scholarly journals Motifs of homosexuality in Virginia Woolf’s Orlando

Ars Aeterna ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 75-93
Author(s):  
Nina Kellerová ◽  
Eva Reid

Abstract To avoid the stigma of societal dissaproval, love for somebody of the same sex has often been hidden from the declinatory views of the public; however, it has also been secretively transcribed into a broad spectrum of art. Virginia Woolf embroidered her homosexuality into the grotesque lines of Orlando. At the time, Woolf was engaged in an intense lesbian relationship with author Vita Sackville-West, who served as a model for the work’s main character. Woolf proclaimed her masterpiece “A Biography”, mirroring the duality of her own and Vita’s character, the perpetual beauty of the book’s hero, enduring for centuries, and his subtle gender transition. In the paper, we discuss some of the homosexual motifs in Orlando, which were formed by different influences, including the queer movement, ancient Greek literature and feminism.

2017 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Gary Lilienthal

AbstractThis paper by-passes the various public tropes, such as “marriage equality”, and concentrates on determining whether or not a same-sex marriage law would be sophistically effective in Australia. It revives the ancient Greek sophistical rhetorical skill of proposing a law, and applies it as a critical context to the topic of legislating for same-sex marriage. The objective is to assess whether or not a same-sex marriage law will be effective in its legislative objects. It proposes to discuss whether the parliament could introduce such a law so that the law’s objects were achieved effectively in the public mind. Argument will try to show that introducing a law to create same-sex marriage would fail because of subsisting priestly legislation on the subject of marriage. Its two hypotheses are that the canon law and other English priestly legislation restrict the scope of marriage regulation, and marriage could not be re-defined to cover same-sex marriage. Sections of the paper examining the law historically employ the historiographical method of identifying underlying norms, the effect of which is occasional reverse chronologies. The article’s conclusion will assert that a statute for legal and duly registered same-sex marriage likely would be, according to sophistical rhetorical reasoning, a fiction misrepresenting the truth of the subsisting legal and social institutions of marriage.


2015 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 358-381
Author(s):  
Hanna Tervanotko

In this article I analyze disbelief of the divine messages transmitted by female figures in the Jewish texts Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum, Jubilees, and the Sibylline Oracles. After a careful reading of these passages I turn to the portrayal of the figure of Cassandra in ancient Greek literature. While Cassandra’s prophecies are truthful, she is not believed and instead is accused of being mentally ill. Significantly, Cassandra does not appear randomly in ancient Greek texts; her depiction invites the public to ask questions concerning truth and persuasion. This article considers the treatment of Cassandra as a possible model for understanding the characterizations of women prophets as unreliable in ancient Jewish texts. Finally I argue that whereas in Greek texts both men and women appear as unreliable prophets, in the Jewish texts unreliability appears to be a female characteristic.


Author(s):  
Gideon Nisbet

As a student at Oxford, the young Oscar Wilde was often seen with his copies of an acclaimed (and locally infamous) new popular survey of Greek literature, John Addington Symonds’s Studies of the Greek Poets (in two series, 1873/6). Those copies survive, and are extensively annotated. Although they must be read with caution, these annotations show Wilde to have been a widely read and increasingly confident young classicist, and hint at his nascent ambition as a translator. Together with relevant manuscript material, the annotations take on more than merely academic significance: they show how the young Wilde, at Symonds’s prompting, was turning ancient Greek cultural insights into present-day possibilities. His intense formative engagement with Studies was to prove fundamental to the mature Wilde’s self-fashioning as a novelist, playwright, and cultural phenomenon.


2018 ◽  
Vol 74 (4) ◽  
pp. 396-408
Author(s):  
Daniel Ude Asue

This essay discusses Same-Sex Marriage Prohibition Bill in Nigeria, with a focus on the contribution of the Nigerian Catholic Church to the law. Though the Catholic Church in Nigeria did not actively contribute towards the public debates about homosexuality that resulted into the Same-Sex Marriage Prohibition Bill it nevertheless welcomed the bill. However, the official teachings of the Catholic Church and elucidations from the Catholic Bishops Conference of Nigeria could potentially contribute to creating an inclusive society. In what way can we potentially utilize the principles of Catholic Social Teaching to make room for an inclusion of homosexual persons in the life of the church and in society?


Author(s):  
Alain Klarsfeld ◽  
Gaëlle Cachat-Rosset

Equality is a concept open to many interpretations in the legal domain, with equality as equal treatment dominating the scene in the bureaucratic nation-state. But there are many possibilities offered by legal instruments to go beyond strict equality of treatment, in order to ensure equality of opportunity (a somehow nebulous concept) and equality of outcomes. Legislation can be sorted along a continuum, from the most discriminatory ones (“negative discrimination laws”) such as laws that prescribe prison sentences for people accused of being in same-sex relationships, to the most protective ones, labeled as “mandated outcome laws” (i.e., laws that prescribe quotas for designated groups) through “legal vacuum” (when laws neither discriminate nor protect), “restricted equal treatment” (when data collection by employers to monitor progress is forbidden or restricted), “equal treatment” (treating everyone the same with no consideration for outcomes), “encouraged progress” (when data collection to monitor progress on specific outcomes is mandatory for employers), and mandated progress (when goals have to be fixed and reached within a defined time frame on specified outcomes). Specific countries’ national legislation testify that some countries moved gradually along the continuum by introducing laws of increasing mandate, while (a few) others introduced outcome mandates directly and early on, as part of their core legal foundations. The public sector tends to be more protective than the private sector. A major hurdle in most countries is the enforcement of equality laws, mostly relying on individuals initiating litigation.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document