concealed, and with the complicity of their kind; don't try to win the approval or even the indulgence of respectable people on their behalf."
"But it's the esteem of just such people I cannot do without."
"If you can't do without it, then change your behavior."
"I can't do that. It can't be 'changed'—that's the dilemma for which Krupp and Macdonald and the rest saw no other solution than a bullet."
"Luckily you're less tragic."
"I wouldn't swear to it. But I would like to finish my book."
"Admit that there's more than a little pride in your case."
"None whatever."
"You cultivate your strangeness, and then in order not to be ashamed of it you congratulate yourself on not feeling like all the rest."
He shrugged again and walked up and down the room without a word; then, having apparently overcome the impatience my last remarks aroused:
ii
"Not so long ago, you used to be my friend," he said, sitting down again beside me. "I remember that we could understand each other. Is it really necessary for you to make such a show of sarcasm each time I say a word? Of course I'm not asking for your approval, but can't you even listen to me in good faith—the same good faith in which I'm talking to you ... at least, the way I would talk if I felt you were listening ..."
"Forgive me," I said, disarmed by the tone of his words. "It's true that I've lost touch with you. Yes, we were once quite close, in the days when your behavior still held out against your inclinations."
"And then you stopped seeing me; to be frank about it, you broke off relations."
"Let's not argue about that; but suppose we talked the way we used to," I went on, holding out my hand. "I have time to listen to anything you have to say. When we used to see each other, you were still a student. Did you already have such a clear notion of yourself back then? Tell me—I want to know the truth."
He turned toward me with a new expression of confidence, and began:
"During my years as an intern in the hospital, the awareness I came to of my ... anomaly plunged me into a state of mortal distress. It's absurd to maintain, as some people still do, that you only come to pederasty because you're seduced into it, that it's the result of nothing but being dissipated or blasé. And I couldn't see myself as either degenerate or sick. Hard-working and extremely chaste, I was living with the firm intention, once my internship was over, of marrying a girl who has since then died, and whom I used to love above anything else in the world.
"I loved her too much to realize clearly that I didn't desire her at all. I know that some people are reluctant to admit that the one can exist without the other; I was entirely unaware of it myself. Yet no other woman ever haunted my dreams, or wakened any desire in me whatever. Still less was I tempted by the prostitutes I saw almost all my friends chasing. But since at the time I hardly suspected I might actually desire others altogether, I convinced myself that my abstinence was a virtue, gloried in the notion of remaining a virgin until marriage, and prided myself on a purity I could not suppose was a delusion. Only gradually did I manage to understand what I was; finally I had to admit that these notorious allurements which I prided myself on resisting actually had no attraction for me whatever.
"What I had regarded as virtue was in fact nothing but indifference. This was an appalling humiliation—how could it be anything else?—to a rather high-minded young spirit. Only work managed to overcome the melancholy which darkened and diminished my life; I soon persuaded myself I was unsuited for marriage and, being able to acknowledge none of the reasons for my depression to my fiancée, my behavior toward her became increasingly evasive and embarrassed. Yet the few experiments I then attempted in a brothel certainly proved to me that I wasn't impotent; but at the same time they afforded convincing proof ..."
"Proof of what?"
"My case seemed to me altogether exceptional (for how could I suspect at the time that it was common?). I saw that I was capable of pleasure; I supposed myself incapable, strictly speaking, of desire. Both my parents were healthy, I myself was robust and energetic; my appearance revealed nothing of my wretchedness; none of my friends suspected what was wrong; nothing could have persuaded me to speak a word to a soul. Yet the farce of good humor and risqué allusions which I felt obliged to act out in order to avoid all suspicion became intolerable. As soon as I was alone I slipped into despondency."
The seriousness and the conviction in his voice compelled my interest. "You were letting your imagination run away with you!" I said gently. "The fact is, you were in love, and therefore full of doubts. As soon as you were married, love would have developed quite naturally into desire."
