LITERATURE: GENERAL NON-FICTION
Books or book chapters predominantly about Greek love that are neither fiction nor poetry nor historical (though some have historical information). Note that books are thus excluded that address Greek love as if it were a barely distinguishable component of a general attraction to "children" or a merely specialised form of it. Arranged in alphabetical order of the authors' surnames.
The grounds for treating a book as non-historical are that its focus is largely on Greek love as an eternal phenomenon rather than on the practice of Greek love at particular times in the past, but this distinction becomes hard to draw when the book itself belongs enough to the past, so that it is uncertain whether it is more useful for illuminating the phenomenon or its past. Hence, some books in the historical section are also of non-historical interest. For example, any study of Greek love that is limited to behaviour in a limited time frame, far past or recent, will be found there.
Banis, Victor J., Men and Their Boys: The Homosexual Relationship between Adult and Adolescent, Los Angeles: Medico Books, 1966. A soft-core popularisation of the boy-love theme, drawing heavily on Eglinton's Greek Love, qv.
Bentham, Jeremy, Offences Against Oneself: Paederasty, written ca. 1785, but only finally published in the Journal of Homosexuality, (III 4 pp. 389-406 & IV 1 pp. 91-107, both 1978, edited by Louis Crompton). Read on this website. An essay the author never dared publish showing that the social antipathy to and severe punishment of pederasty in England were irrational.
Blüher, Hans, Die Rolle der Erotik in der männlichen Gesellschaft. Eine Theorie der menschlichen Staatsbildung nach Wesen und Art, 2 vols.: I. Der Typus inversus (The Invert Type); II. Familie und Männerbund (Family and Male Society), Jena: Eugen Diederich, 1917-19. Translated from the original German by Heinrich Hoffstiepel as Family and Male Fraternity – A Theory of the Eros, Paris: Les Dioscures, 1994. An argument from psychology and Greek history that the bonding founded on eros between adolescents and men had an important and useful role to play in fostering a strong society and should therefore be made use of in educating the young.
Brongersma, Edward, Das verfemte Geschlecht: Dokumentation über Knabenliebe (The Damned Sex. Documentation on Boy-love), Munich: Lichtenberg, 1970. A vastly-expanded German version of his Dutch book Pedofilie written under the pen name of O. Brunoz, qv..
Brongersma, Edward, Loving Boys, 2 vols., Elmhurst, New York: Global Academic Publishers, 1986-90. Link to all chapters. A well-organised and readable study of boy-love by a Dutch senator who was the most prominent man of his time to be openly boysexual. Based on a lifetime of research and correspondence, and encyclopaedic in its coverage of every aspect of the subject, it is historically unreliable, but absolutely priceless for its ample preservation of the record of the then very recent past. A vastly-expanded version of his German book, Das verfemte Geschlecht, qv.
Brunoz, Dr. O. [Edward Brongersma], Pedofilie, Amsterdam: C. O. C., 1960. In Dutch. Despite the title, a study of boy-love only, anecdotal in tone.
Burton, Sir Richard, "Pederasty", being Section D of the Terminal Essay to his The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume X, Benares [Stoke Newington, Middlesex]: Kama Shastra Society, 1886. Read on this website. An extremely erudite survey of pederasty in all times and places, and the first openly published study of pederasty in English.
Dodson, Victor [Victor J. Banis and Sam Dodson], Clean and Good, North Hollywood, California, 1968, probably a version of Pederasty: Sex Between Men & Boys, with the same author, publisher, date and subject. PDF. A salacious study of pederasty addressing the most basic questions about it, mostly through detailed and explicit American case histories; includes an 18th century British narrative almost certainly forged by the authors. Influenced by, but vastly inferior to Eglinton's Greek Love, qv.
Duvert, Tony, L'Enfant au masculin (The Male Child), Paris: Éditions de Minuit, 1980. An analysis and critique of how dominant heterosexual culture has wrongly outlawed pederasty and some homosexuals have misguidedly connived with this.
Eglinton, J. Z. [Walter Henry Breen], Greek Love, American edition, New York: Oliver Layton, 1964; British edition, London: Spearman, 1971. Review. A scholarly and ground-breaking study of pederasty, mostly devoted to addressing the social concerns about it most in vogue in the 1960s, but including some history and a useful anthology of literature.
