Seemingly in response to this shock, he published Les Faux-Monnayeurs (The Counterfeiters) in 1926, the only one of his works that he called a "novel." Like many of his other texts, Les Faux-Monnayeurs presents the failure of heterosexual unions and the substitution of homosexual relationships.

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The families Molinier and Profitendieu are guilty of infidelities past and present. The only relationship that ultimately succeeds is that of Eduard and his young nephew Olivier Molinier, who are clearly based on Gide and Marc Allégret. "It was for him [Allégret], to win his attention, his esteem, that I wrote Les Faux-Monnayeurs, just as all my preceding books were written under the influence of Em., or in the vain hope of convincing her," Gide wrote in his Journal 1889-39.

The relationship between Eduard and Oliver also furnished Gide an opportunity to make a case for , which Gide saw as permissible because it had been honored in ancient Greece and Rome.

Corydon

That case is further elaborated in Corydon (1924). Written in the form of four Socratic dialogues between a narrator and Corydon--a former doctor preparing a text entitled Défense de la pédérastie (In Defense of Pederasty)--the work is a witty and ironic treatise in defense of homosexuality.

In it, Gide rethinks Western hegemonic culture by examining homosexuality's civilizing influence on ancient Greek society. Corydon points out for example that historical periods in which homosexuality was socially acceptable were not decadent, but rather saw great artistic achievements.

Corydon's defense of homosexuality is further strengthened by an examination of homosexual practices among certain animals, and by a discussion of such ancient texts as Plutarch's La vie de Pélopidas--which proposes the strength of an army composed of homosexual lovers--and the fifth book of Diodore de Sicile--which outlines certain homosexual tendencies among the ancient Saxons.

Si le grain ne meurt (If It Die)

The limited publication of Corydon was not well received, but the republication of Gide's autobiography Si le grain ne meurt in 1926 (only thirteen copies had been printed in 1921) caused a scandal, largely because of its frank and intimate revelations concerning his homosexual orientation and experiences.

In many of his other works, the author's homosexuality was alluded to, but through rather ambiguous and subtle means, such as a certain indifference toward women and an intense curiosity about the masculine sex. In Gide's novels, notes Philippe Lejeune, "It is left up to the reader to either venture to the conclusion, or to not really understand at all."

In his autobiography, however, Gide attempted to recount more clearly and explicitly his homosexual awakenings and his coming out. The inner conflict that Gide attempted to describe was not the acceptance of his homosexual orientation but the struggle against the strict social codes that had been ingrained in him from an early age.

His masked homosexual orientation and the nonconsummation of his marriage were not Gide's only secrets. He had also engaged in an affair with Elisabeth Van Rysselberghe, the daughter of long-time friends; a union that resulted in the birth of Catherine in 1923, Gide's only offspring, whom he eventually adopted.

Gide's Last Years

Although he refused a nomination to the French Academy, Gide accepted an honorary doctorate from Oxford University in 1947. That same year, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature.

Gide's last major work Thésée (Theseus, 1946) perhaps best gives voice to his feelings concerning his art. Theseus, pondering his life, feels that it has been lived in the service of mankind. He regrets none of his actions and hopes that his work will serve future generations.

"C'est consentant que j'approche la mort solitaire. J'ai goûté des biens de la terre. Il m'est doux de penser qu'après moi, grâce à moi, les hommes se reconnaîtront plus heureux, meilleurs et plus libre. Pour le bien de l'humanité future, j'ai fait mon oeuvre. J'ai vécu."

("I face death alone willingly. I've tasted the best of life. It is pleasing to me to think that after I'm gone, thanks to me, mankind will be happier, better and freer. For the benefit of future man, I created my work. I lived.")

Just as Theseus courageously battled the Minotaur, so Gide courageously used his homosexuality as a means of defying and challenging his suffocatingly strict moral and religious upbringing, the "monsters" of repressive traditions.

The impressive body of scholarly writing that has been devoted to the study of Gide and his works clearly illustrates that he now occupies an important place in twentieth-century literature.

The contributions of gay men and lesbians to twentieth-century French literature have been closely intertwined with the course of mainstream literature.

Before Stonewall, censorship of the theater caused authors to encode homosexual content in publicly-presented plays.

Despite the widespread homophobia in the Modernist movement, several of its practitioners were homosexual; some of them wrote openly about homosexuality, and the groundwork was laid for the gay liberation movement.

Since World War II, the gay male novel has progressively flourished in England and especially in America.

An outspoken homosexual, Jean Cocteau was a prolific poet, novelist, critic, essayist, artist, and filmmaker.

One of the leading American composers of the twentieth century, David Diamond created music that is melodic and lyrical even as it jumps with modern energy.

Lord Alfred Douglas is remembered today for his tumultuous association with Oscar Wilde and as a minor poet.

One of the most influential and most misunderstood of modern philosophers, Friedrich Nietzsche in his work searched for a primal joie de vivre that he felt had been distorted by religion and that he was unable to realize in his own life.

No ancient is more instructive about pederasty than the Greek biographer and essayist Plutarch.

Poet, translator, literary and art critic, and short story writer, Edouard Roditi was associated with most of the twentieth-century's avant-garde literary movements from Surrealism to post-modernism.

Oscar Wilde is important both as an accomplished writer and as a symbolic figure who exemplified a way of being homosexual at a pivotal moment in the emergence of gay consciousness.

A trailblazer in post-Stonewall gay theater, Cal Yeomans explored sex and sexuality so directly in his critically-acclaimed plays that it made his work difficult to produce even in the gay community.