Because mine is an evil and a petty mind, suitable more to wallowing in the sordid sexual goings-on of literary giants than in reading their work, I take every opportunity I can to inform people who may not have known that Walt Whitman and Oscar Wilde almost certainly had sex in 1882.
You are either the kind of person to whom this matters a great deal, or the kind of person to whom it matters not at all. To the latter I say: yours is the narrow road and the straight, and I extend to you a hearty and fulsome handshake, as well as my sincerest wishes for your continued good health. To the former I say: Want to hear about the time Walt Whitman and Oscar Wilde (probably) hooked up??
Of course you do. You’re my kind of person. Why do we ever talk about anything else? Let’s never do that again.
Oscar Wilde and Walt Whitman Almost Certainly Did It (And That’s Wonderful)
So. As you may or may not know, Wilde went on a speaking tour of America in 1882, and it was marvelous (Henry James didn’t care for it; Henry James called him a “tenth-rate card” and an “unclean beast”; Henry James can go suck an egg). He lectured and gave interviews and he sold out concert halls and he very possibly had sex with Walt Whitman.
If you have not already read Neil McKenna’s nearly-perfect biography, The Secret Life of Oscar Wilde (Indiebound | Amazon), please correct this omission as quickly as possible. I will now quote from it at length:
Oscar desperately wanted to meet Walt Whitman, whom he and many others considered to be America’s living poet…Whitman’s poetry spoke of the potency of friendship and love between men, particularly between working-class men, and positively oozed homoeroticism. Indeed, the ‘Calamus’ section of Whitman’s great poetic cycle Leaves of Grass was so intensely homoerotic that it gave rise to the short-lived term ‘calamite’ to denote a man who loved men. Swinburne was to denounce ‘the cult of the calamus’ and ‘calamites.’
Yes, I hear you saying impatiently, but damn Swinburne (you are right, of course. Let us leave him behind us) and get to the sex. Patience, my rouge-lipped darling. All in good time. As it happened, Wilde knew John Marshall Stoddart, a well-known publisher who was also friends with Whitman, and used him to wangle an invitation to dinner.
At first, Walt Whitman says no. No Oscar Wilde for him. But then: Walt Whitman changes his mind and sends Stoddart a note:
Walt Whitman will be in from two till three-thirty this afternoon, and will be most happy to see Mr. Wilde and Mr. Stoddart.
When Oscar Wilde sees an opportunity to have sex with Walt Whitman, he does not hesitate. He goes.
Oscar was suitably humble in the presence of Whitman, greeting him with the words, ‘I have come to you as one with whom I have been acquainted almost from the cradle.’ The contrast between the two poets could not have been more marked. Oscar was young, tall, slender and clean shaven. Whitman was in his early sixties, but looked much older. He was shorter than Oscar and wore a long, bushy white beard. Oscar was highly educated, cultivated and still in his languid Aesthetic phase. Whitman was self-taught, and robustly masculine in manner.
Could his meaning be more clear? “Hello, Daddy,” says the young dandy as he lightly crosses the threshold.
Stoddart tactfully left the two poets alone. ‘If you are willing – will excuse me – I will go off for an hour or so – come back again – leaving you together,’ he said. ‘We would be glad to have you stay,’ Whitman replied. ‘But do not feel to come back in an hour. Don’t come for two or three.’ Whitman opened a bottle of elderberry wine and he and Oscar drank it all before Whitman suggested they go upstairs to his ‘den’ on the third floor where, he told Oscar, ‘We could be on ‘thee and thou’ terms.’
ASDF;LKAJSDF;ALKSJDF, as the saying goes. The next day, Whitman told the Philadelphia Press that the two of them had a “jolly good time” together. Did he get more specific? He did, reader. He did:
One of the first things I said was that I should call him ‘Oscar.’ ‘I like that so much,’ he answered, laying his hand on my knee. He seemed to me like a great big, splendid boy. He is so frank, and outspoken, and manly. I don’t see why such mocking things are written of him.
This is a gift. You do realize that, don’t you? History has reached out to you specifically and given you a gift. The gift is the knowledge that Oscar Wilde once put his hand on Walt Whitman’s knee and then they drank elderberry wine together; the gift is that the next day a reporter turned up and Whitman expounded at length on his big, splendid boy. Let this sink in a moment. This is like finding out Emily Dickinson once secretly stowed away on a ship bound for England and spent a weekend with Jane Austen at a bed and breakfast, doing it. This is like finding out Ernest Hemingway finally let his guard down one night in Spain and let F. Scott Fitzgerald lean across the table and kiss him. This is like finding out Gwendolyn Brooks lost her virginity to Willa Cather.
