The conservative modernist versus the modern conservative : the discourses about homoerotic desire in Viktor Rydberg’s and August Strindberg’s works

Bibliogr. s. 143-144. Strona wydawcy: https://www.wuj.pl

The paper compares two modes of sexuality in the works of August Strindberg and Viktor Rydberg, taking into account the relationship between homoerotic desire and nature. In Strindberg’s work this very model was defined as naturalistic and based on a positivist way of understanding nature, where homoerotic desire is perceived as an abnormal towards the order of nature. Contrary, Rydberg’s mode could be classified as an idealistic, drawing on the monistic view of the world, seeing homoerotic desire as a positive component of nature. These two modes are discussed in the context of producing modern regimes of sexuality, where homosexuality was crucial to develop the norm within pathologizing psychiatric perspective. By proposing pervert’s emancipation through perversion, Strindberg seems to share the conservative assumptions of the Oscarian morality against which he argues. Contrary, Rydberg’s idealistic model by rejecting the dominant trend of modernization of sexuality, is interpreted not as a manifesto of conservative anti-modernism, but as an alternative modernism.