Friedlaender, Benedict, Renaissance des Eros Uranios (Rebirth of Uranian Love), Berlin: Otto Lehmann, 1904. Advocates the revival of Greek love as natural and beneficial, while taking a strong line against feminism.
Gazali [Mehmed "Deli Birader"], Dâfi‘ü ’l-gumûm râfi‘ü ’l-humûm (The Expeller of Sorrows and Remover of Worries), written 1488/1511. Translated from the Turkish by Selim S. Kuru in Scholar and Author in the Sixteenth-century Ottoman Empire: Deli Birader and his work Dâfi‘ü ’l gumûm râfi‘ü ’l-humûm, dissertation, Harvard University, May 2000). A humourous treatise on different forms of sex in seven sections, of which two concern pederasty: the second on the war between the pederasts and the fornicators, and the third on how to enjoy the company of boys.
Geraci, Joseph, Dares to Speak, Swaffham, Norfolk: GMP, 1997. A selection of articles from the periodical Paidika described below.
Gide, André, Corydon, Paris: La Nouvelle Revue française, 1924, translated from the French by Hugh Gibb, New York: Farrar, Straus & Company, 1950. PDF. Four Socratic dialogues using evidence from naturalists, historians, poets and philosophers to show that Greek love is more natural than exclusive heterosexuality.
Hallbeck, Nils, Mannen Och Pojken (Man and Boy), Stockholm: Forfattares Bokmaskin, 1980. A somewhat rhapsodic defence of Greek love, including poetry by the author, illustrated with photographs by Wilhelm von Gloeden.
Hössli, Heinrich, Eros: Die Männerliebe der Griechen; ihre Beziehungen zur Geschichte, Erziehung, Literatur, and Gesetzgebung aller Zeiten (Eros: the Male Love of the Greeks; Its Relation to the History, Education, Literature and Legislation of All Ages), 2 vols.: vol. I privately printed, Glarus, 1836; vol. II, St. Gallen: Scheitlin, 1838. A survey of references to pederasty in ancient Greek and more recent literature, showing its treatment in the author’s day as unnatural to be irrational.
Hubbard, Thomas K. (ed.), "Special Issue on 'Boys' Sexuality and Age of Consent'", being vol. 4, no. 2 of Thymos: Journal of Boyhood Studies, Harriman, Tennessee: the Men's Studies Press, Fall 2010. Six scholarly essays on matters which did or should be critical to determining a fair age of consent for boys, considered especially with respect to sex with men.
[Hutchinson, Charles Edward], Boy-Worship, Oxford, 1880. PDF. Notes. A privately-published pamphlet containing an Oxford undergraduate's musings on the powerful attraction of boys for men, both historically and in his day.
Inagaki Taruho 稲垣 足穂, Shōnen'ai no Bigaku 少年愛の美学, (The Aesthetics of the Love of Boys), Tokyo: Tokuma Shoten, 1968. Winner of the first annual Japan Literature Grand Prize, an essay describing the historical, psychological, and metaphysical ramifications of the love of beautiful boys in an eclectic blend of ideas culled from history, Freudianism, pop psychology, and existentialism.
Johnson, Arthur, "Why Boy-love?" in Pan, a magazine about boy-love, issue 14, December 1982, pp. 13-18. Read on this website. The first known attempt to explain the evolutionary function of Greek love, diverging principally from the later findings of Bruce Rind in suggesting that it served to protect boys from the rivalry of men within their tribe (as opposed to from external dangers, as Rind's evidence was to show).
Jones, Gerald P., "The Social Study of Pederasty: In Search of a Literature Base: An Annotated Bibliography of Sources in English" in Journal of Homosexuality, Vol. 8 No. 1, 1982, pp. 61-96. Never a definitive bibliography, but gives fair-minded and detailed annotations on the many important works included.
Loving Boys, New York: Semiotext(e), 1980. Special number in tabloid format of Semiotext(e) magazine, comprising interviews with three, and a transcript of a radio broadcast by Michel Foucault.
Nichols, Dennison W., Toward a Perspective for Boy Lovers, Lansing, Michigan: Editorial Creative Projects, 1986. A subjective booklet conveying the mystique of the pederastic sensibility and suggesting a code of ethics.