The night is long, and the night is full of terrors, but Walt Whitman once drank wine with Oscar Wilde in his third-story den, where they talked of love.
Stoddart went on to say that ‘after embracing, greeting each other as Oscar and Walt, the two talked of nothing but pretty boys, of how insipid was the love of women, and of what other poets, Swinburne in particular, had to say about these tastes.’ Stoddart’s reminiscences accord with Oscar’s later account of the meeting to his friend, George Ives.
Could anything possibly be more perfect? “Hello, Oscar.”
“Hello, Walt.”
“Do you know what I find sickening and insipid?”
“Could it be the love of women?”
“No.”
“Yes!”
“How did you guess?”
“A hunch.”
“Come here, you great big, splendid, boy, and put your hand on my knee.”
“Right-ho.”
So far, of course, we have setup. We have opportunity. We have motive. But our evidence is as yet circumstantial. We need the smoking gun.
We have the smoking gun. It is loaded, and it is in Oscar’s hands.
Oscar told Ives that there was ‘no doubt’ about Whitman’s sexual tastes. ‘I have the kiss of Walt Whitman still on my lips,’ he boasted.
If you have a book in front of you, feel free to close it dreamily. If all you have is this particular website before you, try hitting refresh and sighing romantically; the effect is largely the same. If you would like to argue that Oscar Wilde was occasionally given to exaggeration and sexual braggadocio and coy boasts to a friend might not be the most reliable source, kindly hush up and go away.
You are now invited to post Walt Whitman/Oscar Wilde fan art in the comments.
Tags: although homosexuality is really a modern construct, historical homosexuals, hopefully part one in a series, literary trysts, love, of course i used the picture from that graham chapman sketch you didn’t think i would forget, oscar wilde, relationships, sex, walt whitman, your majesty is like a big jam donut
On the one hand, it is shocking to me that I did not know this.
On the other hand, I am thrilled I did not know this so that I could read this now for the first time and get to sit here and marvel about the fact that Oscar Wilde and Walt Whitman totally had sex HOW IS THIS NOT ON CHEESY EDUCATIONAL POSTERS ALL ACROSS UNIVERSITY ENGLISH DEPARTMENTS.
Ditto! I am grinning like a goddamn Cheshire cat over here.
“If all you have is this particular website before you, try hitting refresh and sighing romantically.”
I will. I am.
I’m just sitting over here biting my knuckle and happily blushing a little bit.
I’m doing this wierd thing where I grin drunkenly and pull my braid over my head. I think it expresses pretty much the same emotion.
!!!! THIS IS BRAND NEW, WONDERFUL INFORMATION.
#hopefully part one in a series
yesssss
In a series of real-life slash hookups of literary icons? Because I could be so down with that.
Can this be a dramatic show on the History Channel please? The Real Hookups of Literary Icons?
YES PLEASE!!!
And now I will keep this page open all day and hit refresh in hopes of seeing the requested fan art.
OW/WW OTP!!!!
‘We could be on ‘thee and thou’ terms.’
Holy shit, I had to stop and take a few deep breaths after reading that particular phrase. PHEW. Walt Whitman, you were one suave old bushy-bearded Casanova, weren’t you? *fans self*
I so, so hope this is indeed part one in a series, Mallory. I never knew how much I needed this.
I mean, “Every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you” is my go-to pickup line…
Sure would work on me!
Didn’t Whitman already effictively have sex with eveveryone for all time, as it suited him, when he published Song of Myself? I used to think that the only thing that could be better than being Whitman would be knowing him (in the Shakespearean sense of knowing). Song of Myself was a ravishing on a global, timeless scale. Does a bottle of Elderberry wine make what we all already know of every atom of the Transcendentalist that much more exclusive? I suppose if I were Oscar Wilde, I certainly would have thought so…
This is just as exciting as that time you told me Alice Walker and Tracy Chapman dated.
I had to google this to make sure it wasn’t a cruel joke BUT IT’S NOT OH MAN LITERALLY CLASPING MY HANDS IN GLEE
PERHAPS THEY WILL BE INSTALLMENT TWO
“On Thee and Thou Terms”
THANK YOU for this knowledge. Everything about this post and its comments is making my day – nay, week.
DUDE.
This is the news I have been waiting for.
I already knew this, which does not make it less exciting to see, in all its glory, with text evidence included.
