Renée Vivien

Renée Vivien (born Pauline Mary Tarn; 11 June 1877 – 18 November 1909) was a British poet who wrote in the French language. A high-profile lesbian writer in Paris during the Belle Époque era, she is widely considered to be one of the first noteworthy lesbian poets of the twentieth century. Her work has recently received more attention due to a revival of interest in Sapphic verse. Many of her poems are autobiographical, pertaining mostly to Baudelarian themes of extreme romanticism and frequent despair. Apart from poetry, she wrote several works of prose, including ''L'Etre Double'' (inspired by Coleridge's '' Christabel''), and an unfinished biography of Anne Boleyn, which was published posthumously. She has also been the subject of multiple biographies, most notably those by Jean-Paul Goujon, , and .

Biography

Early life

Renée Vivien was born Pauline Mary Tarn in London, England to , a British farmer who had become wealthy through property investments, and an American mother, . Pauline attended the Belsize College in Hampstead, London, where, in 1883, she was awarded a silver medal by the ''Alliance française'' for her study of French. While she was attending school in Paris, her father died in 1886. Upon his death, Pauline returned to London to receive her inheritance from him. Purportedly, Pauline's mother attempted to declare her legally insane so that she could have her husband's inheritance money instead. The plot failed, and Pauline was taken away from her mother to live as a ward of the court until she came of age. In 1899, after she turned 21, Pauline returned to France with the inheritance money. It is around this time that she began to go by the name of Renée Vivien.

Relationships

Vivien harbored an unconsummated romantic relationship with her childhood friend and neighbor, Violet Shillito, who is thought to be referenced in Vivien’s poems with the words “violet” and “purple.” After Shillito’s death to typhoid fever, Vivien felt a sense of guilt for her relationship with American heiress Natalie Barney, who Shillito had introduced her to the year before, because she felt that she had sidelined Shillito in favour of Barney. Vivien’s feelings of guilt are thought to be a likely contributing factor—alongside Barney's infidelities—to the end of Vivien and Barney’s relationship in 1901.

In 1902, Vivien became romantically involved with the wealthy Baroness Hélène van Zuylen, one of the Paris Rothschilds. After her turbulent prior experience with Barney, Vivien found much-needed emotional support and stability in her relationship with Zuylen. In spite of Zuylen’s social position, which did not allow for a public relationship, the two continued a discreet affair for a number of years, often traveling together. In letters to her confidant, the French journalist and Classical scholar Jean Charles-Brun, Vivien wrote that she considered herself married to the Baroness.

While still with Zuylen, Vivien received a letter from , an admirer in Istanbul and the wife of a Turkish diplomat. The two launched a passionate correspondence, followed by brief clandestine encounters. Kérimé, though French-educated and cultivated, lived according to Islamic tradition, which meant an isolated and veiled life in which she could neither travel freely nor leave her husband. Meanwhile, Vivien continued her relationship with the Baroness de Zuylen.

In 1907, Zuylen left Vivien for another woman, which left her shocked and humiliated. Another blow came in 1908 when Kérimé, upon moving with her husband to Saint Petersburg, ended their affair.

Vivien, terribly affected by these losses, turned increasingly to alcohol and drugs. The French writer Colette, who was Vivien's neighbour from 1906 to 1908, immortalised this period in '' The Pure and the Impure'', a collection of portraits showing the spectrum of homosexual behaviour. Written in the 1920s and originally published in 1932, its factual accuracy is questionable; Natalie Barney reportedly did not concur with Colette's characterization of Vivien.

World travels

Vivien was cultivated and very well travelled, especially for a woman of her era. She wintered in Egypt, visited China, and explored much of the Middle East, as well as Europe and America.

After the heartbreak from Zuylen and Kérimé, Vivien fled to Japan and then Hawaii with her mother in 1907. Vivien became ill on the voyage.

