Translating Male-Male Desire in Greek and Latin Literature: Jack Lindsay and his Illustrators

This article explores the verbal and visual representation of male homoerotic desire and same-sex relations in Jack Lindsay’s translations of Petronius, Theocritus, Catullus, and Apuleius, published in limited editions - both as unexpurgated versions and as examples of fine bookmaking - between 1927 and 1932, with illustrations by Norman Lindsay, Lionel Ellis, and Percival Goodman. It investigates the modes of ambivalence, evasion, and suggestion that qualify the translations’ ostensible acceptance of homoeroticism and it considers the role of illustration both as a paratext that accompanies the text and affects its reception, and as a visual translation that can variously perform, supplement, revise, or compete with the verbal translation.