Faun Love

In 1890 the lesbian aunt‐and‐niece couple, Katharine Bradley (1846–1914) and Edith Cooper (1862–1913), better known as the poet Michael Field, met Bernard Berenson (1865–1959). Poems, letters and diaries explore the impact of falling in love with a man and they trace the elaborate gender play of their erotic friendship. By living imaginatively in and for art, each hoped to avoid the dreary materialism and sexual constraints of the time. As long as the three could create a wide range of both gendered and gender‐free positions, they felt imaginatively free—and aesthetically sexual. Notes [1] A different version of this essay appeared as Bernard Berenson and Michael Field (Katharine Bradley and Edith Cooper), Sister Souls, Nineteenth‐Century Literature, 60(3), pp. 326–354. This was published by The Regents of the University of California, and is published here with permission. Please find the original article on their website: http://caliber.ucpress.net/toc/ncl/60/3. I am indebted to Nancy Jordan Simonds, Karen Tongson, and Ivor C. Treby for reading earlier versions of this essay. Letters from the Berenson Archive at I Tatti are quoted with permission of the Berenson Archive, the Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies, Villa I Tatti, courtesy of the President and Fellows of Harvard College. Excerpts from Katharine Bradley & Edith Cooper, ‘Works and Days’, held at the British Library, and letters held at I Tatti to the Berensons are quoted with permission of Leonie Sturge Moore/Charmian O’Neil. [2] Bernard Berenson (1949) Sketch for a Self‐Portrait (New York: Pantheon), p. 20. He begins by declaring, ‘Often I feel like a cow with sagging udders lowing for a calf or a milkmaid to relieve her’ (p. 9). [3] Chris White (1996) The Tiresian Poet: Michael Field, in Angela Leighton (Ed.) Victorian Women Poets: a critical reader (Oxford: Blackwell), p. 152. [4] Katharine Bradley, 23 February 1891. Katharine Bradley & Edith Cooper, ‘Works and Days: 1891.’ British Library Add. 46779. Henceforth abbreviated to BL. [5] After the death of Frank Costelloe in 1901, Berenson married Mary. Each was to have numerous affairs and psychosomatic illnesses over their long lives together. See Ernest Samuels (1979) Bernard Berenson: the making of a connoisseur (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press), pp. 339–340, 349–352. [6] Mary Sturgeon (1922) Michael Field (London: George G. Harrap), p. 24, quoting an unnamed friend. [7] Edith Cooper, quoting Berenson, 30 June 1892. ‘Works and Days: 1892.’ BL Add. 46780. [8] Edith Cooper, 22 June 1892. ‘Works and Days: 1892.’ BL Add. 46780. All short quotes in this paragraph are from this long entry. [9] Quoted in Emma Donoghue (1998) We are Michael Field (Bath: Absolute Press), p. 71. [10] Edith Cooper, undated entry [July 1892], ‘Works and Days: 1892.’ BL Add. 46780. Ellipsis in the original. [11] Edith Cooper (2000) Love Rises up Some Days, in Ivor C. Treby (Ed.) Uncertain Rain: sundry spells of Michael Field (n.p.: De Blackland Press), p. 110. [12] Edith Cooper, 6 May 1895. ‘Works and Days: 1895.’ BL Add. 46783. [13] Bernard Berenson (1909) The Florentine Painters of the Renaissance, 3rd. edn (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons), p. 4. [14] Edith Cooper, undated [May 1895], ‘Works and Days: 1895.’ BL Add. 46783. [15] Ibid. [16] Virginia Blain (1996) Michael Field, the Two‐Headed Nightingale: lesbian texts as palimpsest, Women’s History Review, 5(3), pp. 249, 252–253 discusses how both women coveted the male role. [17] Edith Cooper, 31 December 1895. ‘Works and Days: 1895.’ BL Add. 46783. [18] Donaghue, We are Michael Field, p. 71. [19] Edith Cooper, 31 December 1895. ‘Works and Days: 1895.’ BL Add. 46783. [20] Quoted in Ivor C. Treby (1998) The Michael Field Catalogue: a book of lists (n.p.: De Blackland Press), p. 36. [21] I have relied on Ivor C. Treby’s attributions in The Michael Field Catalogue. Even if they are not wholly correct, these figures give a sense of the changing relations between the two women and their poetic identity. [22] Edith Cooper to Bernard Berenson, 26 February [1895]. Bernard Berenson Archive, I Tatti. Henceforth abbreviated as I Tatti. [23] Katharine Bradley, The Art of Love, in Treby, Uncertain Rain, p. 137. [24] Katharine Bradley (1999) Eros of the Summit, in Ivor C. Treby (Ed.) A Shorter Shîrazâd: 101 poems of Michael Field (n.p.: De Blackland Press), p. 80. [25] Michael Field (1908) Chalices, Wild Honey from Various Thyme (London: T. Fisher Unwin), p. 74. [26] Quoted from ‘Works and Days’, in Treby, A Shorter Shîrazâd, p. 80. [27] T. & D. C. Sturge Moore (Eds) (1933) Works and Days, from the journal of Michael Field (London: J. Murray), p. 16. [28] These issues are explored by Holly Laird (1995) Contradictory Legacies: Michael Field and feminist restoration, Victorian Poetry, 33(1), pp. 111–128. [29] Katharine Bradley to Bernard Berenson. 15 April 1914. I Tatti. [30] Katharine Bradley to Mary Costelloe Berenson. Undated [January 1914?] and 13 May 1914. I Tatti. [31] Beverly Burch (1993) On Intimate Terms: the psychology of difference in lesbian relationships (Urbana: University of Illinois Press). [32] Edith Cooper, 31 December 1894. ‘Works and Days: 1894.’ BL Add. 46782. [33] Bernard Berenson to Katharine Bradley. 22 December [1892]. I Tatti. [34] Edith Cooper, 14 July 1912. ‘Works and Days: 1912.’ BL Add. 46802. [35] Bernard Berenson to ‘Beloved Field’ (Edith Cooper), 19 December 1909. I Tatti

Art · Art history · Lesbian · Literature · Nephew and niece · Poetry · Queer · Sister · Sociology · Anthropology · Cultural History and Identity Formation · Gender Studies · History · Philosophy

• Bizarre Love Triangle”

  Sally Newman•English Studies•2013

  Add to list