John Addington Symonds eBooks
eBooks di John Addington Symonds editi da E Bookarama
A Problem in Modern Ethics. E-book. Formato EPUB John Addington Symonds - E-Bookarama, 2025 -
First published in 1896, "A Problem in Modern Ethics" by John Addington Symonds is an historically significant essay and one of the first attempts in modern times to examine homosexuality, putting it in a medical, historical and legal context, and to propose that civil rights should be extended to gay people. Along with Edward Carpenter and Walt Whitman, Symonds was one of the pioneers of gay rights and spirituality. Symonds was an aristocratic English man of letters who, by virtue of his class status, was able to lead a closeted but very active sexual life. He overcame the fear and loathing that Victorian society attached to homosexuality through an internal struggle which is today known as 'coming out'. However, he had to live a double life, taking lovers from lower social classes while embedded in a sham marriage, and normally had write about his experiences in veiled language.Even this privately printed essay, which discusses homosexuality frankly, is extremely circumspect. We have to wade through quite a bit of Victorian pseudo-science and gobbledygook to get to the very valid points that Symonds was trying to make. Symonds concludes that homosexuality is innate and not a disease or mental disorder, gay sexuality is every bit as natural as heterosexuality, and homosexual acts between consenting adults should not be treated as criminal. These concepts are quite moderate (although at the time they were, of course, radical), and today are widely accepted.Symonds later wrote a companion essay to this, "A Problem in Greek Ethics", which drew on his extensive classical knowledge to examine homosexuality in ancient Greece.
A Problem in Greek Ethics. E-book. Formato EPUB John Addington Symonds - E-Bookarama, 2025 -
Originally published in 1883, "A Problem in Greek Ethics" by John Addington Symonds is a ground-breaking study of the Greek institution of paiderastia. This was a custom by which adolescent men made alliances with older men of a romantic and sexual nature. The young men in question were the same age as contemporary teen pop stars (approximately from puberty to the Athenian age of majority, 21). And they were treated similarly, as celebrities, showered with gifts and attention, and fought over by lovers. Philosophers such as Plato considered these same-sex unions as a remedy for tyranny, the bedrock of a cultured society, and the purest form of love.The point of this essay is never made explicit, but it is still very relevant. The ancient Greek civilization lasted for hundreds of years, invented democracy, built amazing monumental buildings, developed advanced philosophy, drama and literature, and defeated the Persian empire. And no small part of this success was due to the openly acknowledged contribution of gay people. This proves specious the argument that homosexuals achieving parity in a society means the end of civilization "as we know it".Symonds, who also wrote "A Problem in Modern Ethics", was an accomplished classicist, and a pioneering (if closeted) self-realized gay person. This book was originally published privately for the use of 'Medical Psychologists and Jurists'; this figleaf was necessary in the repressive climate of Victorian England.