Classical works reinforce hierarchy

The literature of antiquity is all seen from the perspective of the ruling class; its characters are exploiters, controllers, conquerors. There is where the sympathies of the narrator invariably lies [sic] and it is the elite audience for whom the author is playing. The victims by and large have walk-on parts; they do not matter. That is the truth of the slaves in Gone with the Wind, no matter that Hattie McDaniel won an Oscar for her forceful portrayal of Mammy in the film. The slaves are so unrealistically portrayed that no one with the slightest knowledge of the sociology of the antebellum American South could possibly consider the characters identifiable. Think of Theresienstadt, the so-called model concentration camp.

Then it was that I began unconsciously to find my lifetime's subject matter unpalatable. The glorification of cruelty, the self-pity of the exploiter and despoiler, these were the stuff of ancient literature, and adopted easily by ruling classes throughout history. Our obvious spiritual ancestors, the English aristocracy at their Greek and Latin at Eton and Oxford, the German Junker class, were then embraced by the bourgeoisie in both those countries and in the United States as a means of empowerment. Children of this class could reinforce their notions of superiority by recourse to identifying with Aeneas or Achilles or Hector and their consorts.

Charles Rowan Beye, My Husband and My Wives: A Gay Man's Odyssey (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2012), p.

Octogenarian is reminded of teaching stoned students in the '60s

We encountered a remarkable change in the student body, particularly the new graduate students in classics, which forecasted a general shift in the culture of American youth. In the fall term of the academic year 1964-65, as I approached the spot where my Homer seminar was scheduled, I saw the students unaccountably standing outside the building as though waiting, and moreover they all seemed to be smoking the same cigarette, which they were passing around among themselves. Once we had reassembled and I began, I quickly sensed an undertone of hilarity, which in the course of the two hours occasionally broke into giggles and even laughter at what I had to think was only minimally humorous. They were stoned, of course, but I had no understanding of this. At least not then, but it rapidly became an obvious feature of more events than I would like. I began to recognize a new kind of insouciance, a marvelous disconnect, sometimes adding a wonderful long-distance focus on the material at hand, sometimes just descending into a vague pit where any understanding was threatening to be demolished. Ironically enough, it resembled what I now encounter all the time in my dotage as my friends and I carry on conversations in which we often forget the thread in the middle of speaking. The only things missing are the giggles and the munchies.

Charles Rowan Beye, My Husband and My Wives: A Gay Man's Odyssey (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2012), p.

Faculty hiring, 1950s-style

Yale in those days was an old boys' club into which I was pleased to see that I could fit. The very manner in which I was hired has always amused and gratified me. At the December 1956 Philadelphia meeting of the American Philological Association, Professor Dow had invited me to join his group for dinner at the famous, and expensive, Bookbinders Restaurant in the city, an event charged with hidden significance, since Dow was much too cheap to frequent such places ordinarily. In addition to three or four of his students, Dow had invited Frank Brown, who . . . was the chair of the Yale Classics Department. Fifty years ago when the old-boy network controlled the job process there was no neutral mechanism for those offering jobs and those seeking them. Opportunities were not posted on a public list; young people entering the field had no means for making themselves known other than what their mentors could do for them. Precious little, as you can imagine, for women or Jews or those from obscure institutions.

. . .

The following week I was surprised to receive a note from Brown inviting me to present myself as a candidate for the opening at Yale.

Charles Rowan Beye, My Husband and My Wives: A Gay Man's Odyssey (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2012), p. 133

Last benefits of Harvard education

I have nothing but grim memories of Harvard University and its Classics Department, but I owe the institution the incomparable glory and status that comes from brandishing a Harvard PhD on my curriculum vitae or in conversation, plus, during the thirty years I spent in Cambridge later on, the chance to swim in the superb Blodgett Pool at the reduced fee offered alumni, and then the crown jewel of my Harvard experience, a yearly pass to the Widener Library, the use of which through the years makes up for any indignity or other horror that I might have sustained.

Charles Rowan Beye, My Husband and My Wives: A Gay Man's Odyssey (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2012), p. 112.

A boy's mother learns he's gay, circa 1946

"I have just been talking with Father Putnam," she began in the coldest, most serious voice I think I had ever heard her use. "He has told me awful things—"

Waves of reaction crashed into my brain with howling sounds. I was desperately attempting to gain a purchase as the ground shifted, swayed, opened under me. Aristotle defined that moment in tragedy when the character realizes everything as anagnorisis. The moment, for instance, when Oedipus realizes that he is not the successful king of Thebes so much as he is the murder of his father and the bed partner of his mother, the taboo created by a destiny that mocked his pathetic attempts to escape his fate. This was that moment for me. . . . The jeers of the students, the cruel barbs I could somehow let pass me by. They did not describe for me my condition, my situation. But that cold, precise voice coming from those almost pursed lips: "That your name is written on lavatory walls. That you are doing terrible things. I don't understand what he is talking about." That hit home.

Charles Rowan Beye, My Husband and My Wives: A Gay Man's Odyssey (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2012), p. 49

Ancient Greek view of misfortune as the luck of the draw

Instead of trying to justify evil with a system of sin and punishment, the ancient Greeks accepted misfortune as the luck of the draw. It made complete sense to me—how could it not?—having fallen from a balcony at four, having lost my father at six, watching my mother's way of life disappear while at the same time discovering my community turning on me as an object of scorn and derision, living in an age when the newsreels projected death and destruction and the industrial annihilation of an entire people. Somehow the Christian notion that one gets what one deserves was too odious.

Charles Rowan Beye, My Husband and My Wives: A Gay Man's Odyssey (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2012), p. 82.

Gay man feels under-chic

When I used to find myself in a gay ghetto I always felt like one of those women in a Helen Hokinson cartoon—the heavyset body, bad hairdo, shapeless dress, bulky thick purse, sensible shoes with thick legs thrust into them; in short, a matron from the Midwest. Just not chic enough for a gay ghetto, that's my problem.

Charles Rowan Beye, My Husband and My Wives: A Gay Man's Odyssey (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2012), p. 7.