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The Uranians were a little-known group of homosexual
poets who flourished between 1870 and 1930. Their name derives from the writings of Karl Heinrich Ulrichs who revived the Platonic theory of "heavenly" or "Uranian" pederasty. Their work was a characterized by a
sentimental infatuation with adolescent males, and conservative verse forms.
The chief poets of this clique were John Gambril
Nicholson, the Rev. E. E. Bradford, John Addington Symonds, Edmund John, and several other pseudonymous authors such as "Philebus" and "A. Newman". The flamboyantly
eccentric novelist Frederick Rolfe, also known as "Baron Corvo", was
a unifying presence in their social network. The fame of their work was limited by the Edwardian taboos of their day, the extremely small editions in which
their verse was promulgated, and the generally saccharine nature of their poetry.
Marginally associated with their world were more famous writers such as Oscar
Wilde and Edward Carpenter, as well as the obscure but
prophetic poet-printer Ralph Chubb, with his majestic lithographic volumes
celebrating the youthful male ideal. The Uranian quest to revive the Greek notion of paiderastia was not succesful;
later gay poets would look to the androphilic inspiration of Walt
Whitman and A. E. Housman instead.
Further information can be found in Love In Earnest, by Timothy d'Arch Smith.
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