Renee Vivien's Sapphic Legacy

Renee Vivien's Sapphic Legacy:

Remembering the Tama Lea Engelking "House of Muses" Cleveland State University

ABSTRACT

Sappho represents both a powerful female precursor and an example of how women's writing has been censored. She nevertheless felt certain that "Someone in the future will remember us." Renee Vivien (1877-1909), lesbian poet and translator of Sappho, felt the full impact of this mixed sapphic legacy and, like her principal muse, she became more and more concerned about her future readers to whom she left her own mixed legacy. Despite the tragic aspects of her life, Vivien's sapphic legacy to modem-day readers is positive since it emphasizes a woman-centred lyric tradition that constitutes the "House of Muses."

RESUME

Sapho represente a la fois un precurseur feminin puissant et un exemple de la censure levee contre l'ecriture des femmes. Cependant, elle etait certaine que «Quelqu'un se souviendra de nous dans l'avenir». Renee Vivien (1877- 1909), poete lesbienne et traductrice de Sapho, a ressenti la pleine force de ce legs mixte saphique et, comme sa Muse principale, elle s'occupait de plus en plus de ses lectrices et de ses lecteurs futurs auxquels elle a laisse, elle aussi, un legs mixte a assortir. Malgrd les aspects tragiques de sa vie, le legs saphique de Vivien aux lectrices et aux lecteurs d'aujourd'hui est plutot positif puisqu'il fait ressortir une tradition lyrique gynocentrique qui constitue «La Maison des Muses».

£ £ OMEONE, I BELIEVE, WILL REMEM- calls a "fantasy precursor" par excellence. ber us in the future." This verse, Since so little is actually known about her, she ^—* written by Sappho in the sixth cen• can function as a blank page on which women tury B.C., is among the few fragments that writers are free to project a powerful literary have survived from the nine books of divine foremother and trace the beginnings of a fe• verse she is known to have written. While male literary tradition.2 On the other hand, Sappho correctly predicted the immortality of Gubar reminds us that Sappho represents "all her work, she could not have guessed how the women of genius in literary history, espec• centuries of repression, combined with neglect, ially all the lesbian artists whose work has would leave it in tattered bits for "someone" to been destroyed, sanitized, or heterosexual- assemble.1 The bits and pieces of her life and ized," — deliberately censored or conveniently work have been woven into numerous and of• misread when their work (and sexual orienta• ten contradictory sapphic fictions — a mixed tion) challenged the dominant ideology (46). legacy for women writers for whom her exam• ple is both empowering and disquieting. On Perhaps no one has felt the impact of the one hand, Sappho is what Susan Gubar Sappho's mixed legacy more strongly than the lesbian poet and translator of Sappho's poems, of a Sappho who wrote unambiguously for and Renee Vivien (1877-1909). An Anglo-Ameri• about women. Her recuperation of Sappho ex• can whose real name was Pauline Tarn, Vivien tends to all the genres she practised, from her was independently wealthy; therefore, she was translations and expansions of Sappho's frag• free to escape, by going to Paris, her family ments, to her novel and numerous original and the restrictions of her Victorian poems. In "Psappha Revit," the poem that is upbringing. There she pursued her studies of considered Vivien's creed of sapphic love, she Greek and wrote lesbian poetry in French.3 A specifies that, as a modern-day follower of Greek scholar, lesbian and poet, Vivien Sappho, her role is to conserve the rites of seemed ideally suited for re-membering Sap• Lesbos.6 The prefix "re-" occurs frequently in pho's fragmented verses which she translated Vivien's poems about Sappho because she into French and then elaborated, weaving Sap• imagines them as revival and continuation of pho's words almost obsessively into the fabric Sappho's ideal of love poetry as it was prac• of her own poems. Her original poetry is so tised on Lesbos. "Douceur de mes chants" saturated with sapphism that it is often dif• (Evocations, OPC 91) and "En Debarquant a ficult to know where Sappho ends and Vivien Mytilene" (A Iheure, OPC 268), for example, begins. She was so close to her principal muse both invite her readers on a voyage to eternal that Andre Billy called her "Sapho 1900, Sa- Lesbos "a travers les siecles disparates" where pho 100%."4 It was not a particularly accurate Sappho neither forgets nor is forgotten (268). description of Vivien who saw herself more as In the first, Vivien imagines herself greeted by one of Sappho's faithful disciples than a fin- the silent ghost of Sappho whose muteness re• du-siecle incarnation of the tenth muse, but his quires someone to speak in her place. This is label does point to the ways she would subse• confirmed in the final verses: "Et nous re- quently be read. Literary history makes it all dirons a la terre enivree / L'hymne de Lesbos" too clear; a fantasy collaboration with Sappho (91). In the second poem, the poet talks of re• may empower the woman writer, but such a discovering and recovering Mytilene, of mak• close identification might also mean sharing ing it "l'autel aujourd'hui des ivresses d'hier." her legacy as "la grande Meconnue et la The emphasis is on continuity, connection and grande Calomniee" (38) as Vivien put it in her community, and it is in this spirit that Vivien autobiographical novel, Une Femme consistently links her revival of Sappho's cult m 'apparut.5 to the line "Someone, I believe, will remember us in the future." If Vivien returned to these words again and again, it was as if, by so Vivien, for her part, understood this better closely collaborating with her ancient Greek than most of her idealistic contemporaries. mentor, she could become one of "us" and Ironically, while her acute awareness of how thus ensure that her own work would be re• male perspectives dominated and shaped Sap• membered by future readers. pho's place in literary tradition may have inspired her efforts to recuperate Sappho as a lesbian poet, it also fuelled her fears for the That Vivien wanted her poems to be read future of her own work. She devoted an enor• by future generations is beyond question when mous amount of creative energy to clearing up we examine the relationship that she spells out the core of traditional misunderstandings about with her readers in several key poems as well Sappho — namely, her sexual orientation — as the development of her career. Her biogra• by generating and promoting her own "fiction" pher Jean-Paul Goujon believes that the main motivation for Vivien's prolific literary output fate of her own work occupied her to the point — over 20 volumes of poetry, short stories, that she also began preparing a new edition of prose poems and one novel in 10 years — was her complete works of poetry. In a revealing a desire to leave an oeuvre for the future letter to her editor written when she was se• (Preface OPC, 10). As one of the first modern verely ill, Vivien confuses the two projects, women poets to write openly about love be• suggesting how closely their fates were inter• tween women, Vivien was naturally concerned twined in her mind (see Tes blessures 413). about how posterity would treat her work, es• Equally telling is Vivien's conversion to Ca• pecially when she began seeing a definite bias tholicism in the final days before her death. It against her work then. A 1908 anthology of seems she looked to the Christian God as well French poetry, for example, contained none of as her pagan muse Sappho in a last desperate Vivien's poems and, according to Paul Lorenz, attempt to reflect the finality of death, for both her works were also banned form the after• held out the promise of an immortality of noon poetry readings presented by the actors sorts. of the Comedie francaise. Vivien's earlier opti• mism, connected to the most prolific period of So overwhelming were Vivien's fears for her career when she was closest to Sappho, the future of her work that one can easily was eventually overshadowed by growing