Ogrinc, Will H. L., Boyhood and Adolescence, Ephebophilia, Hebephilia, and Paedophilia: A Selective Bibliography, Paris: Quintes-feuilles, 2017. PDF. An enormous and thorough bibliography of the named topics, with references in twenty-five languages ranging from the 16th century to the present. Caveats must be that its remit is extremely wide with many books thrown in without examination of their relevance to any usefully defined topic, and that it is weak on historical and ethnological studies.
Ollendorff, Robert, The Juvenile Homosexual Experience, New York: Julian Press, 1966. PDF. A psychiatrist's ultimately inconclusive study, based on American clinical cases, of the question of whether the homosexual experiences of boys with older boys or men, has an effect on their adult sexuality, which is assumed to be a problem if homosexual.
Pinard-Legry, J.L. and B. Lapouge, L'enfant et le péderaste, Paris: Le Seuil, 1980. Criticism of pederasty, arguing that, far from liberating the boy, it destroys his autonomy and makes him an object.
"Plato Πλάτων" (nickname), Aristokles Ἀριστοκλῆς, Symposium Συμπόσιον, written ca. 370 BC. Read the Greek love content in an amendment of the translation from the Greek by Benjamin Jowett in The Dialogues of Plato, vol. 1, 3rd edition, Oxford University Press, 1892. An account of a symposium attended in 416 BC by some famous Athenians; the speeches of seven are recounted, six being about Eros and heavily tilted towards eros for boys.
"Plato Πλάτων" (nickname), Aristokles Ἀριστοκλῆς, Phaidrus Φαῖδρος, written ca. 370 BC. Read the Greek love content in the translation from the Greek by Alexander Nehamas and Paul Woodruff in Plato: Complete Works, edited by John M. Cooper, Indianapolis: Hackett, 1997. A dialogue between Plato's teacher Sokrates and the Athenian aristocrat Phaidon about eros (simply assumed to be between a boy and a man), in which comparisons are drawn between the benefits to a boy of mentorship not inspired by eros, of chaste eros and of consummated eros.
Raile, Arthur Lyon [Edward Perry Warren], A Defence of Uranian Love, 3 volumes, privately printed: I. The Boy-Lover, 1928 PDF; II. The Uranian Eros, 1930 PDF; III. The Heavenly Wisdom and Conclusion, 1928 PDF. A passionate and eloquent polemic in favour of Greek love, which unintentionally draws attention to what was already the hopelessness of its cause by extolling the beauty and value of its masculinist ethos.
Riegel, David L., Understanding Loved Boys and Boylovers, Philadelphia: SafeHaven Foundation Press, 2000. PDF. An explanation of the Greek love phenomenon for a non-academic readership, the second half which consists of seven true stories.
Riegel, David L., Could they All have been Wrong?, Philadelphia: SafeHaven Foundation Press, 2005. PDF. An anthology of previously-published writings by others, mostly academics in a wide variety of fields, showing Greek love in a positive light.
Riegel, David L., We were Not abused, Philadelphia: SafeHaven Foundation Press, 2007. PDF. A booklet explaining the healthy functionality of Greek love and addressing misconceptions of it, including the results of carefully-conducted internet surveys of boys and men's experiences of it.
Rind, Bruce and Richard Yuill, "Hebephilia as Mental Disorder? A Historical, Cross-Cultural, Sociological, Cross-Species, Non-Clinical Empirical and Evolutionary Review" in Archives of Sexual Behavior, 41 (4), 2012, pp. 797-829. PDF. Rivalled only by the same author's "Pederasty" as the best scientific study of Greek love, this summarises the evidence of its prevalence among primates as well as in human history, and sheds light on its evolutionary function. Though attraction to pubescent girls is given equal attention, it and pederasty are presented as independent phenomena, enabling an understanding of them that has eluded most 21st-century thinking.
Rind, Bruce, "Pederasty: An Integration of Empirical, Historical, Sociological, Cross-Cultural, Cross-Species and Evolutionary Evidence and Perspectives" in Censoring Sex Research; The Debate over Male Intergenerational Relations edited by Thomas K. Hubbard & Beert Verstraete, Walnut Creek, California: Left Coast, 2013. PDF. Fairly imilar to the preceding, but on pederasty (the man/boy part of hebephilia) only and thrice as long, taking on board modern studies of the effects of pederasty together with a fine analysis of the fallacies they have labored under..
