title: The Seduction of the Mediterranean: Writing, Art and Homosexual Fantasy
author:  Robert Aldrich 
description: In this original and well-researched study, Aldrich shows that a recurring motif in the literature and art of homosexuals from the 1750s to the 1950s was that of the Mediterranean, which was mythologized as a place where the homoerotic ideal of masculine beauty and virility could be fulfilled. The idea is exemplified in Thomas Mann's Death in Venice and in the works of over 40 writers examined here, from the German art historian Windelmann to Lord Byron and E. M. Forster, and many artists and photographers. During this period, many homosexual writers fled their Northern European homes to live in the Mediterranean, especially Italy, where the cultural climate was more hospitable. The fantasy lost its hold in the 1960s and 1970s with the emergence of the gay rights movement. Aldrich breaks new ground by revealing a unifying thread in homosexual culture long before the modern term subculture was invented.<br /><i>- Bryan Aubrey, Fairfield, Ia.</i><br />Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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  > > > _To my dad, for the_ Oresteia _and so much else_
  
  ‘Vice, in its true light, is so deformed, that it shocks us at first sight;
  and would hardly ever seduce us, if it did not at first wear the mask of some
  virtue.’
  
  Lord Chesterfield, _Letters to His Son on the Art of Becoming a Man of the
  World and a Gentleman_ , 1748
  
  CONTENTS
  
    1. BOOK ONE
  
      1. CHAPTER ONE
      2. CHAPTER TWO
      3. CHAPTER THREE
      4. PAMELA
      5. CHAPTER FOUR
      6. CHAPTER FIVE
      7. CHAPTER SIX
      8. CHAPTER SEVEN
      9. PAMELA
      10. CHAPTER EIGHT
      11. CHAPTER NINE
      12. CHAPTER TEN
      13. CHAPTER ELEVEN
      14. CHAPTER TWELVE
      15. CHAPTER THIRTEEN
      16. PAMELA
      17. CHAPTER FOURTEEN
      18. CHAPTER FIFTEEN
      19. CHAPTER SIXTEEN
      20. CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
      21. CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
      22. PAMELA
      23. CHAPTER NINETEEN
      24. CHAPTER TWENTY
      25. CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
      26. CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
    2. BOOK TWO
  
      1. CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
      2. PAMELA
      3.