Grace Constant Lounsbery Explained

Grace Constant Lounsbery
Birth Date:1876
Death Date:1964
Occupation:author

Grace Constant Lounsbery (1876 – 1964)[1] was an American author, poet and playwright. She also founded a Buddhism society in France.

Biography

Her mother named her Grace Constant. She adopted the last name Lounsbery from a prestigious branch of her family, writing as G. Constant Lounsbery.[2] She graduated from Bryn Mawr College. Lounsbery was friends with Gertrude Stein and often hosted gatherings at the family home in Baltimore.[3]

Lounsbery's play L'Escarpolette (in English, The Swing) opened at Sarah Bernhardt's playhouse in Paris in 1904. The play is based upon an 18th-century painting of the same name, which depicts a flirtation between a young man and a woman on a swing.[4] Bernhardt played the young man. The play was a benefit for Jews in Russia.

Her doings in Paris were reported back to the United States by gossip columnists. They found her fascinating and often remarked on her masculine manner of dress and behavior, with one reporter calling her "an out-door lady of manly sports" who used the initial G to obscure her feminine name.[5] Lounsbery moved in a circle of lesbians in Paris.[6] [7] [8] Gertrude Stein wrote of an early romantic relationship with Lounsbery in Q.E.D. (Quod Erat Demonstrandum), written in 1903 but not published until 1950.[9] Lounsbery also hosted literary and artistic salons; Stein and Ernest Hemingway met Ezra Pound at one of these evenings.[10]

In the poem Satan Unbound Lounsbery advocated for a spirit of rebellion embodied by the figure of Satan. She reminded the reader that the American Revolution was a rebellion, and felt that a similar rebellion was needed to bring about socialism.[11] She was inspired to write about Satan and rebellion by the work of Percy Bysshe Shelley.[12]

In 1929 Lounsbery founded a Buddhism society in France which was influential in popularizing Buddhism for French and Western people.[13]

Selected work

Notes and References

  1. Book: Constant-Lounsbery, Grace (1876-1964) forme internationale . BnF Catalogue général . Bibliothèque nationale de France.
  2. News: Doings of the Smart Set . Innerly . Ida . Lexington Leader . Lexington, Kentucky . January 26, 1906 .
  3. Giesenkirchen . Michaela . 2011 . Adding Up William and Henry: The Psychodynamic Geometry of Q.E.D. . American Literary Realism . en . 43 . 2 . 112–132 . 10.1353/alr.2011.0005 . 162888848 . 1940-5103.
  4. News: Paris is America's Capital . The Oregon Daily Journal . Du Bois . Henri Pene . March 21, 1904.
  5. News: New York Theatrical Gossip . The Kansas City Star . Fyles . Franklin . December 24, 1905.
  6. Web site: True Latimer . Tirza . May 2015 . Aesthetic Allegiances : Marcel Moore and Claude Cahun . 2022-08-02 . Héritages partagés de Claude Cahun et Marcel Moore, du XIXe au XXIe siècles. Symbolisme, modernisme, surréalisme, postérité contemporaine .
  7. Book: Leider, Emily Wortis . California's Daughter : Gertrude Atherton and Her Times . Stanford University Press . 1991 . 978-1-5036-2185-5 . Palo Alto . 181–200 . 9. Superheroes . 1294423989.
  8. Book: Leontis, Artemis . Eva Palmer Sikelianos : a life in ruins . 2019 . 978-0-691-18790-7 . Princeton, New Jersey . 21 . Sapphic Performances . 1080938485.
  9. Web site: Palmer . Michael P. . July 2015 . Guide to the Addison M. Metcalf Collection of Gertrude Steiniana (Claremont Colleges: Scripps College, Ella Strong Denison Library) . 2022-08-02 . Online Archive of California . Stein first began writing in 1903, beginning Q.E.D. (Quod Erat Demonstrandum), an account of her ill-starred relationship with Mabel Haynes, Grace Lounsbury, and May Bookstaver (not published until 1950).
  10. Web site: Stein . Gertrude . 1933-08-01 . Ernest Hemingway and the Post-War Decade: Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas. Iv . 2022-08-02 . The Atlantic . en.
  11. The Publishers Weekly Book Review . February 17, 1912 . Le Gallienne . Richard . Some New Poetry . 544 .
  12. Book: Lounsbery, Grace Constant . Poems of revolt, and Satan unbound . 35 . New York . Moffat, Yard and Company . September 1911 .
  13. Book: McMahan, David L. . Buddhism in the Modern World . 122 . 2012 . Taylor & Francis . 9781136493492.

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