SOURCE: "Gay Sebastian and Cheerful Charles: Homoeroticism in Waugh's Brideshead Revisited," in Ariel: A Review of International English Literature," Vol. 25, No. 4, October 1994, pp. 77-89.

Higdon is an American writer and educator. In the following essay, he argues that Brideshead Revisited depicts very deliberate homosexual relationships, contrary to the opinions of other critics, whom Higdon considers deeply in denial.

There is a highly visible homosexual population in the novels of Evelyn Waugh, ranging from the "smooth young men of uncertain tastes" in Decline and Fall (1928) to the hallucinatory visions and encounters in The Ordeal of Gilbert Pinfold (1957). Ambrose Silk of Put Out More Flags (1942) and Anthony Blanche of Brideshead Revisited (1945) may be the most memorable and certainly are the most flamboyant members of this population. However, there are, in addition, Sir Ralph Brompton, Martin Gaythorne-Brodie (the Honorable Miles Malpractice in the American editions), Captain Edgar Grimes, David Lennox, and...