# “ Rien de doit vous étonner de moi, je suis Américaine ”: Displacement as a Literary and Sexual Legitimation in Natalie Barney’s early works

Camille Islert

► To cite this version:

Camille Islert. “ Rien de doit vous étonner de moi, je suis Américaine ”: Displacement as a Literary and Sexual Legitimation in Natalie Barney’s early works. 2020. hal-04702457

HAL Id: hal-04702457

https://hal.science/hal-04702457v1

Preprint submitted on 19 Sep 2024

HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access
archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci-
entific research documents, whether they are pub-
lished or not. The documents may come from
teaching and research institutions in France or
abroad, or from public or private research centers.

L'archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est
destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents
scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non,
émanant des établissements d'enseignement et de
recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires
publics ou privés.

<figure><img src="image_1.png" /></figure>

Distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
Cet article est un document de travail mis à disposition pour ne pas être perdu – il n'a pas valeur de publication et n'en
respecte pas les normes. Merci de le considérer comme tel.

This article is a working document made available so that it does not get lost - it does not have publication status and does not comply with publication standards. Please treat it as such.

« Rien de doit vous étonner de moi, je suis Américaine » : Displacement as a
Literary and Sexual Legitimation in Natalie Barney's early works.

Before dwelling on the role of Natalie Barney's transatlantic travel to Paris in both her literary and personal emancipation, I find necessary to establish a certain number of facts and to deconstruct certain tenacious legends about Paris at the Belle Époque.

The image bequeathed to us by history, image of a literary and social Belle Époque, is to
be nuanced: as Christophe Prochasson reminds us in *les années électriques* - 1880-1910 « *L'histoire [...] dispose d'une fonction euphorisante susceptible d'atténuer la neurasthénie dont souffre toujours, peu ou prou, le présent.* » [*"History [...] has a euphoric function likely to attenuate the neurasthenia from which the present always more or less suffers."]*. The Belle Époque is above all Parisian, bourgeois, and masculine. Patricia Izquierdo [*Devenir poétesse à la Belle Époque*, p. 21] also reminds that the so
called Belle Époque is « *une période de transition écartelée entre le défaite de 1870 et les progrès technologiques, l'ouverture cosmopolite et l'antisémitisme primaire, une capitale resplendissante, et une France essentiellement agraire, percluse d'inégalités sociales, économique et culturelle*.*» [*"a period of transition torn between the defeat of 1870 and the technological progress, the cosmopolitan opening and the primary anti-Semitism, a resplendent capital, and an essentially agrarian France, crippled with social, economic and cultural inequalities "]*.

It is true, however, that in the years surrounding the turn of the 20th century, Paris is a
highly attractive place for artists - a place of intellectual effusion, a place of influence: "A name,
pronounced in Paris, resounds everywhere," exclaims Eugène Ledrain about Marie Krysinska's
Cet article est un document de travail mis à disposition pour ne pas être perdu – il n'a pas valeur de publication et n'en
respecte pas les normes. Merci de le considérer comme tel.

This article is a working document made available so that it does not get lost - it does not have publication status and does not comply with publication standards. Please treat it as such.

moving to the French capital. Paris is also perceived as a place of greater freedom for women,
often compared to London, perceived as a masculine city, with, for instance, its "masculine club
life" [Izquierdo p. 25]. Such comments about London are also present in Natalie Barney's books.
Finally, Paris is perceived as a tolerant city towards homosexuality. With those two things put
together, one will understand that it exerts a force of attraction on the foreign women, all the
more so on the foreign lesbians, and even more logically, on the foreign lesbian writers. Among
her corpus of Belle Époque women poets, Patricia Izquierdo counts only 4 women born and
raised in Paris, against a dozen of provincials and expatriates women. The feminine Parisian
literary scene is mostly made of non-Parisian women.

By a circular effect made of a mix of truth and fantasies, “Paris 1900” was progressively
changed into the ultimate cosmopolitan city, the capital of women and the capital of lesbianism,
this "Paris-Lesbos" of which Jean Kellec speaks about in *À Lesbos*, published on 1891 : « Lesbos
[s’y] trouve à tous les coins de rue». ["Lesbos [is] at every street corner"]. These three
characteristics, already amplified by the contemporary legend, were reinforced by history, and the
idealization of the way of life preceding First World War. All of them are obviously to be
qualified.

