Eyes that trace like fingers: Keats, Wilde, and Victorian statue-love

Statue-love, variously described as Pygmalionism, statuephilia, algamatophilia and, more recently, objectum sexuality, has a long and varied history. While Pygmalion’s statue is animated by his touch, other myths collected by classical mythographers show that the inanimate statue is equally capable of stimulating an erotic fantasy of animation centred in the viewer’s senses. This essay considers Wilde’s poem, ‘Charmides’ (1881) in relation to his love of Keats and argues that, in this poem, touch and vision function as expressions of Wilde’s desire for physical and artistic communion with Keats – both man and poetry.