imagine her dying with this question on her fears and mistrust of the reading public, and lips: "How will I be remembered?" Looking at by morbid and self-destructive tendencies the reception of Vivien's work both in the which seem to have been part of Vivien's psy• U.S. and in France, we can see that her reputa• chic make up. Sappho remained central to tion is shaping up along lines similar to her Vivien's poetic vision until 1907; her disap• ancient model and mentor. Like Sappho, she pearance from Vivien's works coincides with has left her readers a mixed legacy to sort out, a marked decline in the quality of her poems and the widely divergent interpretations of her which deteriorated along with her health until, work are also reminiscent of Sappho's place in in 1909, at the age of thirty-two, Renee Vivien literary history. Take, for example, Salomon died from pneumonia, complicated by the Reinach, an early Vivien admirer whom Nata• damage she had wreaked on her body through lie Barney called her "posthumous lover." alcoholism and anorexia. Reinach took it upon himself to collect many of Vivien's personal papers which he sealed in Significantly, the last project Vivien un• the Bibliotheque Nationale until the year 2000. dertook before her death was a revised edition By thus protecting her reputation, he felt he of her French translations from the Greek was working in Vivien's best interest. As he which she combined into a single abridged explained in a letter to Natalie Barney: "J'ai volume and published anonymously as Sapho horreur de tout ce qui peut ressembler a une et huit poetesses grecques. As was Vivien's biographie de Renee Vivien. On a ses vers di- 7 usual practice, this volume was printed at her vins, cela suffit." own expense, but she made the surprising request of ordering 2,000 copies to be sold in The literary critic Yves-Gerard Le Dantec public bookstores — surprising since she had is another of Vivien's male admirers who also withdrawn all her own books from circulation attempted to rescue her from damnation. In his during this same period. Yet, while she book, Renee Vivien: femme damnee, femme worked to preserve Sappho for future readers, sauvee (1930), Le Dantec sidesteps the ques• despite her weakened physical condition, the tion of Vivien's sexuality by declaring that "Je ne perdrai ni mon temps, ni celui du lecteur a Contemporary readers who hold up Vivien me demander si le saphisme fut ou non un ele• as a positive lesbian role model are also guilty ment decisif de son talent ou de son origina- of misreading or selective reading, because lite" (18).8 He does admit, however, that they choose to ignore those negative aspects of Vivien's readers will find themselves in the Vivien's life and work which do not fit into "delicate situation" of deciding to what degree their paradigm of "Sappho 1900," or what they can ignore her "abnormality" (211), and Elaine Marks identifies as the "metaphysical suggests that the obscurity of this gifted poet anguish and the enigma of sexual identity" at is due to her "perversions." Le Dantec's title the thematic core of Vivien's work (178). offers a partial solution to this dilemma as he Renee Vivien's woman-centred sapphic vision devotes his final chapter to supporting the sin• and celebration of women loving women cerity of Vivien's death bed conversion to Ca• appalled many of her earlier readers, but it en• tholicism: "L'hellenisme saphique lui fut un thrals feminists today who are disturbed and etrange poison que ses veines ne rejeterent ... confused by the often misogynistic decadent qu'a la derniere minute" (215). aesthetic and fascination with death that per• vades much of her writing. It is difficult to The Reinachs and Le Dantecs of this ignore Vivien's apparent hate for her body, her world have tried to shape the course of literary frigidity, jealousy, extreme paranoia and rejec• history by repressing or reshaping information tion of women like Barney who offered her about "Sappho 1900" in ways consistent with valuable support and, most of all, her tragic the censoring and misreading of women poets end. These are some of the elements that do since Sappho. Male readers, however, are not not fit popular fantasies of Paris-Lesbos, imag• the only culprits; contemporary feminist writ• ined by some as the ideal support group for ers have also contributed to the Vivien legend creative lesbians. The incomplete record of Vi• by creating what Elaine Marks calls "Imagi• vien's life only makes matters worse, and even nary Renee Viviens."9 Even earlier, Vivien's those contemporaries who knew and wrote friend and neighbour, Colette, helped perpetu• about her, such as Colette and Natalie Barney, 10 ate the Vivien legend by devoting a chapter to often present conflicting pictures. She has her in Le Pur et I'impur (originally published been called everything from a feminist to a as Ces plaisirs... in 1932). Colette's account, masochist, an anorexic, an alcoholic, a virgin, which constitutes the most famous portrait of a devoted Roman Catholic, a pagan, a mystic, the poet by a contemporary, capitalizes on a Sappho reincarnated, Baudelaire's daughter, chilling descriptions of the stifling decadent in• a symbolist, and a romantic. In the more than terior of Vivien's apartment, her odd (and self- 80 years since her death, some of Vivien's destructive) eating habits, her collection of worst fears have been realized as her readers Buddah statues and pet frogs. These details are create various fictions of "Sappho 1900," or fascinating, but Colette devotes no space to "Imaginary Renee Viviens," to suit their own considering Vivien as a writer. According to ideological agendas. In short, Vivien is be• Colette's account, Vivien tried to mask her coming more like Sappho all the time! literary aspirations behind a titillating and mysterious lifestyle, hiding her poems in bas• Much modern-day mythologizing about kets of fruit to offer them as gifts, and shoving Renee Vivien revolves around her death and her poems in progress under a cushion if any• the theme of death in her poetry, both of one entered the room while she was writing. which are written about nearly as often as her sapphism. It is as if her readers cannot help Barney's infidelities, arguing that Vivien's but wonder about the reasons Vivien allowed "artistic genius rested in morbid desires for herself to die so young. We are seduced by and fears of death."15 her darker side in perhaps much the same way she was seduced by the decadent aesthetic of While each reader, including this one, is in writers like Swinburne and Baudelaire. As a sense creating her own imaginary Renee Vi• Colette's portrait of her reveals, Vivien en• vien, I am troubled by how closely Vivien's couraged that identification, dramatically life, death and personal failures have influ• posing, for example, as Lady Jane Grey in a enced the interpretation of her work. Just as tableau-vivant she created of Grey's execution Sappho's suicidal leap and the motivation for (with Colette's lover Missy in the role of the that leap — whether it actually happened or executioner). not — become insignificant in the face of a poetic oeuvre whose passionate lyricism has Some critics have suggested that Sappho's endured for centuries, Vivien's work is more suicidal leap from the Leucadian cliff, a motif than the sum of her life and death. My initial that reoccurs in Vivien's poetry, prefigures her reaction to Vivien's work was influenced by own death. Still others find in her poetry "life- the tragic aspects of her life which led me to denying" or negative images of the (often les• perceive her sapphic vision as a failure.16 I bian) femme fatale associated with Baudelaire, eventually concluded, however, that her the French Symbolists, and Decadence.11 service to a sapphic literary tradition bore fruit Cassandra Laity, for example, speaks of the after all, for would we be discussing her work "dark" side of Decadence that Vivien allowed at this moment if she had failed? It is certainly to rule her imagination;12 Susan Gubar identi• true that she ended her life tragically, but — fies Vivien's