- The myth of the American expatriate in France, regardless of gender, has been widely
revised and fantasized. As Nancy Green has shown, expatriate life experiences in Paris
often fluctuated between Americanophilia and Americanophobia. The rejection of the
American "Yankee" took a relatively decisive turn in 1900, in the aftermath of the
Spanish-American War. It was at this time that Gustave le Rouge and Gustave Guitton's
serial, *La Conspiration des milliardaires*, was published. The serial imagined an invasion of
France by the Americans and founded the myth of the "odious type" of the "yankee". No
matter if well or badly seen, the American is constructed as a type, a "race" - the term is
used everywhere -. Melanie Hawthorne underlines in her study about Renée Vivien,
Romaine Brooks and Natalie Barney the global tendency in the XIXe century to convert
nationality into a transcendent essence: "nationality was seen as the source of an essence
that characterized a type". The American type is thus essentialized by a certain number of
typical traits: the American is impetuous, materialistic, lively, extravagant, has an
exacerbated practical mind and is devoid of any kind of poetry. This portrait is indeed
established in contrast to old poetic Europe. The typical portrait of the "American
woman" feeds on this tension and makes even more difficult any access to the literary
scene.

- Second topic, Paris, “the city of women”: here again, if, as Claude Billy reminds us, “*Is
voyaient des femmes partout?*” [“They saw women everywhere”] this omnipresence of women
is inseparable from the male gaze. The capital is feminine above all in the curves of its
subway stations, in the *Art Nouveau* decorations and constructions, in the obsession of
Decadence for women, but not so much for the place it actually leaves to women as
subjets. This “cult of women” (Shari Benstock) places them in the position of object, not
subject.

- In the same way, the mythical image of "Paris-Lesbos" is far from reality. Lesbians are the objects of a real artistic fascination since Baudelaire. The Decadent movement multiplied the number of lesbian characters. Sappho went from the Hellade to the cabaret, and the lesbians are above all a male fantasy. This public lesbianism is directed, built, represented by men and for men. The real existence of the lesbians is almost invisible, and even if a certain number of confidential places emerge, is still condemned to be hidden.

If, as Shari Benstock underlines, the expatriate women living in the Parisian left bank" appeared
to share a common factor in expatriating: they wanted to escape America and to find in Europe
the necessary cultural, sexual, and personal freedom to explore their creative intuitions", this
freedom is not acquired without resistance, all the more so when one wants to claim this freedom
publicly. Natalie Barney, it should be remembered, is not only, as a lesbian who writes a lesbian
literature, an exclusivity in France, but also an anomaly in the literary landscape.

The choice, as a woman, as an expatriate American, as a lesbian, not only to put none of
these three facets in the shade but also to make them visible through the most masculine means
available, literature, and *a fortiori* poetry, then theater, then aphorisms, so the ultimate masculine
forms, is an immense audacity that should not be reduced by imagining a benevolent Parisian
microcosm. Shari Benstock writes on this subject: "When Natalie Barney arrived in Paris in 1902.
hoping to find a place among the cultured aristocracy, more than her American birth presented a
barrier to acceptance into French society. As a woman whose lesbianism was the subject of her
literary efforts and the outstanding feature of her public demeanor, she was persona non grata
Cet article est un document de travail mis à disposition pour ne pas être perdu – il n'a pas valeur de publication et n'en
respecte pas les normes. Merci de le considérer comme tel.

This article is a working document made available so that it does not get lost - it does not have publication status and does not comply with publication standards. Please treat it as such.

with certain Paris society matrons. But her revenge, if such it was, against the closed doors of the
Faubourg was swift.”

Natalie Barney has dealt with this triple obstacle. She actually played with stereotypes at her
advantage in order to integrate the Parisian literary circle. This audacity is not only due to Natalie
Barney's great fortune, to her financial independence, or to her move away from the puritanical
family circle. From her very early works, the way Natalie Barney uses her identity of American
expatriate woman to renew the decadent image of the lesbians, and in the contrary the way she
uses the image of lesbianism to naturalize herself Parisian is outstanding. As we will see, from her
very first volume of poetry, she creates herself a hybrid, complex identity relying on clichés to
best refute them.