Reading “To a Locomotive in Winter” with my AP English students and hinting that “the train is not a train” was one of the most fun experiences of my teaching career.
One of my favorite moments of being a professor was forcing freshmen to really examine the line in “Calamus” describing the live-oak with moss:
All alone stood it, and the moss hung down from the branches,
Without any companion it grew there, glistening out joyous leaves of dark green,
And its look, rude, unbending, lusty, made me think of myself
1) This is wonderful.
2)
This is like finding out Ernest Hemingway finally let his guard down one night in Spain and let F. Scott Fitzgerald lean across the table and kiss him.
That is an awfully distracting mental image.
2) Especially if you imagine it as Tom Hiddleston and Corey Stoll from Midnight in Paris. Gah. It’s fine, I didn’t need to get any work done today anyway….
Oops I just bought a condo in that thought sorryyyyyyyy never coming out
…yeah, that’s pretty much exactly what I was picturing. Although the real Hemingway was quite a looker when he was young.
God Almighty.
Everything today is blowing my mind.
I ship it.
YES!!! I was also disturbingly fixated on this particular idea. Would that it were so…I guess it can be in our minds, eh?
I love when Oscar Wilde reaches into the pockets of history and touches you a little bit
This will be inscribed on the door of my office once I get tenure.
This is amazing. A. MAZING.
talk about giving the password primeval
Isherwood and Auden Isherwood and Auden Isherwood and Auden
I mean: yes. I loved this post. Series please. I am one big ball of joy. THEE AND THOU TERMS YAY
yes but everyone already knows about Isherwood and Auden. (well they should anyway)
they were best friends!
The incredible reactions to this news makes me sad that I don’t care.
You’re the other kind of person, David! You will go far in life, probably. But I will stay here, and I will care enough for the both of us.
One of the things I most love about this is that, as usual, there are so many avenues down which we might begin to request things for tomorrow and thusly, I say to you, The Secret Life Of Emily Dickinson, Chapter 1: In Which Our Heroine Is Discovered On The Boat By A Young Woman Disguised As A Sailor.
I would read the hell out of that story. It doesn’t even need to be true. Write, write, write!
big splendid boy, indeed!
Welp, I’m done. Don’t need to read anything else on the internet today. I am as blissful as blissful can be.
So I’m having an awful day where I am struggling (yet again) out from under a heavy blanket of awful thoughts, and then I come here and read about Oscar Wilde and Walt Whitman doin’ it and now all I can do is grin like a starry-eyed dope. Melis, however did you know?!?!!
After touring Emily Dickenson’s house in the ’90s, I felt certain that she had a longtime love affair with her sister-in-law, Susan. The Internet now supports this feeling I had.
I have a book with a letter Emily wrote to her about stealing her away and meeting in the garden in secret…. It would have been interesting if Her brother had married her just so their time together wouldn’t have been suspect.
OTOH, the Internet supports just about ANY feeling I’ve ever had, often with porn.
If you want to explore their relationship more you might want to check out this book (I took classes with Martha Nell Smith in college): http://www.amazon.com/Open-Carefully-Dickinsons-H…
Ugh, shut up, Henry James.
Just be shutting up at all times.
Every time I get mad about Henry James I remember that he was like, vastly constipated his entire adult life and couldn’t stop talking about it.
I love this! Now, can we please get back to Dickinson and Austen doing it?
OH my god, oh my god, I love The Toast.
Theory: this is why Franzen is so angry.
Related literary historical side note! Bram Stoker’s adoration of Whitman, his soured friendship with Wilde, and the connection between the Wilde trial and Jonathan Harker’s imprisonment in Castle Dracula.
Oh no no, you can’t just SAY THAT and not follow it up! MORE PLEASE.
Some items of interest:
1. Stoker and Wilde were college pals.
2. Stoker married Wilde’s ex-ladyfriend.
3. Stoker was a huuuuge Whitman fanboy: http://www.neh.gov/humanities/2012/novemberdecemb…
4. Stoker started writing Dracula one month after Wilde went to jail, noting that the opening section, where Harker is imprisoned by Dracula, was written in a “vivid flow of inspiration.”
5. In that section, Dracula makes the sexy lady vampires leave Harker alone because, and I quote, “This man belongs to me!”
6. Basically all the vampire-business in Dracula is obsessively described as involving violent and morally laden penetration (teeth through skin = bad; stake through heart = good), spurting bodily fluids, and uncanny desires.
