Renee Vivien (1877 – 1909)
Born Pauline Mary Tarn, was a British poet who wrote in the French language.
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[Charles Brun] was so charming that I always write to him as "My dear Charlotte!"
What a disgrace to live at the beginning of the 20th century. ... One is always influenced by one's own time. And ours is that of Sarah Bernhardt and Rostand. Things will be much better in another ten years. You will see a new art born, new and beautiful. You will see that, but I shall not. I shall be dead. But ... Sarah Bernhardt will live forever, and go on playing L'AIGLON forever!
I'm not logical. I'm infected with the romantic fever. It began in my teens when I read Baudelaire in secret, in a country boarding school in England from which I slipped away by climbing over the wall. I was fifteen, the same age as Juliet--a Juliet for whom Romeo had no attraction.
I was born under an unlucky star. I love France and I am not French. I am English and I can't like England. My father was Scotch, my mother was born in Honolulu. My father, William Tarn, died at the age of forty in 1890. My real name is Pauline Tarn. I changed it to Renée Vivien.
She makes me doubt my own sex.
Just once in my life a man tried to embrace me. It was horrible! He had big boots, a heavy belt, huge gloves. Faugh! Oh, let's not talk about men.
L’herbe de l’été pâlit sous le soleil.
La rose, expirant sous les âpres ravages
Des chaleurs, languit vers l’ombre, et le sommeil
Coule des feuillages.
Déesse ? qui plaît la ruine des roses,
Prolonge la nuit !
Men smell of leather. ... The leather of huntsmen, furniture movers, porters.
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