First I will analyse the stereotypes surrounding American women and lesbians, beginning by the
American woman.

I. "Paris has always seemed to me the only city where you can live and express yourself as you please."

"Paris m'a toujours semblé la seule ville où l'on puisse s'exprimer et vivre à sa guise". This
sentence, written by Barney in her *Souvenirs indiscrets*, is therefore only partly true. For an
American woman and a lesbian woman, "to express herself as she pleases" is not that obvious. In
1900, France, lesbian poetry - not poetry about lesbians - has known no voice since Sappho's. In
addition to that, Natalie Barney has very few examples of American women who have carved out
their place on the French literary scene. Both of these identities are in fact tightly caught in a
network of fin-de-siècle commonplaces that freeze and paralyze self-representation, as I will
attempt to show.

a. The "American Woman": the fantasy of alterity

The fantasy of the expatriate woman is a myth constructed by male culture. The American
woman, in particular, is at the heart of the fantasies of the late nineteenth century. There are
many stories that invoke the figure of an American woman as a lover, or as a central character in
Cet article est un document de travail mis à disposition pour ne pas être perdu – il n'a pas valeur de publication et n'en
respecte pas les normes. Merci de le considérer comme tel.

This article is a working document made available so that it does not get lost - it does not have publication status and does not comply with publication standards. Please treat it as such.

the plot, and that contribute to making the "American woman" a literary type. To give a few
examples: Fortunio's *L'Américaine* in 1885, Jules Claretie's *L'Américaine*, again, in 1891, and
Charles de Varigny's travel writing *La Femme aux Etats-Unis* in 1893 [cf. Philippe Geinoz (dir.),
*L'Amérique au tournant. La place des États-Unis dans la littérature française (1890-1920)*, p. 109-125.].

We find more or less the same defining features in all of those books : the American
woman is perceived as eccentric, puckish, extravagant, “drôlette” [“droll”]. This type is
constructed in opposition to the figure of the European woman, on the basis of a distinction of
"race". Fortunio writes for example: « *Elle avait l'esprit pratique de son père, qui appartient du reste à toute la race américaine ; elle n'appréciait les choses qu'autant qu'elles peuvent être utiles, et elle se demandait quel parti on pouvait bien tirer de la fièvre* ». ["She had the practical spirit of her father, which belongs to the whole American race; she appreciated things only as much as they could be useful, and she wondered what use could be made of fever".] Then a practical, cheerful, impetuous, and
fundamentally anti-poetic figure.

These characteristics can give rise to a mistrust of the American woman whose freedom
represents a threat for French men, as it could contaminate French women. As Charles Plet
shows [« La “jeune fille” américaine. Une menace pour les Françaises ? »], « *les manières d’être de la jeune fille américaine, qui est perçue comme étant libre et émancipée, constituent de véritables réservoirs fantasmatiques pour des voyageurs* » ["the manners of the American girl, who is perceived as being free
and emancipated, constitute a reservoir of fantasies for travelers"] with, in the background, the
threat of an Americanization of French woman. He quotes Charles de Varigny, *La Femme aux Etats-Unis: : « la dame, non contente d'avoir conquis, elle aussi, le Nouveau Monde, est en bonne voie d'américaniser l'Ancien* ». ["the lady, not satisfied with having conquered the New World, is well on
her way to Americanizing the Old".]

The most striking thing when one knows the other fin-de-siècle commonplace that is the
“lesbian”, the “doomed woman”, is how much those imageries are opposed, and seems
impossible to unify.

b. The fin-de-siècle lesbian
Cet article est un document de travail mis à disposition pour ne pas être perdu – il n'a pas valeur de publication et n'en
respecte pas les normes. Merci de le considérer comme tel.

This article is a working document made available so that it does not get lost - it does not have publication status and does not comply with publication standards. Please treat it as such.

The fin-de-siècle lesbian is the ultimate poetic creature: poetic because sterile, doomed, inverted, vaporous, sexual, anti-natural, she represents an ideal for the fin-de-siècle artists. “The Lesbian” is poetic, above all, because she only exists through the poetic imagination of decadent Parisian artists. She is in many ways the reverse reflection of the American woman: as artificial as the American woman is natural, misfited to the world when the American woman is above all characterized by her practical mind.

