My Year With Proust - Day 308

And lastly - according at least to the first theory which I sketched in outline at the time, which we shall see subjected to some modification in the sequel, and in which this would have angered them above all else had not the paradox been hidden from their eyes by the very illusion that made them see and live - lovers who are almost precluded from the possibility of that love that hope of which gives them the strength to endure so many risks and so much loneliness, since they are enamoured of precisely the type of man who had nothing feminine about him, who is not an invert and consequently cannot love them in return; with the result that their desire would be for ever unappeased did not their money procure for them real men, and their imagination end by making them take for real men the inverts to whom they have prostituted themselves.  Their honour precarious, their liberty provisional, lasting only until the discovery of their crime; their position unstable, like that of the poet one day feted in every drawing room and applauded in every theatre in London, and the next driven from every lodging, unable  to find a pillow up which to lay his head . . .

Marcel Proust, Cities of the Plain, p. 638

Proust continues his discussion of M. de Charlus and the loneliness of homosexuals in the society of his age.  He also offers his own theory on why homosexuals choose "real men," who in the end "cannot love them in return; with the result that their desire would be for ever unappeased."

One can't read the following line without thinking of Oscar Wilde: "Their honour precarious, their liberty provisional, lasting only until the discovery of their crime; their position unstable, like that of the poet one day feted in every drawing room and applauded in every theatre in London, and the next driven from every lodging, unable  to find a pillow up which to lay his head . . ."  This is apropos of nothing, but I suddenly remembered how Wilde would use the pseudonym Sebastian Melmoth during his exile, a combination of St. Sebastian (full of arrows, no doubt) and Melmoth, from Charles Maturin's Melmoth the Wanderer (my favorite obscure novel). I just had this thought that I'd like to teach a Heroines & Heroes class and have the students read Melmoth the Wanderer, and we could explore the notion of the anti-hero before there was such a thing.  OK, having gotten that out of my system (sort of - what about a travel course based on Melmoth the Wanderer?).  OK, now I have it out of my system.  Well, almost.  I had this thought the other day that I'd like to teach a Heroines & Heroes, probably in my last semester at Champlain, where we focused on David Copperfield.  How great would that be?  I told my friend Kathy the other day that if she ever saw David Copperfield on the shelf at the bookstore next to my name that she should assume that I was going to be retiring that semester, probably unannounced.