Exploring Sapphic Discourse in the Belle Epoque: Colette, Renee Vivien, and Liane De Pougy
Dade, Juliette N.
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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/86281
Description
Title
Exploring Sapphic Discourse in the Belle Epoque: Colette, Renee Vivien, and Liane De Pougy
Author(s)
Dade, Juliette N.
Issue Date
2009
Doctoral Committee Chair(s)
Mortimer, Armine Kotin
Department of Study
French
Discipline
French
Degree Granting Institution
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Degree Name
Ph.D.
Degree Level
Dissertation
Keyword(s)
GLBT Studies
Language
eng
Abstract
The end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century in Paris was a time of social upheaval that witnessed the appearance of a new style of Sapphic novel in Paris, that of women writing about their lesbian experiences. Although men had written prolifically on the subject during the previous decades, it was not until 1900 that women began to publish works on lesbianism, attempting in their appropriation of the subject to transform the discourse into their own. Unwilling to imitate the discourse of their male predecessors and yet unable to break completely with social tradition, Liane de Pougy, Colette, and Renee Vivien experimented with various innovative yet often confusing manners of presenting Sapphic love, which would help pave the way for further writing on lesbian relations. This dissertation explores the contradictory ways in which all three women attempt to create a new discourse without reaching true autonomous freedom from the values being instilled by the Parisian bourgeois society of the time. The beginnings of lesbian discourse remain tentative in spite of the writers' various attempts to mask their uncertainties. The dissertation traces the struggle for these authors to separate from tradition and find a voice of their own.
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