Love Between The Lines: Paradigmatic Readings of the Relationship between Dora Carrington and Lytton Strachey Janine Loedolff Thesis presented in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts at the University of Stellenbosch Department of English Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences Supervisor: Dr S.C. Viljoen Co-supervisor: Prof. E.P.H. Hees November 2007 Declaration I, the undersigned, hereby declare that the work contained in this thesis is my own original work and has not previously in its entirety or in part been submitted at any university for a degree. Signature: Date: Copyright ©2008 Stellenbosch University All rights reserved ii Acknowledgements Dr Shaun Viljoen, for teaching me about uncommon lives; My co-supervisor, Prof. Edwin Hees; Mathilda Slabbert, for telling me the story for the first time, and for her inspirational enthusiasm; Roshan Cader, for her encouragement and willingness to debate the finer points of performativity with me; Sarah Duff, for continuously demanding clarity, and for allowing me to stay at Goodenough College; Dawid de Villers, for translations; Evelyn Wiehahn, Neil Micklewood, Daniela Marsicano, Simon Pequeno and Alexia Cox for their many years of love and friendship; Larry Ferguson, who always tells me I have something to say; My father, Johan, and his extended family, for their continual love and support and providing me with a comforting refuge; My family in England – Chicky for taking me to Charleston, and Melanie for making her home mine while I was researching at the British Library; and Joe Loedolff, for eternal optimism, words of wisdom, and most importantly, his kinship. iii I would like to thank the English Department at the University of Stellenbosch, as well as the Chair, Prof. Dirk Klopper, for financial support which enabled me to present a paper which draws on this research at “Joking Apart: Gender, Literature & Humour, 1850 – Present”, a two-day international conference hosted by the Centre for Modernist Studies at the University of Sussex in June 2007. I am also grateful to the National Research Foundation for their financial assistance, which enabled me to do archival research at the British Library, where I was privileged to be able to read the letters between Carrington and Strachey. The funding also enabled me to visit places where Carrington and Strachey stayed, such as Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant’s home, Charleston, and Leonard and Virginia Woolf’s home, Monk’s House. To that end, I would like to thank the staff in the Manuscripts Department at the British Library, as well as the staff of The National Trust at Charleston and Monk’s House. iv Abstract This thesis focuses on the relationship between Dora Carrington and Lytton Strachey and offers three models for reading their unconventional relationship. Carrington was in love with the homosexual Strachey and the two lived together at Tidmarsh, and later Ham Spray House, for more than fourteen years. The three models make extensive use of primary sources, namely the letters and diaries of Carrington and Strachey. Furthermore, I draw on two seminal biographies of Carrington and Strachey written by Gretchen Gerzina and Michael Holroyd respectively. The first model I examine is a form of pederasty. I argue that, soon after they met, Carrington and Strachey began a friendship which was based on his educating her in a variety of ways. He served as a mentor both intellectually and sexually. Strachey was familiar with the concept of pederasty as a result of his involvement with the Cambridge Conversazione Society, better known as the Apostles, and used his knowledge to induct a rather naïve Carrington into new ways of thinking. This pederastic relationship also allowed Carrington a certain amount of freedom as it enabled her to pursue her art without the demands a heterosexual male would make of her. The second model for reading their relationship is that of parody. While Carrington and Strachey’s relationship resembles a heteronormative relationship, it can, at times, be read as parodic. I argue that they both subvert heteronormativity in humorous ways as a means to critique their parents’ Victorian marriages and to interrogate notions of masculinity v and femininity. I discuss the roles they played within their domestic environment, and pay particular attention to how this intersected with Carrington’s artistic endeavours. This parodying of heteronormativity was, I suggest, also one of the only ways they could find of expressing the love they felt for one another. The last model I offer draws on theories of kinship. I examine how Carrington and Strachey resorted to familial constructions of descent as a means to veil the love they had for one another and to avoid criticism and ridicule from the Bloomsbury group and beyond. When they established a home at Tidmarsh, they altered their form of kinship to utilise principles of alliance. However, another shift took place with the introduction of Ralph Partridge, Carrington’s