| Uranian | |
The term Uranian derives from Plato's Symposium, in which Pausanias distinguishes between Heavenly Aphrodite (Aphrodite Urania) and Common Aphrodite (Aphrodite Pandeumia). According to Pausanias, men who are inspired by Heavenly Love "are attracted towards the male sex, and value it as being naturally the stronger and more intelligent . . . their intention is to form a lasting attachment and partnership for life." The term Urning (derived from Urania) was popularized throughout Europe by the Austrian legal official Karl Heinrich Ulrichs (1825-1895), who argued that the love of some men for other men was inborn and therefore natural and unblameworthy. Ulrichs' term was adapted in England as Uranian and was used at first to embrace all homosexuals. More narrowly, it was used to designate an elitist movement in English poetry dating from the close of the Victorian era to about 1930 that celebrated love for adolescent boys. The Uranian writers, chiefly minor poets, were inspired by feelings akin to the paiderasteia (pederasty) of the ancient Greeks, but were far more circumspect and clandestine because of the prevailing cultural attitudes of their time.
