The 21st century has been the time for the LGBT community to enter society’s spotlight rather than just hide in the shadows. Famous current idols such as Elliot Page and Jojo Siwa are among the well-known LGBT celebrities who are paving the way for younger LGBTQ+ folx. However, you may have heard the phrase “everyone is gay now,” or something along those lines that makes it seem as though the LGBT community is a 21st-century matter. Or perhaps you were led to believe that history hid the LGBT in complete obscurity. I hereby present three famous writers that have molded literary history and who were also part of the LGBT community.
Sappho
According to resources gathered by the Poetry Foundation, Sappho was a poetess of ancient Greece, born around 620 BCE. Since then, she has been compared to Homer and known popularly as the “10th muse.” Her life is such a mystery that many of her biographical details are speculations. However, both her poems and the school she led for unwed women are well-known. Her poems were written as songs, giving the “Sappho metric” that would be studied in academia centuries later. Erotism, vindictiveness, odes, and friendly love are the themes of her poems. Her poems were more individualist compared to the epic poems of the time. The island where she lived and ran her school was where the term “Lesbian” would originate. Its synonym, “sapphic”, would come from Sappho’s name. As the Poetry Foundation had written in their biography of her, “to rethink and reimagine Sappho both as a historical figure and an important figure in debates about sexuality and gender.”
Sappho’s Ode to Aphrodite
Oscar Wilde
Considered a novelist, poet, dramatist, and wit, Oscar Wilde was born in Ireland in the 1850s and died near the end of the new century, 1900. You may have heard of his only novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray. Series, movies, and art have been made out of the novel, among endless student papers. His other works include Lady Windermere’s Fan and The Importance of Being Earnest, both of which he wrote near the end of his life. He was also known as a spokesman for the Aesthetic Movement, which is based on the emphasis on beauty and stylistic choices.
Oscar Wilde’s homosexuality was hardly a secret. However, “sodomy” was considered a crime in his times. Britannica.com records, “in the press to his languid poses and aesthetic costume of a velvet jacket, knee breeches, and black silk stockings, Wilde for 12 months exhorted the Americans to love beauty and art….”
He would run into trouble due to his “friendship” with Lord Alfred Douglas (emphasis on the quotation marks), whose father had been the Marquess of Queensberry. The marquess accused Wilde of sodomy. Sadly, Wilde would be found guilty and sentenced to two years of hard labor.
On his deathbed, Oscar Wilde would be accepted by the Catholic Church. On the other hand, he remains a gay icon for the literary masses. The Picture of Dorian Gray is so vaguely homosexual that it was used in court, as this quote by the side character Basil Hallward would give about the beautiful protagonist, Dorian Gray:
“Don’t take away from me the one person who gives to my art whatever charm it possesses: my life as an artist depends on him.”
Virginia Woolf
According to Time.com, Virginia Woolf is one of the literary titans of the 20th century. Her works include To the Lighthouse and Mrs. Dalloway, but her involvement against child abuse and supporting feminist ideas were not to be understated. The Colorado State University has an article on Virginia Woolf that is dedicated to LGBT History Month, which provides the following information: Despite having been married, she had very close relationships with women (and considering how deep friendships with women were and still are normalized, that is meaningful). One that is less speculative and more concrete is her lover Vita Sackville-West, who would be the inspiration for Woolf’s Orlando: A Biography. The novel has a poet protagonist who has a sex change from man to woman and lives for centuries, meeting literary figures.
“Better was it to go unknown and leave behind you an arch, then to burn like a meteor and leave no dust.”
― Virginia Woolf, Orlando
Those were only three out of the many LGBT literary figures in history. I hope this has given you inspiration, hope, and new additions to your TBR list.