From jbutrica@morgan.ucs.mun.ca Mon Dec 10 07:42:26 2001 Received: from mailscan5.cac.washington.edu (mailscan5.cac.washington.edu [140.142.32.14]) by lists.u.washington.edu (8.11.6+UW01.08/8.11.6+UW01.10) with SMTP id fBAFgOn159974 for ; Mon, 10 Dec 2001 07:42:24 -0800 Received: FROM mxu3.u.washington.edu BY mailscan5.cac.washington.edu ; Mon Dec 10 07:42:23 2001 -0800 Received: from cerberus.ucs.mun.ca (cerberus.ucs.mun.ca [134.153.2.162]) by mxu3.u.washington.edu (8.12.1+UW01.12/8.12.1+UW01.12) with ESMTP id fBAFgMvI017875 for ; Mon, 10 Dec 2001 07:42:22 -0800 Received: from [134.153.128.98] (drusus.clas.mun.ca [134.153.128.98]) by cerberus.ucs.mun.ca (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id MAA15129 for ; Mon, 10 Dec 2001 12:12:20 -0330 (NST) Date: Mon, 10 Dec 2001 12:12:20 -0330 (NST) X-Sender: jbutrica@pop.morgan.ucs.mun.ca Message-Id: In-Reply-To: <001101c180c5$78a0c7c0$b5ec1ec4@al40> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" To: classics@u.washington.edu From: James Butrica Subject: Re: The unspeakable vice of the Greeks? >A look at "the dictionaries" mentioned by John Isles may suggest a further >reason for modern student (and other) confusions in re "pederasty". The >1956 Shorter OED (giving "paed-" as the primary form) defines it succinctly >as "sodomy". The 1995 Concise OED (preferring "ped-") gives "anal >intercourse between a man and a boy". A 1977 Webster comes in between the >two. Now, assuming that none of these is a tendentious definition (and I >have run across one or two recent Concise OED ones that do not appear to >reflect usage very well), it would seem that we have modern English usages >that are at odds with the Greek, being either far more broad, or rather more >narrow and specific. The earlier sense might, however, explain why >Forster's characters, who are not pederasts in the ancient or the 1995 COED >senses, nevertheless seem to define themselves using some of the loci >classici for Greek pederasty. > > >Terrence Lockyer >Johannesburg, South Africa Another possible reason is the influence of Greek literature in the Victorian and Edwardian periods; Richard Jenkyns' "The Victorians and Ancient Greece" has some useful information on the way that homosexuals of the time, seeking a self-definition independent of contemporary condemnation, turned to classical Greece as a culture in which same-sex relations were (under certain circumstances) not only accepted but encouraged. The *Phaedrus* itself is an important text in this regard, and (by the way) Jenkyns' book is one that should be read by everyone interested in Stoppard's "The Invention of Love." James Lawrence Peter Butrica Department of Classics The Memorial University of Newfoundland St. John's, Newfoundland A1C 5S7 (709) 737-7914 .