ABSTRACT
‘Homosexual’ is often used as a supposedly neutral term because it is ‘scientific’, a psychological, medicalised word coined in German in 1868, in contradistinction to such moralising terms as ‘sodomite’ with their blatant connotations of perverse choice. In Michael Finnissy’s piece, ‘homosexual’ denotes, emphatically, not just poets who ‘happened to be’ homosexual. When Finnissy was interviewed for Trebuchet magazine, on 3 February 2013, the following exchange took place: InterviewerIt’s been written that personal themes have come to the fore in pieces like Shameful Vice and Seventeen Immortal Homosexual Poets. All of the Seventeen Immortal Homosexual Poets chosen by Finnissy write on the universal theme of love; and on the universal theme of desire; and on the universal theme of the thwarting of love; and on the universal theme of loss.