She is also the ultimate image of the city of Paris: the idea that Paris was a *locus amoenus* for lesbianism is mostly wrong, but the fact that Paris was closely linked to lesbian eroticism, and that lesbian eroticism is one of the images of the Parisian erotic refinement is undeniable. Elise Blankley writes on this subject : "In the lowest terms of encoded international erotic language, "lesbian" at the turn of the century signified a Parisian erotic refinement " [p. 65]. The lesbian is a vaporous and sexual fiction, as Shari Benstock points out: "Rather, the notion of lesbian eroticism had, by the 1890's, permeated the Parisian imagination: it offered a form of sexual diversion for women and provided men a new voyeuristic medium". "The "doomed lesbian" is an image of marginality, connected to prostitution in particular - the entrance of a Parisian brothel, for example, was crowned by a lesbian couple – [cf. Nicole G. Albert « De la topographie invisible à l'espace public et littéraire : les lieux de plaisir lesbien dans le Paris de la Belle Époque », *Revue d'histoire moderne & contemporaine*, vol. no 53-4, no. 4, 2006, p. 87-105].

Two hardly combinable images then, but which represent jointly an obstacle for Natalie Barney who writes and wants to impose her view in the poetic circle, not only as a woman, when "The Woman" is already a misogynistic fantasy [Mireille Dottin-Orsini, *Cette femme qu'ils dissent fatale*], but also with this double contradictory identity of American and lesbian. What is quite remarkable, from her first writings, is that she subtly uses the clichés against each other to unravel this fixation of female figures. In the preface of her very first collection, which also represents a literary coming out, it is obvious that she makes fun of these clichés, that she uses them as she pleases, and above all, sets them against each other to serve the foundation of a singular *persona*.

II. Turning the cliché to one's advantage: seeking the in-between
From the very first texts of Natalie Barney, a double will emerges, to integrate the French canon,
to claim a French filiation, and to deconstruct the fixed image of the fin-de-siècle lesbian (Shari
Benstock : "Natalie devoted her life to the revision of this dominant image"). However, to
achieve this double ambition, far from opposing frontally to the dominant representations, she
exploits the springs of this essentialization of the American woman against the essentialization of
the lesbian woman, and conversely, of the Parisian image of the lesbian against her status of
foreigner. America is at the antipodes of decadence and the portrait of the American woman is
the opposite of the archetypal image of the doomed lesbian. Natalie Barney sails between these
two contradictory clichés, and even uses them against each other: in some respects, the Parisian
myth of the lesbian allows her to integrate herself into the French literary landscape, while the
myth of the "funny" American woman allows her to put in motion the archetype of the doomed
lesbian.

a. "Nothing should surprise you about me, I am an American": finding an in-
between the old and the new world.

In her preface to this very first collection of poetry, a very long and ironic preface, Natalie Barney
makes a very essentialist attempt to define American identity. Yet she questions the axiology that
separates the old and the new world in order to clame a hybrid identity :

"Finally, nothing should surprise you about me, I am American. American, that is
to say part of a race still too young not to have kept its young suppleness. We have
the virtue of our adaptability. We still remember having roots in almost every
nation, and for lack of legitimate castes, we are allowed to flourish everywhere. (I cut
a little part here) Excessive patriotism is a social prejudice that only comes with time.
Every "new world" is Christianly bound to others. Our ancestors were not
Americans: but our grandsons will be. However, it will take several centuries before
we lose all atavistic imprint. May we not forget, even then, that we all belong to the
same unlimited homeland which has the infinite as its vault and God as its
sovereign! We are born of your kings who have mixed their degenerate nobility
with the solid and generative purity of the rebels. We have in our veins bloods
which must be very astonished to see themselves combined, but that allows us to
be equally puritan, noble, poet, warrior - and even bourgeois. Freedom is our
chimera like yours... but it is making me disgress."
Cet article est un document de travail mis à disposition pour ne pas être perdu – il n'a pas valeur de publication et n'en
respecte pas les normes. Merci de le considérer comme tel.

