Vivien, Renée (1877–1909)
Vivien, Renée (1877–1909)
French poet. Name variations: Renee; (real name) Pauline Tarn. Born Pauline Mary Tarn in Paddington, England, in 1877; died at age 32 of selfinduced starvation in 1909; dau. of a Michigan heiress and John Tarn, an English gentleman from Kent.
After wandering in the East, settled permanently in Paris where she translated the ancient poetry of Sappho and other women of Lesbos, published as Les Kitharèdes (1904); published her own French verse as Cendres et poussières (Cinders and Dust, 1902), Evocations (1903), and Les Flambeaux éteints (Extinguished Torches, 1907); novelized her turbulent relationship with Natalie Clifford Barney in Une Femme m'apparut (A Woman Appeared to Me, 1904); published 12 vols. of her poetry, Poésies complètes (1901–10).
See also Karla Jay, The Amazon and the Page: Natalie Clifford Barney and Renée Vivien (Indiana U. Press, 1988); and Women in World History.