Cross-examination answer that is splendid but ultimately unhelpful

While researching something else I came across this passage from Oscar Wilde's trial. The passage is magnificent, but remember Wilde got a sentence of two years hard labour.


Oscar Wilde
On being cross-examined at his trial

Mr. C. F. Gill (cross-examing): What is “the love that dares not speak its name?”

Wilde: “The love that dares not speak its name” in this century is such a great affection of an elder for a younger man as there was between David and Jonathan, such as Plato made the very basis of his philosophy, and such as you find in the sonnets of Michelangelo and Shakespeare.

It is that deep spiritual affection that is as pure as it is perfect. It dictates and pervades great works of art, like those of Shakespeare and Michelangelo, and those two letters of mine, such as they are. It is in this century misunderstood, so much misunderstood that it may be described as “The love that dares not speak its name,” and on that account of it I am placed where I am now.

It is beautiful, it is fine, it is the noblest form of affection. There is nothing unnatural about it. It is intellectual, and it repeatedly exists between an older and a younger man, when the older man has intellect, and the younger man has all the joy, hope and glamour of life before him.

That it should be so, the world does not understand. The world mocks at it, and sometimes puts one in the pillory for it.