- Born
- 11 June 1877London, England
- Died
- 18 November 1909Paris, France · aged 32
Renée Vivien
A British-born poet who wrote in French about love between women and became the “Muse of the Violets” of Paris.
Renée Vivien was born Pauline Tarn in London, the daughter of a wealthy British father and an American mother. She spent part of her childhood in Paris, and after her father’s death inherited a fortune that made her independent. At 21 she moved to Paris and took the name Renée Vivien. She wrote exclusively in French.
In 1899 she met Natalie Clifford Barney, who became her lover. Their relationship was intense and turbulent; Vivien could not bear Barney’s infidelities. Together they dreamed of founding a community of women poets on Lesbos, in the tradition of Sappho, and travelled to the island in 1904. Vivien translated Sappho’s poems into French.
In collections such as “Études et préludes” (1901) and her autobiographical novel “Une femme m’apparut” (A Woman Appeared to Me, 1904) she wrote openly about love between women, in a style inspired by Baudelaire and the Symbolists. She was one of the first modern poets to do so. For several years she had a relationship with the Baroness Hélène van Zuylen.
Vivien suffered from depression, anorexia and addiction to alcohol and drugs. She died in Paris in 1909, aged only 32.