Yes David but while intra-class homosexual encounters were
clandestinely accepted, Eugenides being a Smyrna merchant would not
qualify for that. A liaison with him would have been seen differently.
Diana
Sent from my iPod
On May 10, 2010, at 3:28 AM, David Boyd <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> If I may suggest, Mr Eugenides might be seen as part of just one
> intertwined theme in TWL of arid/wasted/casual/forced sexual
> relations at a personal level, along with, at a geopolitical one,
> the post-WW1 disintegration of the former (eastern) European
> Empires, Ssuch as Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman.
>
> Smyrna for example was prominent in the news around that time,
> regarding post-WW1 ceding of that area from Turkey to Greece.
> ps Carroll
>
> Whatever the draconian penalties for it, 'sodomy' was a very well-
> established (almost institutionalised) part of English culture,
> especially in closed, exclusively-male communities such as the Royal
> Navy; the Church and especially the 'public' schools (Eton etc.),
> where most of the nation's future leaders and thinkers and writers
> grew up.
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