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| <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2//EN"> | |
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| <TITLE>OSCAR WILDE: "What is 'The Love That Dare Not Speak Its Name?' It is beautiful, it is fine, it is the noblest form of affection."</TITLE> | |
| <META NAME="DESCRIPTION" CONTENT="NAMBLA's goal is to end the oppression of men and boyswho have mutually consensual relationships. Our membership is open to everyone sympathetic to man/boy love in particular and sexual freedom in general."> | |
| <META NAME="KEYWORDS" CONTENT="NAMBLA, NORTH AMERICAN MAN/BOY LOVE ASSOCIATION, MAN/BOY LOVE, BOYS, BOYS SPEAK OUT ON MAN/BOY LOVE, WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING ABOUT NAMBLA AND MAN/BOY LOVE, POEMS OF LOVE AND LIBERATION, NAMBLA BULLETIN, NAMBLA TOPICS, NAMBLA JOURNAL, AGEISM, YOUTH, GAY YOUTH, INTERNATIONAL LESBIAN AND GAY ASSOCIATION, ILGA, INTERNATIONAL GAY AND LESBIAN YOUTH ORGANIZATION, DAVID THORSTAD, MICHAEL C. BAURMANN, ALLEN GINSBERG, HARRY HAY, JIM KEPNER, JOHN PRESTON, WALT WHITMAN, CAMILLE PAGLIA, JANE RULE, THE AGE TABOO, PAT CALIFIA, OSCAR WILDE"> | |
| <META NAME="GENERATOR" CONTENT="Mozilla/3.01Gold (Win16; I) [Netscape]"> | |
| </HEAD> | |
| <BODY TEXT="#904050" BGCOLOR="#FFFFE8" LINK="#1F74CF" VLINK="#0070FF" ALINK="#0070E3"> | |
| <H2 ALIGN=CENTER><FONT COLOR="#0000FF">OSCAR WILDE</FONT></H2> | |
| <CENTER><P><IMG SRC="colorbar.gif" HEIGHT=3 WIDTH=600></P></CENTER> | |
| <UL> | |
| <P><FONT COLOR="#0000FF"><B>Prosecutor</B>:</FONT> <I>What is <FONT COLOR="#0000FF">"the | |
| love that dare not speak its name"</FONT>?</I></P> | |
| <P><FONT COLOR="#0000FF"><B>Wilde</B>:</FONT> <B><I>"The Love that | |
| dare not speak its name" in this century is such a great affection | |
| of an elder for a younger man as there was between David and Jonathan, | |
| such as Plato made the very basis of his philosophy, and such as you find | |
| in the sonnets of Michelangelo and Shakespeare. It is that deep, spiritual | |
| affection that is as pure as it is perfect. It dictates and pervades great | |
| works of art like those of Shakespeare and Michelangelo, and those two | |
| letters of mine, such as they are. It is in this century misunderstood, | |
| so much misunderstood that it may be described as the "Love that dare | |
| not speak its name," and on account of it I am placed where I am now. | |
| It is beautiful, it is fine, it is the noblest form of affection. There | |
| is nothing unnatural about it. It is intellectual, and it repeatedly exists | |
| between an elder and a younger man, when the elder man has intellect, and | |
| the younger man has all the joy, hope and glamour of life before him. That | |
| it should be so, the world does not understand. The world mocks at it and | |
| sometimes puts one in the pillory for it."</I></B></P> | |
| <P><I>[The speech caused a loud burst of applause to erupt from the gallery | |
| of the courtroom.]</I></P> | |
| <P> <FONT SIZE=+1><B><FONT COLOR="#0000FF">~ | |
| Oscar Wilde, </FONT></B><FONT COLOR="#804040">playwright</FONT></FONT></P> | |
| </UL> | |
| <CENTER><P><IMG SRC="colorbar.gif" HEIGHT=3 WIDTH=600></P></CENTER> | |
| <P>The story of Oscar Wilde can be found in an excellent small book, <B><I>The | |
| Early Homosexual Rights Movement (1864-1935)</I></B>, by John Lauritsen | |
| and David Thorstad, published by Times Change Press, New York.</P> | |
| <CENTER><P><IMG SRC="colorbar.gif" HEIGHT=3 WIDTH=600></P></CENTER> | |
| <P><A HREF="index.htm"><IMG SRC="m0p7nau7.gif" BORDER=0 HEIGHT=58 WIDTH=58></A>Copyright | |
| © NAMBLA, 1997.</P> | |
| </BODY> | |
| </HTML> |