CONCLUSION: OSCAR WILDE WAS A VAMPIRE
Seriously!!! All Dracula wanted to do was invert every tier of conventional society and try some of that crusty old British blood that everyone’s been raving about. FREE DRACULA.
Dracula’s fave t-shirt: ASK ME ABOUT MY METAPHORICAL IMPORT
Oh God I need that on a T-shirt ON a cartoon Dracula.
Okay, now I have one.
SECONDARY CONCLUSION: Stoker was mad jealous of Wilde because of Wilde/Whitman
And by the transitive property, or something, Whitman was a werewolf! I’m on Team Walt.
I look forward to the Tim Powers novel version of this.
Perhaps Franzen is jealous that no poets of consequence have put the moves on him? Just sayin’
Methinks he doth anger too much.
Too bad neither kept a diary with coded signs about the nature of the relationship they were having. Victor Hugo had one – He had so many girlfriends he had to find some way of tracking whether the relationship was platonic, a one off thing or a regular one. I discovered this researching a graphic novel about Louise Michelle- there was a lot of speculation going on whether she was his mistress or not. At first I wasn’t sure myself, because though she was much younger and was a close friend- they corresponded for 3 decades- she was terribly plain and strong willed, so therefore not really his type (he was more the pretty and insipid type, I suspect). Then I read a book that mentioned she’s marked in Hugo’s diary as “saw her naked, at least once” (which really reminds me of a line from a song by Art Brut, by the way)- and thus that mystery was solved.If only things were so easy regarding Wilde and Whitman.
Does a copy of this exist on the internet? I’m so intrigued…
I have to bring up Melville and Hawthorne, who probably never did it, buuuuut Mellville did write this:
“already I feel that this Hawthorne has dropped germinous seeds into my soul. He expands and deepens down, the more I contemplate him; and further, and further, shoots his strong New- England roots into the hot soil of my Southern soul.”
!!!
Oh man–that turns the corner from homoerotic and goes into “so clearly gay it can’t possibly be gay, right?” territory.
Well, it IS Melville.
right?! that is some “bunny waxing poetic about a. j. raffles’ ‘strong, unscrupulous mouth'”-level business.
(historical note – e. w. hornung may have based raffles on george ives, the writer and activist mentioned in the article! take that as you will)
And THIS is why this needs to become a series. I need to know more!
There’s actually some evidence that they DID do “it” — or, at least, a pass was made by Melville. Hawthorne stopped by Melville’s house during a blizzard. The men holed up in Melville’s study. A LOT of drinking ensued.
After: Hawthorne flees the area. Moves himself and his family far away to New York, and then farther away to England. It breaks Melville’s heart and there’s this curious and marked change in tone of Melville’s writing after the loss.
Isn’t Melville’s “Monody” supposed to be about Hawthorne?
Monody
BY HERMAN MELVILLE
To have known him, to have loved him
After loneness long;
And then to be estranged in life,
And neither in the wrong;
And now for death to set his seal—
Ease me, a little ease, my song!
By wintry hills his hermit-mound
The sheeted snow-drifts drape,
And houseless there the snow-bird flits
Beneath the fir-trees’ crape:
Glazed now with ice the cloistral vine
That hid the shyest grape.
And if memory serves Melville burns all of Hawthorne’s letters to him. 🙁
And if you read that passage in Moby Dick where they’re all standing in a circle, squeezing the sperm together and end up holding hands…
I am almost as happy about this as I was when I found out about Samuel Barber and Gian Carlo Menotti.
WHAT???!!! Amazing!!! 🙂
I just found out about that, too!!! It made my YEAR.
Re: Stoddart tactfully left the two poets alone. ‘If you are willing – will excuse me – I will go off for an hour or so – come back again – leaving you together,’ he said. ‘We would be glad to have you stay,’ Whitman replied. ‘But do not feel to come back in an hour. Don’t come for two or three.’
Does that translate to anyone else as “stay and we’ll have a threesome! If you’re not into it, thanks much and come back in three hours.”
I LOVE YOUR MIND. I didn’t think that before, but now i’ll think it till I die.
yes yes it means exactly this! *swoon*
that’s what I thought of at first. then perhaps he was just being polite, knowing that Stoddart would decline.
Dear Mallory,
Your writing is delicious.
Not only is the subject matter fascinating, but your delivery is flawless. Thank you for a wonderful break in the middle of my day.
Cheers,
Joe
Not only do I entirely love this post, I love that it’s illustrated with a pic of Graham Chapman as Oscar Wilde. Well done, Mallory.
