Grace Constant Lounsbery | |
---|---|
Born | 1876 |
Died | 1964 |
Occupation | author |
Grace Constant Lounsbery (1876 – 1964) [1] was an American author, poet and playwright. She also founded a Buddhism society in France.
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. [3] Lounsbery was friends with Gertrude Stein and often hosted gatherings at the family home in Baltimore. [4]
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. [3] Bernhardt played the young man. The play was a benefit for Jews in Russia. [5]
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, [3] [2] 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]
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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)