LatinLanguage.us

I should know better than to get into arguments at parties–a few beers in and everyone’s an expert. Basically–like a typical talk-radio hosts–I let the situation get the better of me and started making indefensible claims about the Roman poet Virgil; bear with me there’s a point in all this.

Basically the conversation was about the value of the arts in general: Are they strictly for entertainment, or is there some larger value in, say, reading Dickens or understanding opera. Since Latin literature is my own personal interest, I argued that art is of course entertaining–if nobody liked Silius Italicus, I doubt copies of the Punica would have survived, so I guess director Michael Bay has a chance. But art also provides a detailed window into a different culture, and there is some practical value in comparing that culture with our own. For one thing, it will often expose the unspoken assumptions and values of our own culture; if someone wants to, say, compare reality TV with Roman gladiator shows, they really need to do better than make an offhand reference to the Coliseum and rant about the slippery slope (Quamquam cornum meum canam, here’s an old piece on Jon&Kate that illustrates a better approach).

Anyway, though I stand by that point, the quality of that argument deteriorated thru the evening thanks to the continued ingestion of alcohol. Sadly, it reached a level where we were discussing the sexual orientation of the Roman poet Virgil (as a stand-in for all ancient literary figures–it’s too embarassing to recount even in a blog post). The correct answer to the question is, we simply can’t tell. Eclogue 2 is a tanatlizing clue–although as the earliest of Virgil’s bona-fide works it is a somewhat slavish imitation of the Greek Theocritus, so who knows how much of it reflects the poet’s real sentiments. But even the modern term “gay"–and I don’t mean just homosexuality, but all the attendant cultural implications–hardly has an equivalent in ancient Rome. The best my sober self can say is that it is quite possible that Virgil was homosexual–perhaps even more likely than for other Roman figures of the same era, but even so Virgil certainluy didn’t display the “gay sensibility” of 19th- and 20th- century writers like Oscar Wilde, James Merrill, or John Ashbury.

I guess what ultimately got me riled up was the way many people use the term “gay"–unfairly in my opinion–to ghettoize artistic work that doesn’t directly engage the heterosexual identity (for the modern culture, that means movies with car chases and buxom blondes). Musical theatre is the most common example; I personally enjoy musicals and appreciate their 20th-century development into a true American art form. But I suspect there is a large contingent of young males (that covereted 18-34 demo) who would instantly dismiss a masterpiece like “Carousel” as gay–even if they personally have no issue with homosexuality. I guess I take the use of the word “gay"–at least in this context–as a more general pejorative, somewhat like the anti-Romani connotation in the word “gyp". It’s a trap I shouldn’t have fallen into, and to anyone there who happens to stuble across this blog, I apologize.

Anyway, that’s my story from an embarassing weekend…so how did you spend your Saturday night?