astro
October 19, 2009, 7:27am
1
“Uranian Love” etymology is from a German use of the term
Uranian is a nineteenth century term that referred to a person of a third sex — originally, someone with “a female psyche in a male body” who is sexually attracted to men, and later extended to cover homosexual gender variant females, and a number of other sexual types. It is believed to be an English adaptation of the German word Urning, which was first published by activist Karl Heinrich Ulrichs in 1864 and 1865 in a series of five booklets which were collected under the title Forschungen über das Räthsel der mannmännlichen Liebe (“The Riddle of Man-Manly Love”). Ulrich developed his terminology before the first public use of the term “homosexual”, which appeared in 1869 in a pamphlet published anonymously by Karl-Maria Kertbeny.
No it’s not
Given that the prominent Uranians were trained Classicists, I consider ludicrous the view, widely held, that ‘Uranian’ derives from the German apologias and legal appeals written by Karl-Heinrich Ulrichs in the 1860s, though his coinage Urning — employed to denote ‘a female psyche in a male body’ — does indeed derive from the same Classical sources, particularly the Symposium. Further, the Uranians did not consider themselves the possessors of a ‘female psyche’; the Uranians are not known, as a group, to have read works such as Forschungen über das Räthsel der mannmännlichen Liebe (Research on the Riddle of Male-Male Love); the Uranians were opposed to Ulrichs’s claims for androphilic, homoerotic liberation at the expense of the paederastic; and, even when a connection was drawn to such Germanic ideas and terminology, it appeared long after the term ‘Uranian’ had become commonplace within Uranian circles, hence was not a ‘borrowing from’ but a ‘bridge to’ the like-minded across the Channel by apologists such as Symonds. (p. xiii, footnote)
Which is right?
TWDuke
October 19, 2009, 7:44am
2
Your thread title says “definition” but your question seems to be about etymology.
Anyway, the cited passages don’t contradict each other. The first cite says that “Uranian” in the context of “Uranian love” is an Anglicization of a term coined by K.-H. Ulrichs.
The second cite says that “Uranian” in the context of “Uranian poetry” derives from classical sources independently of Ulrichs’ usage but later became linked to it.