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• 1 2020-10-29T12:01:37-04:00 Wings: Tale of Homoeroticism from a Renaissance Lens 43 plain 2020-12-10T14:01:17-05:00 Tyler Hicks

            When approaching Mikhail Kuzmin’s widely criticized homoerotic novel, Wings, a typical reader can become disoriented by the many interlocking themes and allusions. Although the implications of this magnitude of allusions is striking in itself, it is helpful to focus on the intersection between the themes of aesthetics and love, whether that be romantic or sexual love. This motif of aesthetics, which is a living and fluctuating entity as it changes throughout the story, can only show the reader so much. That is, to really understand Wings, we must analyze the nuances of the intersectionality of Kuzmin’s ideas. The intersection of Kuzmin’s perspectives on both love and aesthetics therefore influences how the audience perceives love in the novel, as it is directly described through the lens of aesthetics. As a result of this aesthetically motivated description of the pederastic love that Stroop and Vanya share, their love takes the form of an Italian Renaissance painting--then becomes corporeal through the physical writing of their story in a novel, eventually freeing this homoerotic love from the traditionally negative ideals towards homosexuality.
       The relationship between Vanya and Stroop is heavily influenced by Renaissance aesthetics, connecting the peculiarity of homoeroticism to classical allusions, which in turn releases the social roles from their relationship. One particular illustration of this aesthetically driven language when discussing love can be found in the middle of part one of the novel, where Stroop continues a lengthy monologue to Vanya about the nature of love in general:
     “‘And when you’re told, ‘it’s unnatural’, you just look at the blind man who said it and pass by, without becoming like the sparrows that scatter away from a kitchen-garden scarecrow. People walk around like blind men, like dead men, when they could create the most ardent life, where all enjoyment would be so heightened, it would be as if you had only just been born and would die at any moment...We are Hellenes, lovers of the beautiful, bacchanals of the future life. Like the visions of Tannhäuser in the grotto of Venus, like the clairvoyance of Klinger and Thoma, there is the land of our forefathers, flooded in sunlight and freedom, with beautiful, bold people, and across the seas through mist and murk, we are going there, Argonauts! And in the most unheard-of novelty we recognise our most ancient roots, and in the most unprecedented radiance we sense our fatherland!’” (Kuzmin 29-30). 
       Throughout the text, Kuzmin consistently tries to argue that homosexual attractions, and more importantly acting on carnal instincts, are completely valid. Interestingly enough, as Wings is the first homoerotic Russian novel, Kuzmin attaches these radical ideas to symbols of cultural excellence and ideas of traditional higher value. For instance, Kuzmin describes the typical population living life as “blind men” and “dead men” (29), who seem to be living a falsified life. A juxtaposition is created between these types of people who cannot live their proper life to those who are living that “most ardent life” (29). In doing so, Kuzmin attaches these ideals of free love and egalitarian living situations to another utopian society, which in the eyes of the Aesthetes (from whom Kuzmin took plenty of inspiration and was often associated with) were the societies of Rome and Greece, hence the plethora of allusions to classical art and literature. By doing so, Kuzmin creates a new way in which Vanya and Stroop’s relationship can develop, extending the story of Wings beyond its literary life and into a new entity steeped in Renaissance ideals. 
      However, this shift goes deeper than a simple attachment of ideals to another era and thus to another degree of cultural relevance. Kuzmin also suggests the inescapability of Stroop and Vanya’s love. There are two main ways that the author does this: first, by utilizing language centered around deities and gods, thus insinuating purity and a heavenly sanctioned quality to this relationship, and second, by taking advantage of other literary stories, specifically the Tannhäuser opera. For example, Kuzmin describes Stroop’s way of life as “bacchanal” (29), alongside Stroop’s exclamation that “...we are going there, Argonauts!” (30). The latter quote is a direct reference to the Greek myth of Jason and his band of Argonauts, who are sent on a quest by a decree directly from Mount Olympus itself. Also, bacchanal is a direct description of a follower of Bacchus, the Roman god of wine and feast, the equivalent god to Dionysus in Greek mythology. Both of these allusions are descriptions of Vanya and Stroop as explorers on some sort of ordained mission, thus bringing about a return to these Greco-Roman traditions in a perfect form of Russian society. Kuzmin crafts this classically inspired world, however. For instance, he reflects back on the cultural ideals of the Greco-Roman world: “Like the visions of Tannhäuser in the grotto of Venus” (29-30). The story of Tannhäuser is actually quite fitting for discussion alongside Wings, as the central theme in the libretto is both the possibility for redemption through love and the distinction between sacred and profane love. Through the allusions to culturally relevant texts like Tannhäuser, Kuzmin connects his take on a theme that other authors have tried to tackle throughout history, creating a sort of kinship to these other stories. 
       Ultimately, Wings is a depiction of homoeroticism through a 20th century Russian lens based on ideals of asceticism and utopianism in relation to social movements at the time. 

  Bibliography
  Bershtein, Evgenii. “An Englishman in the Russian Bathhouse: Kuzmin's Wings and the Russian Tradition of Homoerotic Writing.” Reed.edu, www.reed.edu/russian/assets/docs/Bershtein_75-87.pdf. 

  Kuzmin, M. A. Wings. Hesperus, 2007. 

  Malmstad, John E. “Bathhouses, Hustlers, and a Sex Club: The Reception of Mikhail Kuzmin's Wings.” Journal of the History of Sexuality, vol. 9, no. 1/2, 2000, pp. 85–104. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/3704633. Accessed 26 Oct. 2020.