Rossman, Parker, "Literature on Pederasty" in Journal of Sex Research, vol. IX, 1973, pp. 307-312. An overview of all types of contemporary literature without analysis.
Rossman, Parker, "The pederasts" in Society, Vol. 10, March 1973, pp. 28-32. The author's experience interviewing over a thousand pederasts, and more than three hundred boys sexually involved with men.
Rossman, Parker, Sexual Experience between Men and Boys, original edition Association Press, New York, 1976; British edition: London: Temple Smith, 1979. Link to all the chapters. Second of the only three book-length general studies of Greek love in English, each of which has unique value, Rossman's occupies a middle position as less theoretical than Eglinton's, while being much less encyclopaedic than Brongersma's; more arbitrary than either in the topics it covers, it is nonetheless better for readable insight.
Taylor, B., "Motives for guilt-free pederasty: Some literary considerations", in Sociological Review, vol. 26, 1974, pp. 97-114. Extracts the positive sociological motivations for pederasty from the writings of English Uranians, and argues this literature is more valuable for the purpose than sociological works, historical account or pro-pederastic polemics.
Voltaire [François-Marie Arouet], "Amour Socratique" in his Dictionnaire philosophique, Geneva, 1764. Anonymously translated as "Socratic Love" in The Philosophical Dictionary by M. de Voltaire. A New and Correct Edition, with Notes, London: Wynne, Scholey & Wallis, 1802, pp. 237-42. Read this together with a revised version on this website. A short essay describing the appeal of pubescent boys as a "mistake of nature" and denying that pederasty had had the legitimacy generally believed to have been accorded it in antiquity.
Wyneken, Gustav, Eros, Lauenburg on the Elbe: Adolf Saal, 1921, 72 pp. A treatise arguing for pedagogical eros for boys: pederastic relationships embraced by both parties as a means to effective and comprehensive personal education and guidance for boys.
Comments
If you would like to leave a comment on this webpage, please e-mail it to greek.love.tta@gmail.com, mentioning in the subject line either the title or the url of the page so that the editor can add it.
Anonymous 77, 9 January 2022
Below are suggested books. The anthologies include both non-fiction and fiction.
La mirada de Zeus I: Antología sobre la fascinación masculina por los muchachos en la literatura griega y latina, ed. by Isidre Bravo, Ediciones de la Tempestad, 2007 (Spanish language anthology of BL-related Greek and Latin writing from Ancient Greece/Rome to the 6th century A.D.)
La mirada de Zeus II: Antología sobre la fascinación masculina por los muchachos en la literatura medieval, renacentista y de la Ilustración, ed. by Isidre Bravo; Ediciones de la Tempestad, 2007 (Spanish language anthology of BL-related writing from 125 authors)
Classical Culture and Modern Masculinity, Daniel Orrells; Oxford University Press, 2011 (From OUP: “This book examines the significance of ancient Greek pederasty for the formation of scholarly historicism by German and English thinkers from the middle of the eighteenth century into the beginning of the twentieth.”)
Sexual Heretics: Male Homosexuality in English Literature from 1850 to 1900; Edited by Brian Reade; Coward-McGann, Inc., 1970 (mainly pederastic anthology)
Editor, 15 January 2022
Thank you so much for this helpful contribution. I shall look into these books with a view to adding them to the book lists.
***
Anonymous 84, 4 February 2022
Some suggestions for General Non-Fiction or Other Histories:
Hans Blüher, Family and Male Fraternity – A Theory of the Eros. This book is an English translation of Familie und Männerbund. Translated by Heinrich Hoffstiepel with an introduction by Michel Meigniez de Cacqueray, Published by Les Dioscures, Paris, 1994.
Hans Blüher, The German Wandervogel Movement as Erotic Phenomenon. Published in 2018. This book is available for purchase at www.lulu.com. This book is an English translation of Die Wandervogelbewegung als erotisches Phänomen.
Johann Matthias Gesner, Socrates, The Holy Pederast. Translation and introduction by Hugh Hagius. Published by bibliogay.com, New York, 2002. This spiral-bound book is an English translation of Gesner's original Latin essay Socrates Sanctus Paederasta published in 1752. In this essay Gesner presents evidence to support his claim that Socrates was chaste in his relations with boys, thus deserving the title of "holy pederast."
Editor, 4 February 2022
Many thanks. I have just listed all these books. The one on Sokrates is, however, listed under biographies.