"I know that's what people say ... How right I was to be skeptical!"
"You don't seem to have hypochondriacal tendencies now. How did you cure yourself of this disease of yours?"
"At the time, I did a great deal of reading. And one day I came across a sentence which gave me some sound advice. It was from the Abbé Galiani: 'The important thing,' he wrote to Mme d'Epinay, 'the important thing is not to be cured but to be able to live with one's disease.'"
"Why don't you tell that to your patients?"
"I do, to the incurable ones. No doubt those words seem all too simple to you, but I drew my whole philosophy from them. It only remained for me to realize that I was not a freak, a unique case, in order to recover my self-confidence and escape my self-hatred."
"You've told me how you came to realize your lack of interest in women, but not how you discovered your tendency ..."
"It's quite a painful story, and I don't like telling it. But you seem to be listening to me carefully—maybe my account will help you speak of these matters less frivolously."
I assured him, if not of my sympathy, at least of my respectful attention.
"You already know," he began, "that I was engaged; I loved the girl who was to become my wife tenderly but with an almost mystical emotion, and of course with my lack of experience I scarcely imagined that there could be any other real way of loving. My fiancée had a brother, a few years younger than she, whom I often saw and who felt the deepest friendship for me."
"Aha!" I exclaimed involuntarily.
Corydon glanced at me severely. "No: nothing improper took place between us; his sister was my fiancée."
"Excuse me."
"But you can imagine my confusion, my consternation when, one evening of heart-to-heart exchanges, I had to acknowledge that this boy wanted not only my friendship but was soliciting my caresses as well."
"Your tenderness, you mean. Like many children, after all! It's our responsibility, as their elders, to respect such needs."
"I did respect them, I promise you that. But Alexis was no longer a child; he was a charming and perceptive adolescent. The avowals he made to me then were all the more upsetting because in every revelation he made, all described with precocious exactitude, I seemed to be hearing my own confession. Nothing, however, could possibly justify the severity of my reaction."
"Severity?"
"Yes: I was scared out of my wits. I spoke severely, almost harshly, and what was worse, I spoke with extreme contempt for what I called effeminacy, which was only the natural expression of his feelings."
"It's hard to know how to deal with such cases."
"I dealt with this one so badly that the poor child—yes, he was still a child—took my scolding quite tragically. For three days he tried with all the sweetness in his power to overcome what he took to be my anger; and meanwhile I kept exaggerating my coldness no matter what he said, until it happened ..."
"What happened?"
"Then you didn't know that Alexis B. committed suicide?"
"But you wouldn't go so far as to suggest that ..."
"No, I'm not suggesting anything at all. At first it was said to be an accident. We were in the country at the time: the body was found at the foot of a cliff ... An accident? I suppose I could make myself believe anything. But here's the letter I found next to my bed."
He opened a drawer, took out a sheet of paper with a shaking hand, glanced at it, and then said:
"No, I'm not going to read you this letter; you would misjudge the child. The substance of it—and written in the most moving way—was the agony our last conversation had caused him ... especially certain remarks I had made. 'To spare yourself this physical torment,' I had shouted in a fit of hypocritical rage against the inclinations he was confessing to me, 'the best thing you could do would be to fall in love.' Unfortunately, he wrote me, I have fallen in love, but with you, my friend. You haven't understood me and you feel contempt for me; I see that I am becoming an object of disgust to you—as I am for myself for that very reason. If I can't change my awful nature, at least I can get rid of it ... Four more pages of that slightly pompous pathos characteristic of that stage of life, the kind of thing it becomes so easy for us to call declamation."
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Corydon by André Gide, Richard Howard. Copyright © 1925 Editions Gallimard. Excerpted by permission of OPEN ROAD INTEGRATED MEDIA.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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Table of Contents
Contents
Translator's Note,Preface to the Third Edition,
Preface to the Second Edition,
First Dialogue,
Second Dialogue,
Third Dialogue,
Fourth Dialogue,
Appendix,
About the Author,