Uranian Poetry - Origin of The Term

Origin of The Term

Their name is commonly believed to derive from the work of the German theorist and campaigner Karl Heinrich Ulrichs in the 1860s, with the name later taken up by John Addington Symonds and others who rendered it as 'Uranian'. However, it has been argued that this derivation and coinage, at least for the English-speaking countries, is independent of Ulrichs's "coinage". In his work Secreted Desires: The Major Uranians: Hopkins, Pater and Wilde, Michael M. Kaylor writes:

Given that the prominent Uranians were trained Classicists, I consider ludicrous the view, widely held, that ‘Uranian’ derives from the German apologias and legal appeals written by Karl-Heinrich Ulrichs in the 1860s, though his coinage Urning — employed to denote ‘a female psyche in a male body’ — does indeed derive from the same Classical sources, particularly the Symposium. Further, the Uranians did not consider themselves the possessors of a ‘female psyche’; the Uranians are not known, as a group, to have read works such as Forschungen über das Räthsel der mannmännlichen Liebe (Research on the Riddle of Male-Male Love); the Uranians were opposed to Ulrichs’s claims for androphilic, homoerotic liberation at the expense of the paederastic; and, even when a connection was drawn to such Germanic ideas and terminology, it appeared long after the term ‘Uranian’ had become commonplace within Uranian circles, hence was not a ‘borrowing from’ but a ‘bridge to’ the like-minded across the Channel by apologists such as Symonds. (p. xiii, footnote)

Read more about this topic:  Uranian Poetry

Famous quotes containing the words origin of the, origin of, origin and/or term:

    In the woods in a winter afternoon one will see as readily the origin of the stained glass window, with which Gothic cathedrals are adorned, in the colors of the western sky seen through the bare and crossing branches of the forest.
    Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)

    For, though the origin of most of our words is forgotten, each word was at first a stroke of genius, and obtained currency, because for the moment it symbolized the world to the first speaker and to the hearer. The etymologist finds the deadest word to have been once a brilliant picture.
    Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)

    There are certain books in the world which every searcher for truth must know: the Bible, the Critique of Pure Reason, the Origin of Species, and Karl Marx’s Capital.
    —W.E.B. (William Edward Burghardt)

    I shall not seek and I will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term as your President.
    Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908–1973)