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78 THE POLITICS AND POETICS OF CAMP posing sodomite, not only did Queensberry intimate that it was Wilde who was being inscribed, thus removing the social protections enjoyed by the inscriptor, but it acted as an insult to Wilde’s self-defined class standing, reminding him of the more common heritage he had labored to overcome during his rise to the top. Queensberry knew exactly what he was doing when he charged Wilde with sodomitical posing. In fact, he had begun formulating this strategy as much as two years prior in March of 1893 (Ellmann 1988: 437). Queensberry has usually been depicted as an unthinking, often idiotic bully. Yet his conscious deployment of the concept of the pose indicates a more sophisticated mind. In a letter to his son of April 1894, Queensberry stated that “to pose as a thing is as bad as to be it” (in Ellmann 1988:417). He proceeded to castigate Alfred Douglas for posing as a sodomite based on an analysis of gestures, bodily attitudes, and proxemics which he observed displayed by Alfred and Oscar in a public place. This was an extremely conscious analysis which he would repeat as evidence against Wilde in court. He was not only aware of the relationship between interiority and its exterior signification, he was also keen enough to understand that Wilde was flaunting his sexual activities under cover of a clever, transgressive reinscription of the bourgeois male. That Wilde responded to the label just as Queensberry had predicted indicates first, that Queensberry had called Wilde’s bluff through a successful identification of his reinscriptive strategy and, second, that there was a philosophy of “posing” commonly understood and shared that provided the normative standard against which Queensberry could analyze Wilde’s actions. This philosophy can be outlined by looking at the ways in which the word “posing” was deployed in Wilde’s libel suit. Queensberry pleaded that the card was indeed intended to outrage Wilde, but only to goad him into a face-to-face confrontation. A libel suit was unexpected. He claimed that his only miscalculation was in underestimating the degree of anger in Wilde’s response. Yet one must wonder at Queensberry’s explanation. He knew that the label “posing sodomite” would enrage Wilde. He knew it was a serious charge, serious enough to deploy only as a strategy of last resort, and one that he had held as the trump for over two years. Certainly it was serious enough to disown. For when Queensberry repeated the charge in court, he subjected it to a subtle change. Instead of “posing sodomite,” he stated that the scribbled and almost illegible card actually said “posing as a sodomite,” a different charge altogether (Ellmann 1988:438). The difference between “posing sodomite” and “posing as a sodomite” is an important one. If Queensberry had maintained the former, he would have been accusing Wilde of an illegal sexual act and would have had to prove that Wilde had played the “passive” role in sodomy. But the latter charge was confined to a signifying practice. He needed prove only that Wilde signified the sodomite. No evidence of actual sexual activity would be required. This helps explain the logic behind the use of Wilde’s writings, especially Dorian Gray, as primary evidence for the defense: what was on trial was Wilde’s signifying practices, thus both his everyday life actions and his textual strategies were relevant to Queensberry’s revised allegation.
It was going to be difficult for Queensberry to justify his pronouncement of Wilde’s social behavior. It was certainly true that Wilde was known for daring suggestions of the homoerotic in his signifying practices of speech, dress, gesture, and writing. In fact, he was notorious for subversively manipulating and exploiting the ambiguity surrounding the dandy’s effeminacy and then reveling in the shock he could produce amongst gentle company while flaunting the impunity with which he believed he operated. While it would be an easy task to prove that Wilde signified the Not-Masculine, Queensberry needed to prove additionally that the Not-Masculine was actually the clever disguise of the sodomite. As long as no direct link to sexual activity could be proven, Wilde was confident that the gender ambiguity of his reinscription of the bourgeois male would sustain itself, and that he would naturally win the suit. But the trial had taken a dire turn. Queensberry’s detectives had come through with proof of sodomitical practice, evidence of actual sexual activity. Signifying the Not- Masculine was not a crime. If Queensberry won the case Wilde would walk away a free man, but the proof of homosexual activity could lead to charges being brought against him in a separate trial. With this new and damning evidence, Wilde’s attorney attempted a bargaining strategy. Wilde would admit to posing as a sodomite if, in turn, the defense attorneys would agree to end the proceedings now, with unopposed acquittal for their client. Wilde’s attorney needed to end the trial in order to confine the evidence against Wilde to an examination of his signifying practices and to keep the details of his actual sexual activities from being exposed. All agreed. Queensberry was acquitted and Wilde was found guilty of posing. 4 Analyzing the concept of posing as it was deployed in this first of Wilde’s three trials yields some intriguing conclusions. With regard to the homoerotic, the term “posing” had two circulating meanings: the first, as used in the phrase “posing sodomite,” referred to the “passive” partner in a sodomitical act; the second, as used in the phrase “posing as a sodomite,” referred to significations of the homoerotic. Though there seems to have been a vague knowledge that these were somehow related, a discursive connection between homoerotic desire and the act of sodomy had not yet been made. That this connection had not yet been formed can be witnessed in the defense strategy. Lacking the discourse with which to render a homosexual identity, the defense tried to retrieve one from Wilde by tricking him into admitting that his homoerotic presentation of self actually signified a sexual practice. This was attempted by blurring the distinctions between the two uses of the term “posing” in the hopes of catching him, rhetorically speaking, with his pants down. Regarding a particular short story, the defense tried to force an admission of the text’s depraved morality from Wilde, but he evaded the issue by retreating into a formalist critique: Defense: Do you think the story blasphemous? Wilde: I think it violated every artistic canon of beauty. Defense: That is not an answer. UNDER THE SIGN OF WILDE 79
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THE POLITICS AND POETICS OF CAMP
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First published 1994 by Routledge 1
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CONTENTS List of plates vi List of
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11 Richard Halverson as Lady Enid a
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to tha
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2 THE POLITICS AND POETICS OF CAMP
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1 PERFORMING “AKIMBO” Queer pri
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Page 54 and 55: Plate 1 Joan Jett Blakk, “The May
Page 56 and 57: Plate 3 Prince Rupert, from a broad
Page 58 and 59: Plate 5 Actor Robert Wilks, from Co
Page 60 and 61: Plate 7 Antinous and Dancing Master
Page 62 and 63: 2 NARCISSUS IN THE WILDE Textual ca
Page 112 and 113: 4 REVAMPING THE GAY SENSIBILITY Que
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Page 130 and 131: 112 FE/MALE IMPERSONATION pieces th
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Plate 9 Claire Moed as Sir Oliver S
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Plate 11 Richard Halverson as Lady
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Plate 14 Liberace in long cape with
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Plate 16 Liberace was Count Dracula
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THE CAMP TRACE IN CORPORATE AMERICA
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The key value, however, among these
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eternal youthfulness; and the way h
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7 TAKING OUT THE TRASH Camp and the
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homosocialism 35-6, 43-4 Hutcheon,
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