ABSTRACT
In his 1989 article “Franz Schubert and the Peacocks of Benvenuto Cellini,” Maynard Solomon states that “the young men of the Schubert circle loved each other” and that “it is reasonably probable that their primary sexual orientation was a homosexual one.” Schubert himself was “in the grip of a hunger for youth and an insatiable sexual appetite.” A key point in Solomon’s argument is his reading of Schubert’s diary entry for 8 September 1816, “his aversion to marriage”, and “his terror of marriage”. When Schubert writes that marriage is “a terrifying thought in these days” and asks “the monarchs of today” whether or not they see what is happening, he is almost certainly referring to a harsh new law passed by Metternich’s regime on 12 January 1815 and made public on 16 March of that year. In order to interpret Josef Kenner’s dramatic words correctly, we must understand the thought and activities of Schubert’s important friends from Linz.