Sappho with sadistic images of and this is an important "but" — as Benstock the lesbian femme fatale which Vivien inter• has also noted, Vivien's poetic effort was suc• nalized, "tapping the energy of the decadents' cessful although her personal effort was not alienated lesbian," in her art, even while (Left Bank 287). This, too, was Natalie suffering "the consequences of such internal• Barney's message to Vivien's readers when, ization" in her life ("Sapphistries" 49). Gubar during a poetry reading she had organized to examines the link between Sappho and suicide commemorate her friend, she reminded the to suggest that those, like Vivien, who collab• audience: "Mais l'oeuvre de ta vie est la pour orate with her "may be destined to associate te venger."17 the grace and daring of her art with the an• guish of a fated, if not fatal, eroticism" (61). With Barney's words in mind, I would like For Lillian Faderman, Vivien internalized dec• to turn to Vivien's work, and look specifically adence to the point that her death paralleled at her fears for the future of her work, and the suicide of Swinburne's decadent heroine, how this pessimism is offset by her interpreta• Lesbia Brandon.13 Lawrence Lipking places tion of Sappho's death. I propose to read Vivien in the long tradition of abandoned Vivien in the spirit of the way she read and women, and reads her translation of Sappho's wrote Sappho's death into her poetry because second ode as the poet forever separated from I feel it has important implications for the cur• her beloved by death.14 Shari Benstock anal• rent generation of women readers and writers. yses Vivien's "death wish" which she relates Lipking points out, for example, that Vivien's to Vivien's loss of her father at age 9 and to translation of Sappho's second ode leaves the poet on the brink of death, but this is by no death in 1909, the tone and quality of her means her final word. Instead, she picks up the writing changed considerably during the three theme of Sappho's death several times and years she was without her muse. The peak elaborates on it, composing what amounts to year of her literary production, 1903, was the an epitaph for Sappho's tomb that might make same year she published her translation and an apt inscription for her own headstone. Es• adaptation of Sappho along with four books of pecially important are the verse dramas Vivien her own poems, and two works under the wrote about Sappho's death, the last and pseudonym Paule Riversdale. Sappho re• longest of which appeared in her 1908 volume, mained central to Vivien's poetic vision until Sillages.1* 1907. A l'heure des mains jointes (1906) is a transitional volume that documents, in effect, As I mentioned earlier, Vivien had stopped the forces undermining the wholeness of Vi• writing about Sappho in 1907 for reasons that vien's Sapphic vision, and particularly her she elaborates in her transitional volume, A concern with the reception of her own work. It l'heure des mains jointes (1906). The few also has the distinction of being the only vol• sapphic poems in Sillages are important excep• ume of her poems to be translated into English tions, constituting what Jean-Paul Goujon con• in its entirety, although it is currently out of siders Vivien's "adieu" to Sappho since she print. Renee Vivien worked unusually hard on only evokes her dead, or "vaincue" (Tes ca• A l'heure, which she believed to contain some resses 397). However, it is not Sappho's pas• of her best work, and was so confident of pub• sionate and tragic suicide that stirred Vivien's lic approval that she requested 2,200 copies imagination as it had stirred so many nine• printed — a rather large number for that teenth-century artists, musicians, and writers.19 period. Yet, A I 'heure alternates between opti• Rather, Sappho's suicidal leap from the Leu- mism and pessimism, illustrating, in effect, the cadian cliff becomes a jumping off point for poet's transition from a positive sapphic mode the revival of the Lesbian's memory, and the to deep pessimism characterized by a loss of celebration of a sapphic tradition in which faith in her work, disconnection from the "mourning has no place." The words are Sap• world and, especially, the fear that her poems pho's, but the sentiment goes to the heart of would be misunderstood and finally forgotten. Vivien's revival of Sappho which is surpris• ingly untouched by her profound pessimism The title is a paraphrase of Dante Gabriel and personal cult of death. As Karla Jay has Rossetti's verse "the hour of sisterly sweet pointed out, Sappho inspired Vivien to create hand-in-hand," and conjures up an image of "the work most devoid of self-pity and supportive female friendship. The many poems morbidity" (66). Vivien wrote in this vein, such as "Psappha revit," are extremely optimistic about the immor• Before we follow Vivien to the edge of tality of Sappho and her sapphic disciples, Sappho's Leucadian cliff, I would like to which includes the Sappho of 1900 herself: examine the forces that my have driven her there. The morbidity and self-pity of which Psappha revit et regne en nos corps fremis- Jay speaks became a permanent part of Vi• sants; / Comme elle, nous avons ecout6 la vien's work after 1906 — what amounts to the sirene, / Comme elle encore, nous avons l'ame sereine, / Nous qui n'entendons post-Sappho phase of her career. Although she point l'insulte des passants. /... / Nos jours wrote and published prolifically from the time sans impudeur, sans crainte ni remords, / of her first volume appeared in 1901 until her Se deroulent ainsi que de larges accords, knowing that her considerable talent was still / Et nous aimons, comme on aimait a appreciated by a small, select audience, but Mytilene. she became more and more aware that her (A I'heure, OPC 252) work did not have the popular appeal of Anna Vivien's Lesbos is a sanctuary for women lov• de Noailles' poetry. "Sans Flews a votre ers but, back in the heterosexual world where front" was supposedly written in response to she lived, wrote, and published, her lesbianism Anna de Noailles, who slighted Vivien by ig• was under attack. Elyse Blankley has demon• noring an invitation from her. Vivien compares strated how Vivien's poeticized Lesbos con• her lack of success with Noailles' popularity: trasted sharply with the reality of Paris 1900 "Je ne suis point de ceux que la foule re- where lesbian sensuality was degraded and nomme, / Mais de ceux qu'elle hait ... Car subjected to voyeuristic male desires. Her j'osai concevoir / Qu'une vierge amoureuse est challenge, according to Blankley, was to plus belle qu'un homme" (A I'heure, OPC "redeem Sappho from male authors who had 274). She threatens Noailles with an insult exploited Lesbos as a form of thinly disguised borrowed from Sappho herself: pornography or as a shocking affront to bour• geois morality" (49). My discussion below Vous ne cueillerez point les roses de Psap- supports Blankley's claim that, through her pha. / Vous ne verrez jamais les jardins et poetry, Vivien was able to make her readers les berges / Ou resonna l'accord puissant "see Mytilene for the first time — not as a de son paktis, / Et vous n'entendrez point Parisian erotic object, but as a source of le choeur sacre des vierges, / Ni l'hymne female power" (50). The process, however, d'Eranna ni le sanglot d'Atthis. was painful and, as much as she tried to (A I'heure, OPC 274) ignore "Pinsulte des passants," Vivien was Gathering the roses of Sappho is a direct refer• clearly distressed by public disapproval. ence to Sappho's fragment L-P 55: Numerous poems in A I'heure des mains jointes reveal her sadness over being mis• You will lie dead, nor will there be anyone understood, especially when she trades the / remembering you later; for you have no protection of the collective "we" for the vul• share / in the roses of Pieria, but will roam nerable first person singular. In "Ainsi je par- unseen / in the house of Hades, having lerai," for example, the proud poet explains: flown off among dim corpses.20