“hopefully part one in a series”
YES
I’m going to try to post a photo. Let’s see if it works.
SHOULD READ “HEY OSCAR” but otherwise A+
Except girls are “insipid”. So it should read, “Hey boy”.
My trouble with this photo is that it reminds me of how creepy-looking Whitman was. Those dead, dead eyes.
But have you all ever seen that photo of the post-stroke Whitman in his wheelchair, with a young male attendant who seems to have a pickle in his pocket? It may be on the internet…
Like… I love the main content of this post.
But then there’s the suggestion of Emily Dickinson and Jane Austen doing it like mad rabbits.
Several of my articles of clothing combusted rather spontaneously.
this is wonderful. almost as glorious as the revelation in Graham Robb’s book “Strangers” that Oscar Wilde influenced Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s invention of Sherlock Holmes.
I am for some reason only just reading this article, and all this– and you!– are dropping all kinds of wonderful on my day.
Finding it hard to comment, what with being busy dancing on the ceiling and all. This = joy.
I remember the excitement when at 15 I learnt Jimi Hendrix and Jim Morrison had played a drunken set together (not a euphemism as far as I know). This is way better.
Mallory Ortberg, between this and cell phone ghost, you’ve just about set me up for life.
This is beautiful.
“This is like finding out Emily Dickinson once secretly stowed away on a ship bound for England and spent a weekend with Jane Austen at a bed and breakfast, doing it. This is like finding out Ernest Hemingway finally let his guard down one night in Spain and let F. Scott Fitzgerald lean across the table and kiss him. This is like finding out Gwendolyn Brooks lost her virginity to Willa Cather.”
This was so beautiful. I swear I almost burst into tears.
I love you. Now, if you excuse me, I will think of that all night.
“We could be on ‘thee and thou’ terms” is the best pickup line that has ever been uttered. I am not certain I am breathing any longer.
“whine” should be “wine”
I’m with Swinburne on this. And everything else.
“Come here, you great big, splendid, boy, and put your hand on my knee.”
Totally stealing this. Thanks, Mallory (and Walt).
First thing I’ve read this morning, and I’m smiling with delight! This will be a good morning.
What Joe Cherry said. Mallory, I think I love your writing even more than the juicy contents of this story!
Can’t wait for Part 2.
…simply wonderful 🙂
Two separate friends who had never met each other posted this on my Facebook wall today. It just so happened that I was reading The Secret Life of Oscar Wilde for perhaps the 50th time a few days ago, in the bathtub. So it was enchanting to read your article – thank you, Mallory! So much love for fellow Wildeans!
I’ve always been of the opinion that they made out but didn’t have sex. Walt Whitman was so not Oscar’s type – at all. I have the same feeling about Oscar Wilde and André Gide.
Henry James was probably just jealous he wasn’t in on it…
Speaking of Dracula and queer love and penetration, please don’t forget about Bardo Boy!
This tidbit is no small part of why I have a quotation from Leaves of Grass tattooed on my back.
I have a picture of Walt Whitman in every room of my house. He is my patron saint. What’s the poem…I’m so curious!
Nothing in your post suggest Whitman and Wilde actually did anything but meet and talk. Forming a conclusion based on that isn’t only specious, it’s insulting. I mean really, do you have sex with every single person you meet? Why do you think they would? You obviously don’t know anything about gay men either, because if you did you would be aware that gay men frequently find their sexual tastes completely incompatible because both prefer the same role.
You seem like fun.
I like you.
No, I don’t have sex with every person I meet. But if they’re someone I admire, and they put their hand on my knee and feed me delicious liquor, then I probably will. And if I boast about having kissed them, that’s probably good evidence that I have.
LOLwut. Context anonyguest, context. Late 19th century run-ins were not the same as Grindr. Choice was limitied. And people leap (both figuratively and literally ::waggle waggle::) over preferred sexual positioning when they feel like it. I know I have! / griefing
*drums fingers on desk, impatiently awaiting fan art*
Here’s some fan art for you:
</td></tr><tr><td style=”font-family:arial,sans-serif; font-size:11px; text-align:right”>From Oscar Wilde meets Walt Whitman</td></tr></table>
<table style=”width:auto;”><tr><td>
you’re a perfect real human being
You should check out Melville’s letters to Hawthorne.
Well if Emily Dickinson was in England already, visiting Austen, she might as well take the train up to Haworth and pay Charlotte and Emily a visit as well. Who knows where those discussions on Byron and Childe Harold could lead? Brilliant post as always!
a kiss is just a kiss, my peculiar pets….
