MAKING HISTORY - THE BLOOMSBURY GROUPS CONSTRUCTION OF AESTHETIC AND SEXUAL IDENTITY

This essay examines the way England's well-known Bloomsbury group in t he first decades of this century negotiated the legacy of prominent fi gures of the generation before in order to create its own identity. Lo oking at the group's ideas about both aesthetics and sexuality, the au thor shows how the group privileged Leo Tolstoy over J. A. M. Whistler , and Oscar Wilde over Walter Pater. The introduction and conclusion s eek to set this study in the context of current issues in gay and lesb ian studies.