The context for this fragment is lost, but Comme je ne cherchais que 1'amour, ob- commentators agree that it is a vicious attack sedee / Par un regard, les gens de bien m'ont lapidee. / Moi, je n'ecoutais plus directed at a woman lacking poetic talent. que la voix que j'aimais, / Ayant compris According to Anne Pippen Burnett, "The infer• que nul ne comprendrait jamais. / Pour- ence is plain: Sappho's pupils were not like tant, la nuit approche, et mon nom peris- this. They were not even just sweet-voiced sable / S'efface, tel un mot qu'on ecrit sur girls, but true musicians, disciples who had le sable. / L'ardeur des lendemains sait been given a whiff at least of the Pierian aussi decevoir: / Nul ne murmurera mes rose."21 Greek scholars disagree about the na• strophes, vers le soir. ture of Sappho's circle. Wilamowitz popular• (A I'heure, OPC 254) ized the notion that she was the head mistress Misunderstood, but still not defeated, of a public academy for girls. Russo supports Vivien could remain serene for the moment, the idea of a closely and formally organized women's association, "for the worship of Aph• terpretation of Sappho. Although Noailles is a rodite, the Graces and the Muses, and the cul• woman poet, she cannot qualify for member• tivation in life and ritual celebration in song, ship in Sappho's circle because she did not of all those tender emotions in human relation• write for and about women. ships that the Greeks credited to the power of the irresistible Cyprian"22 (722). Maurice Bow- A turn-of-the-century reader familiar with ra specifies that Sappho's group was dedicated both Vivien and Noailles would recognize the to the cult of Aphrodite of which Sappho was audacity of her comparison in "Sans fleurs." chief priestess. Still others, such as Denys L. Anna de Noailles was the most popular wom• Page, reject the notion of any formal or pro• an poet of her day; her books were astounding fessional relationship between Sappho and her bestsellers and she was the most decorated companions.23 The majority of Sappho schol• femmes de lettres of her generation, becoming ars, however, concur on one important point: the first woman elected to the Royal Belgian that Sappho was surrounded by a circle of Academy of Language and Literature (the year women for and about whom she sang. before Colette), and the first woman to receive the rank of Commander of the Legion of "The roses of Pieria" refers to a region Honor. Noailles had a tremendous following, near Mount Olympus considered the birthplace but some literary critics did not appreciate her of the Muses. She who gathers roses there par• talent and blamed her popularity on her snob takes in divine poetic inspiration and, by ex• appeal. Among them was J. Ernest-Charles, a tension, is destined to be remembered. The Vivien proponent who believed she was much Muses, it must be pointed out, are more than more talented than the Comtesse de Noailles. just sources of inspiration; they are also the In an article written in 1904, he expresses his daughters of Zeus and the Goddess of Memo• exasperation at a public whose enthusiasm was ry, and the original sense of their name is due more to Noailles' aristocratic name than to "reminder." As we have seen, Vivien was her talent, and speculates that Vivien's recep• more than a little sensitive to anything having tion would be quite different if her name was 24 to do with being remembered. The woman de• Noailles. prived of Pierian roses is a bad poet, and the implication is that a bad poet is simply not Buoyed by her popularity and her own worth the trouble to remember. Vivien, how• iron-clad ego, Anna de Noailles did not share ever, does not condemn Noailles for lack of Vivien's uncertainty about whether or not she talent or inspiration, but because she lacks would be remembered, but instead found inspi• specifically in sapphic inspiration. She re• ration in prematurely proclaiming her post• places the Pierian roses with Sappho's roses, humous glory. She was convinced that the elevating her to the status of Muse and, as we intense passion of her works would seduce fu• have seen already, implicating the Greek poet ture readers, even to the point that they would in her own two-fold need to remember and be prefer her poetry to the company of their remembered. Instead of imagining Noailles wives.25 Moreover, she imagines her audience wandering forgotten in Hades as in the original as male when she writes: "Mes livres, je les fragment, Vivien bans her from Lesbos, her fis pour vous, 6 jeunes hommes."26 Vivien ideal paradise for women poets. The insistence counters this with "Vous pour qui j'ecrivis," on women-inspired poetry, written for women also from A I 'heure, in which she imagines an and remembered by them, is central to her in• ideal readership that is exclusively feminine: Vous pour qui j'ecrivis, 6 belles jeunes pourquoi j'ai accompli cet acte. Toute sim- femmes! / Vous que, seules, j'aimais, re- plement parce que le public est laid, et que lirez-vous mes vers / Par les futurs matins mon livre — un de mes livres, celui que neigeant sur l'univers, / Par les soirs j'aime le plus peut-etre — pourrait tomber futurs de roses et de flammes? entre des mains sales, aux ongles noirs. (A I'heure, OPC 299) (qtd. in Tes caresses 379)

She follows this poem with another that an• Vivien had already expressed strong distaste swers the question negatively: for publishing in Une femme m 'apparut where she compares the woman of letters to a prosti• Non! par les soirs futurs de roses et de tute. According to the narrator, the courtesan, flammes, / Mysterieux ainsi que les tem• who only sells her body to a limited number ples hindous, / Nul ne saura mon nom et of individuals, is more modest than the woman nulle d'entre vous / Ne redira mes vers, 6 belles jeunes femmes! writer "qui vend son ame, tiree a des milliers (A I'heure, OPC 299) d'exemplaires. L'ame nue est plus impudique que le corps devoile" (99). The future clearly interests Vivien who searches for some assurance her memory will We must remember that with a personal be served as she served Sappho's but, perhaps fortune at her disposal, Vivien had the luxury in light of the negative criticism her work was of publishing only to please herself, not the receiving at this crucial point in her career, she ugly public. Vivien's principal publisher, began anticipating the other possibilities too Lemerre, printed her work at the author's ex• vividly. The powerful imagery of "Le pilori," pense. Her last few works of poetry were only for example, shows the poet not only as mis• printed in a small number which she distri• understood, but publicly humiliated by men buted to personal friends. The horror she felt and women alike: for the market place was soon equalled by her horror of the public place, and she became a Pendant longtemps, je fus clouee au pilori recluse who traded the security of her enclosed / Et des femmes, voyant que je souffrais, garden on Mytilene for the four walls of her ont ri, / Puis, des hommes ont pris dans Parisian apartment. "Interieur" describes the leurs mains une boue / Qui vint eclabous- writer's retreat as a closed and darkened room. ser mes tempes et ma joue. Thus protected and closed away from the in• (A I'heure, OPC 300) sulting stares of the outside world, she could 28 Finally, in "Vaincue," she acknowledges: at last feel at peace: "Mes vers n'ont pas atteint a la calme excel• lence, / Je l'ai compris, et nul ne les lira Dans mon ame a fleuri le miracle des roses jamais..." (A I'heure, OPC 301).27 / Pour le mettre a l'abri, tenons les portes closes /... / Je ne sais plus si Ton medit de Vivien had never thought highly of the nous, ni si / L'on parle encore... Les mots public but, following the publication of A ne font plus mal ici. / . . . . tenons les I'heure des mains jointes, she withdrew her portes closes... books from public circulation because, as she (A I'heure, OPC 303) explained to Natalie Barney: That a defeated Vivien who had resigned Je ne vends plus mon ame a 3 fr. 50 l'ex- her work to obscurity and herself to an early emplaire. Tu te demanderas peut-etre demise would return to Sappho's death at this point in her career is rather odd given that she commissioned