Romantic Friendship

Before the advent of the twentieth century, romantic friendships between women were largely perceived as normal and socially acceptable.  Though male romantic friendships have not been as widely approved of, literary works from ancient epics, to elegies, to modern war movies celebrate intimate relationships between men.

Louisa May Alcott wrote two novels typical of the romantic friendship model.

Poet Lord George Gordon Byron's  (1788-1824) works often concealed his homosexual romances by using classical references. 

Lady Eleanor Butler (1739-1829) and Sarah Ponsonby (1755-1831), known as the Ladies of Llangollen, are an enduring emblem of female romantic friendship.
 

Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman (1852-1930) wrote many short stories characterized by passionate devotion between women.

Sarah Orne Jewett (1849-1909) is a major figure in the literature of female romantic friendship, the precursor of modern lesbian literature.

Herman Melville (1819-1891), the author of Moby Dick, expressed his homo-
sexuality in male-male romantic relation-
ships that occur frequently in his stories.

John Milton (1608-1674), perhaps the greatest poet in the English language, wrote several poems that suggest that he had a relatively enlightened view of same-sex intimacy.

Plato (427-327 B. C. E.), the ancient Greek philosopher, created many works that celebrate male-male love.

Poet Adrienne Rich (b. 1929) has aestheticized politics and politicized aesthetics.  She insists that her poems be forceful enough to change lives.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616)  included closely bonded female pairs and intimate male-male relationships in many plays, but his relationship with homosexuality is fiercely contested.

Alfred Lord Tennyson's (1809-1892) In Memoriam is the most beautiful homoerotic elegy in the English language, yet few doubt that he was sexually attracted to women.

Roman poet and writer Virgil
(70-19 B. C. E.) wrote approvingly of male-male love in many of his works.

Evelyn Waugh (1903-1966), a major twentieth-century English author, treated homosexuality paradoxically. He depicts some of his homosexual characters homoerotically, yet he subjects others to homophobic abuse.

American poet Walt Whitman (1819-1892) celebrated an ideal of manly love in both its spiritual and physical aspects.