Whitman’s Quaker heritage validates the sexual nature of his suggestion to Wilde. Quakers at that time still used “plain speech”, “thee” & “thou”, when speaking to any and everyone. This was based on their 17th-century refusal of honorifics. “You” was reserved for one’s social betters in the late 1600s. Many Quakers were imprisoned simply for refusing to remove their hats and for using “thee” and “thou” with their superiors at the time of their founding.
Whitman’s suggestion to become “Thee & thou to each other” would most likely have been a euphemism for sexual intimacy given the time alloted for the tryst and subsequent remarks by both men. Wilde would have understood the euphemism immediately given that the Quakers were founded in Great Britain and still a strong force for reform both there and in the United States.
Forever a fan.
Oh my heavens, this is booknerd candy like no one’s business! My friend sent this article to me, commenting that he knew I’d like it because it lacks the “usual scholarly distance” from these things and instead is related with the kind of “raw joy” that can be suffocated in academia. AMEN! Hoping for more of these trysts — such a delicious topic!!
Whitman and Wilde were gay? Who knew?
Gore Vidal and Jack Kerouac 60 years ago (August 23, 1953).
Agree this should be a series and join the call for art.
If Mallory knows a kindred soul with drawing skills, a series of graphic novels might be just the ticket.
Fanart, as inspired and requested!
<img src=”&rdquo ;http://samkrausecomic.tumblr.com/image/62092893398“ title=”Oscar and Walt” width=380/”/>
http://samkrausecomic.tumblr.com/image/6209289339…
Sorry Sam, looks like posting images in comments is just not woking very well.
Nice art, though.
ME AS WILDE: http://screencast.com/t/yUhsjNBrs5
I hear they also wrote occasionally.
I always thought it was a fun “coincidence” that Lorca and Langston Hughes “just so happened” to take the same boat to Cuba, particularly given that Lorca had a string of such “coincidental travel arrangements” with other men with whom he’s known to have hooked up, one of which came out about the whole thing and admitted it was all a set-up.
“ASDF;LKAJSDF;ALKSJDF” – wtf? Srsly, wtf?
What I understood of this (all the rest) I just loved. Thx!
I think that is supposed to be the author pounding the keyboard in a spasm of joy.
Robert Olen Butler was already way ahead of all yall http://books.google.com/books?id=ngUe1uxyVmsC&…
Thank you for the Butler link.
this is wonderful. what a treat. and those of you who’ve read the edna st. vincent millay biography know that she and georgia o’keeffe spent a night together, too. so: even more to put in your pipe and smoke. !
Whoops, more fanart.
http://andreacecelia.tumblr.com/post/62342856383/…
Thank you, thank you, thank you.
I don't understand the significance of this…
This article inspired the shiny new ‘Literary Trysts It Gives Me Great Joy To Think About RPF’ fandom in Yuletide this year. The currently-anonymous author of ‘I Would Be Your Ganymede’ (Oscar Wilde/Walt Whitman) tagged their fill ‘literary history is amazing’. Yes, yes it is. Thanks for inspiring us to read further into it.
http://archiveofourown.org/chapters/2206275
LOLwut. Context anonyguest, context. Late 19th century run-ins were not the same as Grindr. Choice was limitied. And people leap (both figuratively and literally ::waggle waggle::) over preferred sexual positioning when they feel like it. I know I have! / griefing
Just want to add that the English novelist Emily Dickinson would have stowed away to have a lesbian fling with is definitely George Eliot. She was a huge Eliot fan girl, writing “Her Losses make our Gains ashamed”, about Eliot’s writing, which is also how I kind of feel about Mallory.
I am for some reason only just reading this article, and all this– and you!– are dropping all kinds of wonderful on my day.
Just for fun I typed in “Oscar Wilde Walt Whitman” in Google Images and there is in fact fan art of these two together. I don’t know how much more amazing this could be.
Wilde’s thank you note to Whitman:
“Before I leave America I must see you again–there is no one in this wide great world of America whom I love and honour so much. With warm affection, and honourable admiration, Oscar Wilde.” http://biblioklept.org/2012/04/12/oscar-wildes-le…
😀
Freaking love alllllll of this. The frankly god-like writing style if the article, the love-affair between two lovely awesome poets (both males, sooooooo salacious!), the obvious ‘I totes got laid’ twinkle both of them had after their rendezvous! Agh! Ambrosia!