several portraits to illustrate Les had already written several versions. However, Kitharedes from the famous artist Levy- that she would elaborate the same material, ex• Dhurmer. Following Vivien's instructions, he panding her eighty-line verse drama "La mort modeled his portraits of the Greek poets after de Psappha" (Evocations 103) into nearly 300 contemporary women poets. Anyta, for exam• lines in "Dans un verger" (Sillages 1908), sug• ple, was given the face of Anna de Noailles gests some significant additions. The biggest (!), and Korinna is recognizable as Natalie change is that she clearly writes herself into Clifford Barney, to whom Vivien dedicated the longer version, speaking through the per• her translation.30 sona of the messenger or I'Etrangere, a for• eigner or stranger who arrives on Lesbos at the Nowhere does Vivien's face appear but, if moment of Sappho's death. we were to identify her with any of the Greek cithara players, it would be with the figure Before we analyze her role, the origin of Nossis addresses as the Stranger. The role of this persona needs some explaining. Vivien the Stranger was certainly appropriate for a first encountered the figure of / 'Etrangere in a lesbian expatriot like Vivien who lived very poem by the Greek poet Nossis, which is usu• much outside of the mainstream values of pa• ally interpreted as an epitaph addressed to a triarchal and heterosexist fin-du-siecle French passerby:29 society. Vivien makes this identification ex• plicit in a prose chapter from Les Kitharedes Stranger, if you sail towards Mytilene of called "Variations sur un theme." She repeats the beautiful dances / to be inspired by the poem by Nossis quoted above, prefacing it the flower of Sappho's charms, / Say that with this explanation: "Je suis celle que Nossis the land of Locri gave birth to one dear to a la voix de femme envoya vers toi en me the Muses, / and when you have learned disant, 'Etrangere, si tu navigues vers Myti• that my name is Nossis, / go your way. (Trans. Snyder 78) lene...'" She continues: "Et Psappha me repon- dit, les yeux rives sur les yeux d'Eranna: Vivien includes this poem and several others 'Quelqu'un, je crois, se souviendra dans l'ave- by Nossis in Les Kitharedes (1904), or players nir de nous'" (182). In addition to this prose of the cithara. This was her second translation section, Vivien includes several expanded from the Greek, and contained all the poetry poetic variations on the same theme in Les from the Greek Anthology by women — four• Kitharedes, several of which emphasize how teen poets in all. Since little is known about close Nossis is to Sappho. Using nearly the the lives of these poets, Vivien combined same words as "Psappha revit," Vivien, in the scholarship and poetry into creative myth- voice of Nossis, calls herself Sappho's "pieuse making, much as she had previously done for disciple, a ton autel brise / J'ai rallume Sappho. She composed biographical introduc• l'ardeur expirante des flammes." Then, as if tions to each poet, supplemented with literal affirming her role in assuring Sappho's im• translations and prose paraphrases, and elabor• mortality, she repeats the sapphic fragment so ated selected verses into original poems. She dear to Vivien, "N'as-tu point dit ... 'Quel• mingles her voice with theirs, but she takes a qu'un, dans l'avenir, se souviendra de nous, / step further towards connecting ancient Lesbos Les Muses, a qui plait la voix des amoureuses, with fin-du-siecle Paris as she would ultimate• Nous firent glorieuses'" (237), as if affirming ly do by assuming the Stranger's role — she her role in assuring Sappho's immortality. As a traveller to Lesbos, both in her imagination are set at Sappho's school of poetry, and the and in real life (since Vivien owned a villa on principal action does not evolve around Sap• the island), she could fulfil the role of mes• pho, but around the arrival of I'Etrangere. In senger and grant the request Nossis may have the first and shorter verse drama, she is warm• had carved on her tomb. ly greeted by Sappho's companions who invite her to "viens cueillir avec nous les roses de That I'Etrangere originates with Nossis Psappha: / Elle enseigne les chants qui plaisent seems significant if we review the few facts aux Deesses" (OPC 105). Her welcome is known about her. She comes from Locri, a briefly interrupted by Sappho who appears Greek colony in southern Italy that some covered in dark veils. She speaks sadly of her scholars argue was matrilinear. According to lost love and then disappears. Karla Jay has Jane Snyder, "It is perhaps only a curious commented that in this and other poems in coincidence that the epigrams of Nossis, writ• which Vivien describes Sappho's death, she ten about 300 B.C., seem to reflect a distinctly "arranges matters so that the disciples could female world centered around the worship of prevent the death of Sappho but choose not to. Hera and Aphrodite; of the twelve extant epi• Neither tradition nor Barney concur with this grams, only two focus on males" (77). Gow interpretation, but it was one wholly consistent and Page, two rather conservative editors of with Vivien's personal cult of death" (Jay's The Greek Anthology, make some helpful emphasis, 70). Eranna, Atthis, and company comments on A.P. 7.718, as Nossis' Stranger seem to live vicariously through Sappho's tra• epigram is known. First, they assume that gic passion and listen attentively to the echo of these lines are probably an epitaph, "for per• her agonished cry as she leaps (off stage) to sons who have lost their lives abroad and wish her death and her body is carried out to sea. their deaths reported at home."31 The poet's Psappha "vient de s'eteindre ainsi qu'une death is not explicitedly mentioned, but it is a harmonie" (OPC 108). useful context for the sake of my argument, because it illustrates how a poet's words may Despite the reluctance of Sappho's disci• live on after her, and it also suggests that ples to intervene in her destiny, the poem ends remembering is a proper sapphic response to on an uplifting note as victorious chords of the death of a sister poet. Secondly, Gow and lyres drown out the sorrowful cries of her fol• Page concur with Snyder that Nossis "declares lowers who scatter roses not on the sea, the herself within the poetic tradition of Sappho of site of Sappho's death, but on the threshold of Lesbos" (79). Nossis and Vivien are sisters in her house. These are presumably Pierian roses, a long line of women poets that extends from gathered directly from their muse herself, be• Sappho in ancient Greece, to the present day. cause although Sappho is absent, she remains an inspiring presence. The final speech in "La Vivien's final verse drama represents an mort de Psappha" belongs to the stranger who, important return from isolation to a commu• repeating a sapphic fragment, encourages the nity, back to the tradition she had given all women poets to sing instead of weeping: evidence of having abandoned. Her elabora• tions on the stranger's connection to "us," that O compagnes, les pleurs sont de legeres is, her interaction with Sappho's circle of dis• choses / Qui ne conviennent point au glori- ciples, makes up the bulk of the difference be• eux trepas... / Chantez! II faut remplir de tween "La mort de Psappha" and the longer rythmes et de roses / La maison du poete ou le deuil n'entre pas! version, "Dans un verger." Both verse dramas (OPC 108) Once again, we have no clear context for N'est pas le tien" (334). As if she had trav• interpreting the original sapphic verses which elled to join the lesbian women poets from the David Campbell translates: "For it is not right twentieth century, the Stranger is confident in that there should be lamentation in the house repeatedly telling them that their future glory of those who serve the Muses. That would not and, by extension, hers, is assured. be fitting for us."32 Russo's comments on the original fragment help clarify what Vivien At this point in the verse drama, Sappho is may mean by "la maison du poete." He inter• heard moaning off stage as she builds her prets the