husband, and I argue that the terms they used to address each other changed to constructions, once again, of descent, at least until the dissolution of the Carrington-Partridge marriage. Carrington and Strachey’s relationship is often viewed as unconventional and she is often depicted as being utterly subservient towards him. However, the three models I have used demonstrate that their love was mutual. The models also reveal their relationship to be quite conventional in the manner in which Carrington and Strachey expressed their love for one another and how these expressions of love developed during the different phases of the life they spent together. vi Opsomming Hierdie tesis fokus op die verhouding tussen Dora Carrington en Lytton Strachey en stel drie verskillende modelle voor ter vertolking van hul onkonvensionele verhouding. Carrington was verlief op die homoseksuele Strachey en het vir meer as veertien jaar saam met hom gewoon, eers op Tidmarsh en later op Ham Spray. Al drie interpretatiewe modelle is gegrond op die briewe en dagboeke van Carrington en Strachey. Daarbenewens maak ek maak breedvoerig gebruik van twee gesaghebbende biografieë, onderskeidelik deur Gretchen Gerzina en Michael Holroyd. Pederastie is die eerste model wat ek ondersoek. Ek voer aan dat kort na hulle eerste ontmoeting, ’n ongewone vriendskap tussen Carrington en Strachey ontwikkel het, waarvolgens Strachey die rol van intellektuele en seksuele mentor teenoor die jonger Carrington aangeneem het. Strachey was vertroud met die model van pederastie vanweë sy betrokkenheid by die Cambridge Conversazione Society, ook bekend as die ‘Apostles’, en het hierdie kennis gebruik om die betreklik naïewe Carrington bloot te stel aan nuwe denkrigtings. Die ooglopend heteronormatiewe karakter van hierdie verhouding bring egter ook ’n tweede model na vore, naamlik parodie. Enersyds sou ’n mens kon argumenteer dat Carrington en Strachey die basiese raamwerk van hul ouers se Victoriaanse huwelike implementeer het ten einde die ideologiese konstruksie van manlike en vroulike identiteite aan kritiek te onderwerp. Gevolglik bespreek ek die rolle wat hulle binne die vii tuiste vertolk het, en ondersoek die impak hiervan op Carrington se kreatiewe lewe. Andersyds het hierdie parodiëring van heteronormatiewiteit hulle die geleentheid verskaf om hul liefde vir mekaar kon uitleef. Laastens ondersoek ek—aan die hand van teorieë van verwantskap—hoe Carrington en Strachey hulle gewend het tot familiale verwantskaps-konstruksies ten einde hul liefde vir mekaar te verbloem, en sodoende kritiek en bespotting van onder andere die Bloomsbury groep te vermy. Met hul vestiging in Tidmarsh het hulle hul verwantskap rekonstrueer om ook die beginsels van bondgenootskap te betrek. Hierdie raamwerk is egter opgehef toe Ralph Partridge, Carrington se man, op die toneel verskyn het, en ek voer aan dat hierdie situasie, in die geval van Carrington en Strachey, familiale verwantskaps-konstruksies herroep het, tot en met die uiteindelike verbrokkeling van Carrington en Partridge se huwelik. Carrington en Strachey se verhouding word dikwels as onkonvensioneel beskou; daarbenewens word sy gereeld uitgebeeld as onderdanig aan hom. Die drie modelle in terme waarvan ek hulle verhouding interpreteer dui egter daarop dat hulle liefde wedersyds was. Die modelle suggereer ook dat hulle verhouding op ’n relatief konvensionele wyse uitgedruk is, en demonstreer hoe hierdie uitdrukking onwikkel het gedurende die verskillende fases van hulle gemeenskaplike lewe. viii Contents Chapter 1: An Introduction to Uncommon Lives 1 Chapter 2: Playing with Pederasty 22 Chapter 3: Parodic Reinventions 58 Chapter 4: Constructions of Kinship 98 Conclusion 147 Bibliography 155 ix I wish there was something between love and friendship that I could tender him; and some gesture, not quite a caress, I could give him. A sort of smoothing.1 “When our lives come to be written,” he observed, “they’ll be even more peculiar than the Victorians.”2 We can both sing it: if thou'lt bear a part, thou shalt hear; 'tis in three parts.3 He first deceased, she for a little tried 4 To live without him, liked it not and died. 1 Louise Bogan, (qtd. in Whitney 117). 2 A letter from Lytton Strachey to Carrington (qtd. in Holroyd 480). 3 The character of Mopsa in Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale (4.4.2177-4.4.2178). 4 This poem, “Upon the death of Sir Albert Morton’s Wife” by Sir Henry Wotton, was copied into Carrington’s diary. x Chapter 1: An Introduction to Uncommon Lives5 Michael Holroyd, in the preface to his biography of Lytton Strachey, claims that Bloomsbury believed in “a great deal of a great many different kinds of love” (xxxiii).6 The relationship between Dora Carrington (1893 – 1932) and Strachey (1880 – 1932) is symptomatic of that belief and this thesis aims to interrogate their rather unconventional relationship by providing three different paradigms within which to read the relationship between them, namely pederasty, parody and familial (re)constructions.