'My
life is my work, my writings are but the result' (Benstock,
286). Natalie Barney had a unique philosophy toward life and
her work. She felt that one should live life as an art and
in doing so the work you create will be the beautiful result
of an artistic endeavor.
Barney's
writing explores the beauty of life and usually of love. Writing
almost exclusively in French, Barney wrote a lot of love poetry
to women. Upholding another of her philosophies: to always
live openly without guilt or hiding anything, Natalie always
wrote under her own name (save one work) refusing to mask
her lesbianism with a man's name (Benstock).
Barney's work was influenced
by ancient Greek and traditional French writing. Unlike most
of her contemporaries, who were developing experimental forms
of writing, Natalie
only used the classical forms that
she loved so much.
Until recently
Barney's work was considered poor quality and amateur at best.
Since her writing did not receive much praise, "her work
remained almost completely unavailable in English until the
early 1990's" (Pendergast, 29).
"Barney's contribution to lesbian literature lies not
in her loose imitations of Symbolism, her careless prose,
or her halting French verse, but in the content of her oeuvre,
which celebrated homosexuality without apology or remorse"
(Pendergast, 29).
Memoirs
- Aventures de l'esprit
- Nouvelles Pensées
de l'Amazone
- Souvenirs indiscrets
- Traits et portraits
Letters
- With Pierre Louys and Renée
Vivien, Correspondances croisées: Suivies de
deux lettres inedites de Renée Vivien à Natalie
Barney et de divers documents
- With Renée Vivien and Eva
Palmer: Album Secret
Others
- Quelques Portraits - Sonnets
de Femmes
- Cinq petits Dialogues grecs
- Actes et entr'actes
- The one who is Legion (A.D.'s
After-Life)
- Un panier de Framboises
- A Perilous Advantage: The Best
of Natalie Clifford Barney
Biographies
- Lettres
à l'Amazone
- The Amazon of Letters: The Life
and Lovers of Natalie Barney
- Portrait d'une Séductrice
- The Amazon and the Page: Natalie
Clifford Barney and Renée Vivien
- Wild Heart: A Life: Natalie
Clifford Barney's Journey from Victorian America to the
Literary Salons of Paris
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Copyright permission pending.
(click
here to read an excerpt from the novel.)
Copyright permission pending.
Copyright permission pending.
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