original word Mousopolos as not just courage for her tragic leap. She appears veiled, "a metaphor for 'poet,' but a term specially and has two lines before she exits to hurl her• appropriate for one who has formally dedi• self into the sea but, as in the earlier version, cated oneself to the cult of the Muses, and the her companions do nothing to stop her. In• activities of the members of that cult. One of stead, they quote from her "Prayer to Aphro• these activities was obviously the performance dite" and blame Eros for her pain. At the mo• of songs for other members (hetairai) of the ment of Sappho's demise, the Stranger takes group" (723). the floor to encourage her sister poets not to mourn: "Respecte la maison des serviteurs des The "Poet's House" is a place such as Vi• Muses, / Cette auguste maison ou le deuil vien imagined Mytilene, where women poet n'entre pas. / Ne pleurez plus! .... Chantez dedicated to the Muses perform for each other. comme Ton chante en la maison des Dieux!" The emphasis is on group interaction, and this (OPC 342). The final stage direction calls for is precisely on what Vivien elaborates in her the virgins to pick up their instruments, encir• longer 1908 version of Sappho's death. More cle their heads with braided wreaths of roses, emphasis is placed on the reception of / 'Etran• and resume singing. gere, who, although timid and covered with dust from her long journey, is immediately Sappho's death is recounted in similar recognized as a beautiful poet, "digne de nos fashion in Une femme m 'apparut by San Gio• chosurs" (OPC 329). The disciples give the vanni who assumes the same role played by newcomer food and drink, and introduce them• the Stranger. San Giovanni, an androgynous selves. In a line strangely reminiscent of poet who is always a "she," serves in the nov• "Vous, pour qui j'ecrivis, 6 belles jeunes el as the author's alter ego. In her introduction femmes," I'Etrangere tells them: "Plus tard je to the novel, Gayle Rubin calls San Giovanni chanterai pour vous plaire / 6 tres belles!... / Je "Renee's better half, her common sense, the suis lasse d'avoir erre... Mais grace aux Dieux courageous poet of Lesbos: in short, the core / Je me repose enfin parmis vos choeurs heu- of Vivien's identity which remained intact reux" (OPC 331). The Stranger, who is no from the devastation of her unhappy passion" stranger to women's poetry, recognizes Eranna (xiii). Her characterization of San Giovanni (the most famous Kitharede) who "avec humi- seems to fit with my reading of the Stranger. lite altiere" repeats (once again!) Sappho's Like Vivien's Stranger persona, San Giovanni words: "Someone in the future will remember spans time and space in her service to Sappho. us." With the foresight of the time traveller She lived on Lesbos in a former life, she says, she is, I'Etrangere assures her that "ton nom and, although she was too awkward and ugly sera grand dans l'avenir futur" and that "Le to become Sappho's lover, she was one of her sort des chants obscurs entasses dans l'oubli / students at the time of Sappho's death: J'etais en Sicile quand j'appris sa mort; her own fin-du-siecle perspective, can interpret mais cette mort etait si glorieuse que je ne in a practical way that makes sense for our pleurais point, et que les larmes de mes lives today. Although Vivien was unable to compagnes me surprirent etm'offenserent. successfully connect her poetic vision to the Je leur rappelai ses paroles magnanimes: «Car il n'est pas juste que la lamentation day-to-day reality of her life, "connection" and soit dans la maison des serviteurs des "community" are nevertheless at the heart of Muses: Cela est indigne de nous.» (40) the message her poems still carry to modern- day readers. Readers, poets, and critics like These words, repeated by Vivien in almost Grahn and this writer are prepared to move as many contexts as the fragment with which beyond depressing images of a suicidal poet, I began this discussion, are vital to understand• toward evaluating Vivien's contribution in ing her relationship to a sapphic tradition. We more positive terms. have already encountered the "House of Muses" in the sapphic fragment Vivien uses Among the contemporary influences against Noailles; those who do not serve the helping to steer us in this direction are psycho• Muses are disconnected from their sisters and logical object-relation theories such as those destined to be forgotten. The "House of pioneered by Carol Gilligan and Dorothy Din- Muses" is Vivien's source of strength — both nerstein, which have given feminist critics a her assurance that her poetry and the sapphic new perspective on the relationship between tradition it represents will be remembered and community and women's writing. In Inspiring continued, and her insurance against the hostil• Women: Reimagining the Muse, Mary K. De- ity of unsympathetic readers. Shazer discusses the relationship between women poets and their muse. She coins the Judith Grahn, a contemporary lesbian poet phrase "affirmation of influence" to replace and critic, interprets the same sapphic frag• Bloom's anxiety of influence,34 and argues that ments in her discussion of Sappho and the les• "Women poets name their muses not by cast• bian Poetic tradition, The Highest Apple ing off or consuming or appropriation, but by (1985).33 Grahn mixes poetics and pragmatism taking on, connecting, inheriting ... the woman in her interpretation of the House of Muses poet typically strives to establish continuity, to which she takes outside of a purely literary connect aesthetically with her foremothers, her context and places in the real world. For contemporaries, her muses" (6). In her work Grahn, the House of Muses is clearly connect• on feminist models of reading, Patrocinio ed with collective feminine power and thought, Schweickart advocates happy endings, calling women-centred public institutions whose for a "positive hermeneutic whose aim is the equivalents include "the midwife and market recovery and cultivation of women's culture" women guilds, the priestess schools, the art- (35).3S There are glimpses of such a positive letters-and-sciences colleges of women, the mode of reading Vivien's interpretations of divinatory and healing societies, all the variety Sappho that anticipates the motivation of con• of forms the center of female will and intelli• temporary feminist readers, including my own gence has structured itself into in order to more optimistic reading of Vivien's poetry. influence, guide and lead society" (14). According to Schweickart:

Renee Vivien's fin-du-siecle vision of feminist readings of female texts are Sappho's circle of companions is a poetic vari• motivated by the need "to connect," to re• ation on this theme which Grahn, reading from cuperate, or to formulate — they come to the same thing — the context, the tradi• the messenger poet. Her poems, echoing Sap• tion, that would link women writers to pho's fragments, remind us that service to the one another, to women readers and critics, Muses leaves no place for mourning; the prop• and to the larger community of women. er response is to sing, that is, to carry on a (32) tradition of women writing for and about each other. The example of Vivien's tragic death The striving for continuity and connection should not be allowed to invalidate the impor• of which Grahn, DeShazer and Schweickart tance of this vital message which, for me, is speak inspired some of Vivien's best and most her ultimate legacy to modern women readers optimistic writing. Unfortunately, it was only and writers. In the spirit of Nossis' epitaph, in her imagination and, finally, in death, that the appropriate inscription for Vivien's tomb she was finally able to come home to the is not an "adieu," but an invitation. If I may "House of Muses" she celebrated in her indulge in a bit of vivienesque lyricism, I like poetry. Spanning the space of nearly a century to imagine Renee Vivien on the threshold of since her own death, and thousands of years the House of Muses, standing amid Pierian since Sappho lived, Vivien continues to play rose petals and beckoning us to enter.

