Grace Constant Lounsbery
Born1876
Died1964
Occupationauthor

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.[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]

Selected work

References

  1. ↑ Constant-Lounsbery, Grace (1876-1964) forme internationale. Bibliothèque nationale de France. {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)
  2. 1 2 Innerly, Ida (January 26, 1906). "Doings of the Smart Set". Lexington Leader. Lexington, Kentucky.
  3. 1 2 3 Du Bois, Henri Pene (March 21, 1904). "Paris is America's Capital". The Oregon Daily Journal.
  4. ↑ Giesenkirchen, Michaela (2011). "Adding Up William and Henry: The Psychodynamic Geometry of Q.E.D." American Literary Realism. 43 (2): 112–132. doi:10.1353/alr.2011.0005. ISSN 1940-5103. S2CID 162888848.
  5. 1 2 Fyles, Franklin (December 24, 1905). "New York Theatrical Gossip". The Kansas City Star.
  6. ↑ True Latimer, Tirza (May 2015). "Aesthetic Allegiances : Marcel Moore and Claude Cahun". Héritages partagés de Claude Cahun et Marcel Moore, du XIXe au XXIe siècles. Symbolisme, modernisme, surréalisme, postérité contemporaine. Retrieved 2022-08-02.
  7. ↑ Leider, Emily Wortis (1991). "9. Superheroes". California's Daughter : Gertrude Atherton and Her Times. Palo Alto: Stanford University Press. pp. 181–200. ISBN 978-1-5036-2185-5. OCLC 1294423989.
  8. ↑ Leontis, Artemis (2019). "Sapphic Performances". Eva Palmer Sikelianos : a life in ruins. Princeton, New Jersey. p. 21. ISBN 978-0-691-18790-7. OCLC 1080938485.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  9. ↑ Palmer, Michael P. (July 2015). "Guide to the Addison M. Metcalf Collection of Gertrude Steiniana (Claremont Colleges: Scripps College, Ella Strong Denison Library)". Online Archive of California. Retrieved 2022-08-02. 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. ↑ Stein, Gertrude (1933-08-01). "Ernest Hemingway and the Post-War Decade: Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas. Iv". The Atlantic. Retrieved 2022-08-02.
  11. ↑ Le Gallienne, Richard (February 17, 1912). "Some New Poetry". The Publishers Weekly Book Review. p. 544.
  12. ↑ Lounsbery, Grace Constant (September 1911). Poems of revolt, and Satan unbound. New York: Moffat, Yard and Company. p. 35.
  13. ↑ McMahan, David L. (2012). Buddhism in the Modern World. Taylor & Francis. p. 122. ISBN 9781136493492.
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