This article is a working document made available so that it does not get lost - it does not have publication status and does not comply with publication standards. Please treat it as such.

Apart from the irony, this hybrid identity is precisely what allows the dismantling of the fin-de-
siècle fixed archetypes. The "American" eye, by its "naivety", its "practical sense", (Natalie Barney
writes several times, throughout her life, "I am American, therefore I am practical") allows to
question the French metric and to establish a more flexible formal ideal, this while showing an
acute knowledge of the debates in progress around the French versification: Natalie Barney says
she prefers the assonance to the rhyme, and the rhyme to the ear rather than to the eye.

This destabilization, especially, is used to redefine, from the first collection of poem, the
aesthetics linked to the figure of the lesbian. From the preface, indeed, this formal predilection
dictated by the "naive" English-speaking ear mixes with the literary motives themselves, and
allows Barney to adopt a naive eye and to "sing in dilettante" (I quote her here) the lesbian loves.
It is precisely what makes the first sonnet of the collection, which underlines the necessity to
"éliber les rimes charnelles/Qui pourraient blesser ton âme d'opale/Par l'opacité de leurs ardeurs mâles, Je
voudrais t'aimer sans briser tes ailes» ["to elide the carnal rhymes/ Which could wound your soul of
opal/ By the opacity of their male ardors, I would like to love you without breaking your wings".]
If many features of the decadent aesthetic are still present here, and that the portrait of the lovers
is resolutely Pre-Raphaelite, the "doomed" character of the lesbian is nowhere to be found. On
the contrary, in some places, we witness a redefinition of the lesbian representation, catalyzed and
justified in the preface, therefore, by the "American" look: « *Ta voix a la pureté d'un regard
d'enfant* » / « *Tu portes la joie en tes cheveux roux/Un rire de feu danse sur ta tête* » / « *J'aime ta voix de lyre
et tes vingt ans où dort/La naïve tendresse infinie* » ["Your voice has the purity of a child's look" / "You
carry joy in your red hair / A laugh of fire dances on your head" / "I like your voice of lyre and
your twenty years where sleeps / The infinite naïve tenderness".]

b. Naturalized Parisian thanks to lesbianism? Taking advantage of voyeurism

b. Naturalized Parisian thanks to lesbianism? Taking advantage of voyeurism

Hybridizing the American identity and unsettle the archetypes that accompany this identity in the
Parisian minds allows Barney to claim an *in-between* ethos, to the benefit of which the image of
lesbianism as a decadent poetic principle is destabilized. In 1910, Natalie Barney reiterates this
observation of a shifting, indefinable identity, writing among her aphorism *Éparpillements* : « cette
Américaine a de la race ! - Elle les a toutes !» ["this American woman has race! – Yes, she has
them all! "]
Cet article est un document de travail mis à disposition pour ne pas être perdu – il n'a pas valeur de publication et n'en
respecte pas les normes. Merci de le considérer comme tel.

This article is a working document made available so that it does not get lost - it does not have publication status and does not comply with publication standards. Please treat it as such.

never blamed the albinos for having pink eyes why would one blame me for being a lesbian? It is simply a matter of
nature."]

The expatriation, as well as allowing Natalie Barney to emancipate herself from the
puritanical paternal tutelage, is thus the occasion to play on the archetypes and the expectations
of fin-de-siècle, and to question them. This particular situation and Barney's ability to construct
this elusive *in-between ethos* has guaranteed her a very singular place, which I will attempt to
describe in conclusion by presenting a short panorama of her work's critical reception.

Conclusion: from the American to the “Amazon” [cf. Karla Jay, *The Amazon and the page*,
1988]