NOTES

1. Of the nine original books into which Sappho's esti• 3. The most complete biography of Vivien to date is mated 500 poems were arranged, only 700 lines Jean-Paul Goujon, Tes blessures sont plus douces have survived which have been pieced together que leurs caresses: Vie de Renee Vivien (Paris: Re- from various sources — from examples used by gine Deforges, 1986). Gale Rubin has written an Greek grammarians, to torn strips of papyrus manu• informative introduction to Vivien's life as a preface scripts that were used to wrap mummies in Egypt to A Woman Appeared to Me by Renee Vivien, and only discovered in 1897. Many of Sappho's trans. Jeanette Foster (Naiad Press, 1976), iv-xxxi. poems were lost due to the efforts of the Catholic Also see Karla Jay, The Amazon and the Page: church and especially Nazianzos, Bishop of Con• Natalie Clifford Barney and Renee Vivien (Bloom• stantinople. He ordered the books burnt in 380 A.D. ington: Indiana UP, 1988). Essential reading for an In 391 A.D., the classical library in Alexandria was understanding of the often complex cultural and partially destroyed by Christian zealots and, in literary contexts of Paris-Lesbos is Shari Benstock, 1073, Pope Gregory VII had Sappho's works pub• Women of the Left Bank: Paris, 1900-1940 (Austin: licly burnt in Rome and in Constantinople. While U of Texas P, 1986). homophobia certainly played a role, a great part of 4. Andre Billy, L'Epoque 1900: 1885-1905 (Paris: J. the blame must also be attributed to the neglect of Tallandier, 1951), 227. classical texts in general. 5. Renee Vivien, Une femme m'apparut... (1904; rpt. 2. Susan Gubar, "Sapphistries," Signs 10.1 (Autumn Paris: Regine Deforges, 1977). Vivien wrote two 1984): 43-62. Also see Elaine Marks, "Lesbian versions of this novel which is about her relationship Intertextualities," Homosexualities in French Liter• with Natalie Clifford Barney. The 1904 version, ature, eds. Elaine Marks and George Stambolian translated by Foster and reprinted by Regine (Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1970): 353-377. For an excel• Deforges, was written before she and Barney made lent and thorough discussion of Sappho in the their first trip to Lesbos where they had a brief French tradition, see Joan DeJean, Fictions of Sap• reconciliation; the 1906 version is kinder to Barney. pho, 1546-1937 (Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1989). Vivien was a noted world traveller who continued to Monique Wittig and Sande Zeig illustrate the notion visit several times a year the villa she purchased on of Sappho as a blank page, by leaving the entry the island of Lesbos. See Jean-Paul Goujon, Renee under her name blank in their Lesbian People's Vivien a Mytilene (Reims: A l'Ecart, 1978). Material for a Dictionary (New York: Avon Books, 6. There are two editions of Vivien's complete works. 1976). The Amo Press reprinted the 1923 edition in 1975. More recently, Jean-Paul Goujon produced a new whose title was changed to Le pur et I'impur in edition based on the 1934 text published by Le- 1941. For Barney's impressions of her friend, see merre — the edition on which Vivien was working "Natalie Barney on Renee Vivien," trans. Margaret when she died. CEuvre poetique complete de Renee Porter, Heresies (Fall 1977): 65-71. Vivien (1877-1910), ed. and preface Jean-Paul 11. Pamela J. Annas, '"Drunk with chastity': The Poetry Goujon (Paris: Regine Deforges, 1986). The twelve of Renee Vivien," Women's Studies 13 (1986): 11- volumes contained in both editions are: Etudes et 22. preludes (1901), Cendres et poussieres (1902), Evo• 12. Cassandra Laity, "H.D. and A.C. Swinburne: Deca• cations (1903), Sapho (1903), La Venus des aveu- dence and Sapphic Modernism," Lesbian Texts and gles (1904), Les Kitharedes (1904), A l'heure des Contexts: Radical Revisions, eds. Karla Jay and mains jointes (1906), Sillages (1908), Flambeaux Joanne Glasgow (New York: New York UP, 1990), eteints (1907), Dans un coin de violettes (1910), Le 217-240. Unlike Laity, I am not convinced that vent des vaisseaux (1910), and Haillons (1910). The Swinburne was such a negative influence on Vivien. last three were published posthumously. Goujon's She adored his writing, and a well-worn set of Swin• edition includes a preface and some "found" and burne's works, annotated in Vivien's hand, was uncollected poems, in addition to poems signed by found in her personal library. More work remains to Paule Riversdale and Helene de Zuylen, which he be done on the influence his poetry had on Vivien's attributes to Vivien. Paule Riversdale was the col• writing. A recent study that suggests some interest• lective pseudonym of Vivien and Zuylen, but most ing possibilities is Joyce Zonana, "Swinburne's Sap• scholars agree that Zuylen had little to do with the pho: The Muse as Sister-Goddess," Victorian Poetry actual writing. Most of Vivien's poetry has not been 28.1 (Spring 1990): 39-50. Also of interest is published in English, but there are two English Camille Paglia's provocative reading of Swinburne's translations: The Muse of the Violets: Poems by "Anactoria," and especially her notion that in this Renee Vivien, trans. Margaret Porter and Catharine poem, Sappho's maleness is asserted by her claim to Kroger (Naiad Press, 1982), and At the Sweet Hour artistic immortality ("Someone will remember us in of Hand in Hand, trans. Sandia Belgrade (Naiad the future") which relies on devouring, vampire-like, Press, 1979). the life of the reader. "Nature, Sex and Decadence," Vivien's prose works include a novel, Une in Pre-Raphaelite Poets, ed. Harole Bloom (New femme m 'apparut... (see note 5 above); two collec• York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1986): 219-237. tions of prose poems, Brumes de fiords (Paris: Le- 13. Lillian Faderman, Surpassing the Love of Men: Ro• merre, 1902) and Du vert au violet (Paris: Lemerre, mantic Love and Friendship Between Women from 1903); a collection of short stories, La Dame a la the Renaissance to the Present (New York: William louve (1904; rpt. in English translation as The Morrow and Co., 1981), 361-362. Woman of the Wolf, New York: Gay Presses of 14. Lawrence Lipking uses Sappho as a main model in New York, 1983); and an unfinished biography, Abandoned Women and Poetic Tradition (Chicago: Anne Bolyn: Reproduction en facsimile' des U of Chicago P, 1988). He argues that "The tradi• epreuves uniques de Vedition jamais tire'e de tion of women's poetry in the West (at least until Lemerre (1909), intro. Jean-Paul Goujon (Muizon: the twentieth century) might very nearly be identical L'Ecart, 1982). with the transmission and rehabilitation of Sappho" Subsequent references to Vivien's poems will be (97). His discussion is compelling but, as my present included in the text with the name of the volume, study makes clear, I disagree with what Lipking and the corresponding page numbers from Goujon's calls "A paradox of Sappho's influence: she teaches French edition, cited as OPC. her later sisters that they are alone. The touch of 7. Natalie Clifford Barney, Aventures de I'esprit Sappho brings no companionship but only intensi• (Paris: 1929; rpt. Persona, 1982), 200. fied solitude" (99). Another critic who has problems 8. Yves-Gerard Le Dantec, Renee Vivien, femme with Lipking's "poetics of abandonment" is Joan damnee, femme sauvee (Aix-en-Provence: Editions DeJean. In her "Fictions of Sappho," Critical In• du Feu, 1930): 18. quiry 13 (Summer 1987): 787-805, she particularly 9. Elaine Marks, '"Sappho 1900': Imaginary Renee attacks male writers who have appropriated "the Vivien's