Erasmus

The Dutch humanist Erasmus (1466-1536) fell madly in love with a tall young monk named Servatius Roger. Erasmus wrote him scores of passionate, love-sick letters, to which Roger reacted by asking him to tone it down – way down, lest there be a scandal. Roger never gave in to the constant, overwrought advances. Here is a typical exchange:

Erasmus: Don’t be so reserved. I have become yours so completely that nothing of myself is left...I have wooed you both unhappily and relentlessly.

Roger: What is wrong with you?

This portrait of Erasmus by Hans Holbein the Younger (1523) hangs in London's National Gallery.

While later teaching in Paris, Erasmus instructed a 21-year-old English-born student, Thomas Grey, who later became Marquis of Dorset. Erasmus was abruptly dismissed as Grey’s teacher, for making unwanted advances towards him. It seems Erasmus had a thing for straight men.

Erasmus was born Gerrit Gerritszoon (Dutch for Gerard Gerardson) in Rotterdam as the illegitimate son of a physician's daughter and a man who later became a monk. On his parents' death his guardians insisted he enter a monastery, where he adopted the name Desiderius Erasmus. After taking priest's orders, Erasmus went to Paris, where he earned a living as a teacher. His life-long clashes with theologians and clergy took root while in France. Among his pupils was English Lord Mountjoy, who invited Erasmus to visit England in 1498. He lived chiefly at Oxford, and through the influence of John Colet, his contempt for theologians was heightened. He returned to Paris and later made a much longed for trip to Italy, but returned to England from time to time.

While residing at Cambridge Erasmus served as professor of Divinity and Greek. In 1519 the first edition of Colloquia appeared. Usually regarded as his masterpiece, Colloquia critiqued the abuses of the Church with audacity and incisiveness, preparing men's minds for the subsequent work of Martin Luther. In future works Erasmus promoted a more rational conception of Christian doctrine, emancipating men's minds from the frivolous and pedantic methods of contemporary theologians. Members of the clerical establishment became his sworn enemies, driving him to live out the rest of his days in Basel, Switzerland. Fortunately, during his last years Erasmus enjoyed great fame, fortune  and high regard.

Erasmus stands as the supreme example of cultivated common sense being applied to human affairs. He rescued theology from the pedantries of theologians, exposed the abuses of the Church, and did more than any other single person to advance the Revival of Learning.

A popular European student exchange program, established in 1987, is named after him. The Erasmus Programme is a major European Union higher education initiative; there are currently more than 4,000 higher education institutions participating in 33 countries, and more than 2.2 million students have already taken part.

Federico García Lorca

Lorca was an avante-garde homosexual Spanish poet and playwright who had a serious and scandalous affair with Salvador Dalí. Lorca, born near Granada, was considered the greatest Spanish poet of the twentieth century. He trained as a classical pianist, but also studied law, literature and musical composition. From his friendship with homosexual Spanish composer Manuel de Falla, Spanish folklore became his muse. Lorca’s early anthologies of poems were stylized imitations of the ballads and poems that were told throughout the Spanish countryside. When Romancero Gitano (Gypsy Ballads, 1928) was published, it brought him fame across the Hispanic world.

From 1925 to 1928 he was passionately involved with Salvador Dalí. Their sexual relationship was portrayed in the recent film Little Ashes (2009). As Lorca’s reputation increased, however, he became estranged from Dalí. When a collapse of a love affair with sculptor Emilio Soriano Aladrén followed, Lorca moved to New York, where his homosexuality would perhaps be more accepted. At a time when in Spain hardly anyone traveled, Lorca prospered in New York, where he wrote his acclaimed work, "Poet in New York". He then went to Argentina, and even spent time in Cuba, where he was inspired to write "In a coach of black water I will go to Santiago". However, Lorca’s heavily homoerotic Sonnets of Dark Love (1935) were not published during his lifetime (see excerpt at end of post).

Lorca (below on left) shown with Salvador Dalí (on right) in 1926:

Lorca described himself as "Catholic, communist, anarchist, libertarian, traditionalist, monarchist." His works challenged the accepted role of women in society and explored taboo issues of homoeroticism and class distinctions (he was a passionate social activist). These outspoken liberal views led Franco to ban all of Lorca’s works. In fact, it was only after Franco's death in 1975 that Lorca's life and circumstances of his death could be openly discussed in Spain.

Lorca was envied for his talent, he had money and was successful. When the military took power, his execution was only a matter of time. A successful, liberal homosexual could not be tolerated in Franco's Spain, and he was shot by Franco’s anti-communist death squads during the Spanish Civil War.

Lorca had taken refuge in the home of poet Luis Rosales (now the Hotel Reina Cristina in Granada) from where he was abducted. They came for him on August 19, 1936, and loaded him into a truck with other political suspects. He was shot a few kilometers from Fuente Vaqueros, Spain (where he had been born), but his body has still not been found.

Footnote: Manuel de Falla, who had become disillusioned with the Franco regime, tried but failed to prevent the murder of Lorca, his close friend. As a result, de Falla left Spain in 1939 for Argentina, never to return to his native country.

Lorca, who was assassinated at the tender age of 38, was a man whose crime was to be free at a time in Spain's history when to call for freedom was to knock on the executioner’s door.

This scene from the film Little Ashes shows the first kiss between Salvador Dali (Robert Pattinson) and Frederico Garcia Lorca (Javier Beltran). For you impatient types, the kiss takes place at the 1:43 mark.



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The Poet Speaks by Telephone with His Lover
– from Sonnets of Dark Love (1935)

My chest was dune and drought, your voice was water;
that wooden cabin ceased to be my coffin.
At the south pole of my feet the crocus sprang,
at the north pole of my brow the bramble bloomed.
A pine of light sang through each crack and corner,
sang with no seed sown in the earth nor dawn;
for the first time my cry flew like an arrow,
pinning a crown of hope upon the roof.
Sweet and distant voice coursing toward me,
sweet and distant fountain of my pleasure,
distant and sweet like a sunken river!
Distant as a half-hidden, wounded faun,
sweet as a sobbing draught from snowy fields,
distant yet sweetly lodged in my own marrow!