Her Paris home was a luxurious ground-floor apartment at 23, avenue du Bois de Boulogne (now 23, Avenue Foch) that opened onto a Japanese garden. She purchased antique furnishings from London and exotic objets d'art from the Far East. She kept an abundant amount of fresh flowers and offerings of Lady Apples to her collection of shrines, statuettes, icons, and Buddhas.

A public square is named in her honor in Paris: , in Le Marais, central historic district of the French capital.

Illness and death

While visiting London in 1908, Vivien tried to kill herself by drinking an excess of laudanum. As she waited to die, she stretched out on her divan with a bouquet of violets held over her heart. She survived the attempt.

While in England, she contracted pleurisy and continued to grow weaker upon her eventual return to Paris. According to biographer Jean-Paul Goujon, Vivien suffered from chronic gastritis, due to years of chloral hydrate and alcohol abuse. She had also started to refuse to eat. By the summer of 1909, she walked with a cane.

Vivien died in Paris on the morning of 18 November 1909 at the age of 32; the cause of death was reported at the time as "lung congestion", but likely resulted from pneumonia complicated by alcoholism, drug abuse, and anorexia nervosa . She was interred at Passy Cemetery in the same Parisian neighbourhood where she had lived.

Works

Published works

Vivien wrote exclusively in French. She published her first collection of poetry, ''Études et préludes,'' in 1901. She would go on to publish 12 more collections of poetry in her lifetime. Contemporary feminists consider her to be one of the first women to write openly lesbian poetry.

In 1903, Vivien produced a translation of Sappho's poetry from the edition of Hentry Thornton Wharton, entitled ''Sapho, traduction nouvelle avec le texte grec'' (''Sapho: A New Translation with the Greek Text''). ^{. 78/sup> She learned Greek by taking private lessons with a teacher, Gaetan Baron, because she wanted to read Homer in the original Greek. . 93/sup> In 1904, Vivien published her autobiographical novel ''A Woman Appeared to Me.'' In 1976, the novel was translated to English by Jeanette Foster and published by Naiad Press. Naiad also published a translation of Vivien's poetry collection, ''The Muse of Violets,'' in 1977.}

Vivien also published poetry and prose in collaboration with lover, Hélène van Zuylen using the pseudonym, . The true attribution of these works is uncertain, however; some scholars believe they were written solely by Vivien, as well as some other books published under Zuylen's name.

During her brief life, Vivien was an extremely prolific poet who came to be known as the "Muse of the Violets", derived from her love of the flower. Her obsession with violets (as well as with the colour violet) was likely a reminder of her beloved childhood friend, Violet Shillito.

She took to heart all the mannerisms of Parnassianism and of Symbolism, as one of the last poets to claim allegiance to the school. Her compositions include sonnets, hendecasyllabic verse, and prose poetry.

Virtually all her verse is veiled autobiography written in the French language, most of which has never been translated into English. Her principal published books of verse are ''Cendres et Poussières'' (1902), ''La Vénus des aveugles'' (1903), ''A l'heure des mains jointes'' (1906), ''Flambeaux éteints'' (1907), ''Sillages'' (1908), ''Poèmes en Prose'' (1909), ''Dans un coin de violettes'' (1909), and ''Haillons'' (1910).

Her poetry has earned even greater attention with the contemporary rediscovery of the works of Sappho, bringing with it even more acclaim.

List of works

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Note: Later books were published published posthumously.
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Collections

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Works available in English translation

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Gallery

See also

* List of poets portraying sexual relations between women

Notes

References

Sources

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Further reading

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* Partial previewat Google Books.
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External links

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Vivien, Renee
1877 births
1909 deaths
19th-century English poets
19th-century English women writers
19th-century English LGBTQ people
19th-century English biographers
Belle Époque
British emigrants to France
British lesbian writers
British writers in French
Burials at Passy Cemetery
Deaths from anorexia nervosa
English lesbian writers
English LGBTQ poets
English people of American descent
English women poets
French-language poets
Lesbian poets
Neurological disease deaths in France
Symbolist poets