By taking a look at the critical reception of *Quelques portraits-sonnets de femmes*, we can only conclude
that the game Barney played on her identity actually worked. The few articles we chose underline,
simultaneously, that Natalie Barney's poetic mind contradicts the French perception of American
culture, and that she is perceived as an exotic poetess who adds a peculiar spice to French
tradition. For instance, an article published in *les Partisans*, on the 5th of November 1900, declares
that « Elle sait notre langue mieux que beaucoup de nos jeunes poètes : et c'est sans doute qu'elle
l'a apprise. Cependant, elle conserve une légère teinte d'exotisme et ses meilleures pièces donnent
presque l'impression d'une traduction de quelques beaux vers anglais, passant par une bouche
délicate. » ["*She knows our language better than many of our young poets: and that is undoubtedly because she
has learned it. However, she retains a slight tinge of exoticism and her best pieces almost give the impression of
being translated from some beautiful English verses, passing through a delicate mouth.*"]. Few months later, on
February 27, 1901, another article published in *Le Journal* insists on this same tension : « Tout se
transforme, même les idées préconçues. Nous nous étions habitués à considérer l'Amérique sous
un jour exclusivement commercial, et voici que, pour prouver que l'amour de l'art y règne aussi,
une jeune Américaine, miss Natalie Clifford Barney, nous apporte un livre de vers français *d'un
parfum particulier*. » ["*Everything changes, even preconceived ideas. We had become accustomed to considering
America in an exclusively commercial light, and here, to prove that the love of art also reigns there, a young
American woman, Miss Natalie Clifford Barney, brings us a book of French verses of a particular perfume.*
].
One can notice there that the lesbian and erotic content of the poems, though omnipresent, is
not even mentioned, and that the euphemisms "exoticism" and "particular perfume" are both
exclusively justified by the American identity. This reception persists for years: the staging of the
Cet article est un document de travail mis à disposition pour ne pas être perdu – il n'a pas valeur de publication et n'en
respecte pas les normes. Merci de le considérer comme tel.

*This article is a working document made available so that it does not get lost - it does not have publication status and does not comply with publication standards. Please treat it as such.*

American "practical sense" spares Barney a huge amount of considerations on the “doomed lesbian” to which, by comparison, Renee Vivien will not escape. On another side, it is often used to ghost the lesbian content of her work. Shari Benstock still underlines this singular status in *Women of the left bank*, when she writes about Barney that "she was the most active and the most candid lesbian of her time".

Barney appears as an exception both as an American and as a lesbian, she is a figure of the "threshold", a liminal figure of radical "étrangeté", radical alterity, in all the senses : as a foreigner and as an elusive, uncatchable mind. Rémy de Gourmont confirms that status by nicknaming her "the Amazon", a nickname that is still closely associated with her today. Justifying this nickname, he evokes very symbolically in one of his letters her "amazonous way of considering things and of renewing their perception". Now this nickname, besides the fact that it is regularly used to qualify women poets and lesbians at the end of the century, is often employed to designate American women. The "Amazon" myth is in fact regularly used to underline the danger represented by emancipated women. Charles Plet evokes in his study this anguish from several French travellers in America to see the French women, contaminated by the American example, inevitably becoming "modern Amazons".

This exoticization and this radical alterity are then double-edged. Natalie Barney integrated the Parisian literary society brilliantly. She even established one of the most popular salons of the capital, and she understood quickly how to play with her different statuses and how to subvert the archetypes that were associated with them. However, this *persona* of eternal foreigner, both geographical and sexual, this persona of incomprehensible woman, of woman above reality, has complicated the reception of her writings in an era led by male critics, and has made it difficult to recognize her importance in literary history. "Everyone in Paris knew of Natalie Barney. Her spirit, her writings...and her poetry. But as usual it was her reputation rather than her gifts that was commented upon," wrote Romaine Brooks even before she met Barney (cf. Mélanie Hawthorne, *Woman, citizenship and sexuality, The transnational lives of Renée Vivien, Romaine Brooks and Natalie Barney*).

She was made an exception, an "impetuous American", a "feminine Don Juan". This last nickname comes from another stereotypical image of American people, known for their tradition of "flirt". It is a cliché that masks and excessively simplifies Natalie Barney's complex theory
Cet article est un document de travail mis à disposition pour ne pas être perdu – il n'a pas valeur de publication et n'en
respecte pas les normes. Merci de le considérer comme tel.

This article is a working document made available so that it does not get lost - it does not have publication status and does not comply with publication standards. Please treat it as such.

about love. In spite of the modernity of her voice, the skill with which she knew how to play with
fin-de-siècle clichés, Natalie Barney has suffered, and still suffers the influence of a *male gaze* that
fetishizes her in three ways. She certainly knew how to deal with this inevitable *male gaze*, but it is
now time to extricate her from this impoverishing vision.