Here Aphrodite Is Not

Bainbrigge’s closet drama is explored from a number of perspectives. These include its debt to Victorian classical burlesques, and responses to other versions of the myth of Achilles, including Homer’s. This chapter explores Bainbrigge’s dramatization of the secrecy that surrounds homoerotic writing, and its use of homoerotic codes. It interrogates the radical homoerotic literary heritage Bainbrigge lays claim to, and his portrayal of lesbianism as equivalent to male homosexuality, not least via a tradition of homoerotic receptions of Sappho, including those of Swinburne and John Addington Symonds. The chapter further explores Bainbrigge’s comments on the links between love between males and classical education, and the continuities between ancient and modern sexualities. The play offers an anarchic range of queer options, encompassing gender fluidity, cross-dressing, and a very wide variety of sexual possibilities and roles.