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« on: June 18, 2003, 04:55:52 PM »
Hi Vlad, if you can find it, there is a very useful book called Sexual Heretics, edited by Brian Reade and published in 1970, that reprinted a lot of these 1890s poets who challenged the literary orthodoxy of the day with their daring queer subject-matter (and often explored obscure fixed forms in a fascinatingly creative way--Ezra Pound, of course, had complete contempt for any poet who worked in fixed forms).
I wonder whether the portrayal of Gray in the Wilde film may have been based upon the account of Gray in a very gossipy book by Rupert Croft-Cooke, Feasting with Panthers. Croft-Cooke also wrote a book about Wilde's sex life that was loaded with salacious anecdotes about folks like John Gray and his very twisted lover, Andre Raffalovich.
As for Bosie Douglas, I don't think he was ever taken very seriously as a poet, though he desperately wished to be. Some of his poems do stand up surprisingly well, but at the time, with his title and his privileged background, everyone in London simply regarded him as a spoiled dilletante riding on O. W.'s coat-tails.
Sadly, Bosie grew more embittered and vitriolic as time went on, and he made life for Wilde's executor, the saintly Robbie Ross, as difficult as possible.
Excuse all this natter, maybe something here of interest,
G.