Jewish Decadence, 1890’s Style

I’ll always maintain that Wilde was no homosexual martyr. Thinking his celebrity would protect him, he brought the Marquess of Queensbury’s lawsuit upon himself. Even his “Love that dare not speak its name” speech spoke about an attraction between men that was both chaste and intellectual — and had no relationship to his dealings with London rentboys. A much more genuine martyr to decadence is Simeon Solomon, an 1890’s British pre-Raphaelite who’s career was cut short by his repeated arrests for sodomy. The Simeon Solomon research archive keeps his humid, elaborately detailed, lush lipped work this’away…