{"id":2469,"date":"2025-04-28T03:56:25","date_gmt":"2025-04-28T03:56:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/victorianlit\/?p=2469"},"modified":"2025-04-28T03:56:25","modified_gmt":"2025-04-28T03:56:25","slug":"michael-field-and-classical-tradition-pederasty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/victorianlit\/2025\/04\/28\/michael-field-and-classical-tradition-pederasty\/","title":{"rendered":"Michael Field and Classical Tradition (Pederasty)"},"content":{"rendered":"

We know that \u201cMichael Field\u201d \u2013 Katherine Bradley and Edith Cooper \u2013 were both aunt and cousin and considered themselves married. We also know that they were, for a significant period of time, deeply surrounding themselves with Ancient Greek and pagan traditions. It informed their writing. Informed by both their sixteen-year age gap and that Katherine helped raise Edith when she was young, before they intertwined their lives into shared journals and shared rings, I want to offer \u201cMichael Field\u2019s\u201d poems in the context of the Ancient Greek tradition of pederasty.<\/p>\n

Pederasty isn\u2019t difficult to define but it can be difficult to discern. When I originally thought to write this post, I didn\u2019t anticipate the grey area that a concept, originating in a society with different accepted behavior and norms, has with our more current understanding of child-adult developmental differences, consent, and standards for behavior. According to Walter Penrose, Jr. in \u201cA World Away from Ours: Homoeroticism in the Classics Classroom,\u201d when distinguishing pederasty from pedophilia, writes that \u201cAncient Greek pederasty, the other hand, when it conformed to cultural norms, was controlled, involved education of the youth by his older lover, and in some cases may not have been sexual at all\u201d (238).<\/p>\n

Penrose goes on to cite primary sources that refer to the \u201cboy\u201d in a pederastic relationship to be one who \u201chad attained full height;\u201d that parental or guardian consent was required before a pederastic relationship could occur and that a chaperone might be present during the meetings. He makes sure to write that, at this period in time, the acceptable age for girls to enter into marriage was also much younger than is generally accepted today, and that \u201cboy\u201d as terminology could refer to a more adolescent boy as well as a man in a lower social class or who was enslaved.[1] <\/a>He notes that there seems to be some laws or regulations preventing nonconsensual or coerced relationships. He also acknowledges that sexual assault and rape did happen, but that pederastic relationships were ideally regulated, consented to, and without the connotations of pedophilia today.<\/p>\n

The most interesting thing that Penrose cites about Ancient Greek pederastic relationships was its emphasis on education, rather than any form of sexual relationship. In some forms of the pederastic relationship, the older man could enter into a ritualistic \u201ccapture\u201d of the younger boy, mimicking some traditional practices of heterosexual marriage, as in Sparta. Pederasty, used as a form of apprenticeship, could encompass spiritual love rather than physical, though of course as a concept it was nuanced.<\/p>\n

\u201cMichael Field,\u201d then, can be viewed as encompassing the ideals of Ancient Greek pederasty. They felt romantic love for each other and it is assumed that they had a sexual relationship, but given their age gap and their focus on artistry and writing together, in some ways their relationship embodies the pederastic emphasis on education. Additionally, the concept of pederasty being a form of socially-accepted same-sex marriage in the ancient tradition, if they were aware of it, was likely alluring for them.<\/p>\n

Keep this nuanced understanding of pederasty in mind when thinking about \u201cMichael Field\u201d and their love for the traditions and concepts of Ancient Greece. In Underneath the Bough<\/em>, their poem \u201cLove doth never know,\u201d Katherine and Edith write that \u201cWere its hopes removed,\/ Where itself disproved\/ By cold reason,\/ In its happy season\/ Love would be beloved\u201d (11). This book is surrounded by references to classic mythos. In this poem, \u201cMichael Field\u201d is asking: even if the love between people has become hopeless and \u201citself disproved,\u201d it still would have been \u201cbeloved\u201d in \u201cits happy season.\u201d Although their relationship is a bit ethically questionable and \u201cdisproved\/ by cold reason,\u201d as is pederasty, in our current understanding of accepted behavior, would not the real love felt then, in \u201cits happy season,\u201d still be \u201cbeloved?\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> He also notes that the concept of \u201cchildhood\u201d or \u201cadolescence\u201d as necessary developmental phases into adulthood is a much more modern practice \u2013 it was more common for a child to begin working very young. One must also, Penrose says, take into account shorter lifespans and so shorter developmental time periods.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We know that \u201cMichael Field\u201d \u2013 Katherine Bradley and Edith Cooper \u2013 were both aunt and cousin and considered themselves married. We also know that they were, for a significant period of time, deeply surrounding themselves with Ancient Greek and pagan traditions. It informed their writing. Informed by both their sixteen-year age gap and that … Continue reading Michael Field and Classical Tradition (Pederasty)<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5320,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[135984],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2469","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2025-posts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/victorianlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2469","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/victorianlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/victorianlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/victorianlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5320"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/victorianlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2469"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/victorianlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2469\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/victorianlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2469"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/victorianlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2469"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/victorianlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2469"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}