Imagining a Life
Natalie Clifford Barney
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 12458652 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Mary Eichbauer (northern California, USA, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2000 |
| Volume | 4 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 1-29 |
| Publication date | 2000-01-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of Lesbian Studies (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1089-4160 • E-ISSN: 1540-3548 |
| Publisher | Taylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1300/j155v04n03_01 |
| OpenAlex | W1495469247 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 5 |
Born in Ohio in 1876 to wealthy parents, Natalie Clifford Barney is today better known for the freedom of her lesbian life-style than for her writing. Nevertheless, she was a serious writer, and consciously engaged in writing from a specifically lesbian point of view. With her lover Renée Vivien, she attempted to revive the cult of Sappho, and thus to revitalize a lost lesbian literary tradition. Through her weekly salon, Barney encouraged women writers, serving as a mentor and muse, and often as a lover. She enjoyed enduring friendships with many well-known women and men of letters, such as Gertrude Stein, Remy de Gourmont, Colette, and Dolly Wilde. Fictional characters based on Barney appear in novels by Lucie Delarue-Mardrus, Liane de Pougy, Djuna Barnes, and Radclyffe Hall. Barney's own writing consists of one novel (The One Who Is Legion, an eccentric meditation on gender and personality); a few collections of plays, poetry, and “portraits” of women; several volumes of memoirs; and two major volumes of “pensées,” or aphorisms, in which she comments on society, politics, and sexuality using a variety of urbane personae. Natalie Barney's work deserves more recognition than it has received, and her life still can serve as a model of self-creation uninhibitied by social strictures
Art · Art history · Closet · Cult · Drama · Human sexuality · Lesbian · Literature · Memoir · Performance art · Poetry · Politics · Portrait · Salon · Sociology · Style (visual arts · American History and Culture · Art, Politics, and Modernism · Cultural History and Identity Formation · Gender Studies · History · Law
| Unique citing works | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,2 |
| Citation span | 2021 - 2021 (1) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 1 |