Remembering Sappho: transatlantic ‘Lesbian Nations’ in the long nineteenth century

Abstract

This paper examines differing articulations of proto-lesbian identity in the long nineteenth century, in which educated, middle-class white women emulated the figure of Sappho in their writing and formulated Sappho-inspired communities through creative salons, societies, clubs, and social/literary networks. It maps the progression from the romantic friendships of the eighteenth century to the Boston marriages of the nineteenth century, to the beginning of the twentieth century, when love between women went from noble and virtuous to deviant and morbid sexual ‘inversion’. The question is not only treated chronologically but geographically, the position of American-based women writers juxtaposed with the opportunities afforded by specifically 'Paris-Lesbos'. The following study maps these Transatlantic communities as early forms of ‘Lesbian Nations’ through their use of the 'Lesbian' poet. It engages in a form of Sapphic ‘remembering,’ questions how and who we remember, and contributes to current understandings of a 'lesbian' historical past.