and the Rear of the belle epoque," Yale right to formulate discourse of female passion," and French Studies 75 (1988): 175-189. argues that Lipking wants to make feminist literary 10. The most famous portrait of Vivien is found in critics into abandoned women as well. I agree Colette, Ces plaisirs... (Paris: Ferenczi et fils, 1932) wholeheartedly with DeJean's assertion that "Sappho consistently portrays both the composition and the he mentions is that the leap was meant as a cure for performance of verse as an exchange among wom• love (143) — something like the Greek equivalent en, as the product of a female community whose of a cold shower! members are united by bonds both personal and 20. Vivien also translates and elaborates on this frag• professional" (790). DeJean extends her argument in ment in her Sapho, 159-160, given here in Jane Mc• her new book on Sappho (see note 2 above). intosh Snyder's translation from The Woman and the 15. Shari Benstock, "Paris Lesbianism and the Politics Lyre: Women Writers in Classical Greece and Rome of Reaction: 1900-1940," Hidden from History: Re• (Carbondale: Southern Illinois Press, 1989), 34. claiming the Gay and Lesbian Past, eds. Martin Du- 21. Anne Pippen Burnett, Three Archaic Poets: Archi- berman, Martha Vicinus and George Chauncey, Jr. lochus, Alcaeus, Sappho (Cambridge: Harvard UP, (New York: Meridian Books, 1990), 344. 1983), 216. 16. An earlier version of this essay entitled "The Failure 22. J. Russo, "Reading the Greek Lyric Poets (Mono- of Renee Vivien's Sapphic Vision" was presented at dists)," Arion 1.4 (1973-74): 722. Women, the Arts and Society Conference sponsored 23. CM. Bowra, Greek Lyric Poetry, 2nd ed. (Oxford: by Susquehanna University in November 1988. Spe• Clarendon Press, 1961). Denys L. Page, Sappho and cial thanks to the participants in my session, and Alcaeus (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1955), 139-140. especially to Prescilla who encouraged me to look On the question of Sappho's audience, also see Jack beyond Vivien's failure. Winkler, "Gardens of Nymphs: Public and Private in 17. Barney routinely organized literary evenings as part Sappho's Lyrics," Women's Studies 8 (1981): 65-91, of her Academy of Women, a forum she created in and Judith P. Hallett, "Sappho and Her Social Con• 1927 to encourage an exchange between French- text: Sense and Sensuality," Signs 4.3 (1979): 447- and English-speaking women of letters. The pro• 464. gram she planned for "An Hour of Poetry in Mem• 24. J. Ernest-Charles, "Les Poetesses," Les samedis litte- ory of Renee Vivien" is preserved in her legacy of raires 1st ser. (1903): 252-260, and "Les Poetesses," documents housed at the Bibliotheque Jacques Dou- Les samedis litteraires 2nd ser. (1904): 408-418. cet in Paris (Ms. 99-102). The program lists the 25. Anna de Noailles, "Les regrets," L 'ombre du jour poems she planned to read, and topping the list is (Paris: Calmann-Levy, 1902), 169. "Sur la place publique" or "Le pilori," both of 26. Anna de Noailles, "Offrande," Les eblouissements which describe Vivien at her most depressed and (Paris: Calmann-Levy, 1907), 315. It is sometimes misunderstood. The line quoted is from Barney's thought that Noailles composed her poem in re• poem "La mort du poete," Actes et entr 'actes (Paris: sponse to Vivien since "Offrande" is included in her Sansot, 1910), 235. Barney remained unconvinced 1907 collection. She actually composed the poem in that Vivien's conversion to the Catholic faith was 1903, and it appeared in the first issue of a new sincere. literary journal called Les essais in 1904. The 18. In addition to "La mort de Psappha" (Evocations, "Essayists," a group of young (male) writers who OPC 104-108) and "Dans un verger" (Sillages, OPC emulated Noailles, were pleased and flattered by the 327-342), Vivien describes Sappho's death in "At- poem which, however, was not written expressly for this delaissee" (Evocations, OPC 128); and an Ital• them. See Claude Mignot-Ogliastri, "Sous l'egide ianized version, "La Dogaresse" (La Venus des d'Anna de Noailles, une revue de jeunes ecrivains: aveugles, OPC 204-207). Les Essais (1904-1906)," Travaux de Unguistique et 19. Ovid's Heroides 15 is the most influential source de litterature 24.2 (1986): 109-123. for the myth of Sappho's suicide because of her un• 27. Although some readers may find this poem to be requited love for the mythical ferryman, Phaon. Her ironic, there is real evidence to suggest that Vivien connection with Phaon and her supposed leap from was very concerned about keeping up a respectable the white Leucadian cliff have no basis in any of public appearance for the sake of her family, espe• her work. References to white rocks abound in cially her sister whose chances of making a good classical literature, and Gregory Nagy discusses marriage she did not wish to jeopardize. Goujon's some of the numerous possibilities in "Phaethon, notes to this poem suggest that "Le Pilori" was Sappho's Phaon, and the White Rock of Leukas," inspired by actual public attacks and insults, and he Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 11 (1973): quotes a letter Vivien wrote to Charles-Brun in 137-177. He suggests that instead of suicide, 1905: "falling from the white rock is parallel to falling J'ai eu tout a fait la sensation du pilori aux into a swoon — be it from intoxication or from courses, le dimanche, et au Cafe de Paris, aux making love" (142). Another interesting possibility soupers et aux restaurants oil je dtnais. Tous les gens gouailleurs et hostiles qui vous regardent et qui sourient en vous regardant... (OPC 493) 28. Elyse Blankley analyzes the poem "Interieur" in her discussion of Vivien, "Return to Mytilene: Renee Vivien and the City of Women," Women Writers and the City: Essays in Feminist Literary Criticism, ed. Susan Merrill Squier (Knoxville: U of Tennes• see P, 1984), 45-67. She argues that "If Vivien appeared to ignore her own female community sur• rounding her in Paris, she did so because her femi• nism and lesbianism guided her toward a vision of complete female isolation on Lesbos. Mytilene pro• tects its female tribe from being censured by a dis• approving world or transformed into an emblem of erotic perversion" (51). My notion of a "House of Muses" fits in well with the woman-centred com• munity Blankley describes. 29. Snyder includes a chapter on Nossis, pp. 77-84 (see note 20 above). She does not mention Vivien, but quotes a poem by H.D. (Hilda Doolittle) created on lines by Nossis. Another poet from this period who was interested in Nossis is Pierre Louys, of Chan• sons de Bilitis fame, who published some transla• tions of Nossis' poetry in Le Mercure de France. 30. All these elements were omitted from the edition in• cluded in her complete works. Several of the por• traits are reproduced in Paul Lorenzo, Sapho 1900: Renee Vivien (Paris: Juilliard, 1977). 31. The Greek Anthology: Hellenistic Epigrams, eds. A.S.F. Gow and D.L. Page, vol. 2, Commentary and Indexes (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1965), 442. 32. Sappho, Greek Lyric Poetry, trans. David A. Camp• bell (Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1982), 161. 33. Judy Grahn, The Highest Apple: Sappho and the Lesbian Poetic Tradition (San Francisco: Spinsters, Ink., 1985), 14. 34. Mary K. DeShazer, Inspiring Women: Reimagining the Muse (New York: Pergamon Press, 1986). 35. Patrocinio P. Schweickart, "Reading Ourselves: Toward a Feminist Theory of Reading," in Speaking of Gender, ed. Elaine Showalter (New York: Rout• ledge, Chapman and Hall, Inc., 1989), 17-44.