Editing Renée Vivien (section)

==Biography==
===Early life===
Renée Vivien was born '''Pauline Mary Tarn''' in [[London|London, England]] to {{ill|John Tarn|qid=Q96091363|short=yes}}, a British farmer who had become wealthy through property investments, and an American mother, {{ill|Mary Gilett Bennett|qid=Q96091364|short=yes}}.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Pauline Mary Tarn details on a grave monument at Passy Cemetery, Paris, France|url=http://www.gravestonephotos.com/public/namedetails.php?grave=272676&forenames=Pauline%20Mary&surname=Tarn|accessdate=28 September 2020|website=gravestonephotos.com}}</ref><ref name="Delmas 2022-03-21">{{cite web |last=Delmas |first=Lisa |translator-last=Sharpley |translator-first=Gammon |title=TARN Pauline |website=Agorha |date=2022-03-21 |url=https://agorha.inha.fr/detail/307 |access-date=2024-06-08}}</ref><ref name="Cyane 2006">{{cite web |last=Cyane |first=Cristie |title=Renée Vivien |website=reneevivien.com |date=2006-02-09 |url=http://www.reneevivien.com/vie.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120806081707/http://www.reneevivien.com/vie.html |archive-date=2012-08-06 |url-status=dead |language=fr}}</ref> Pauline attended the Belsize College in [[Hampstead]], London, where, in 1883, she was awarded a silver medal by the ''[[Alliance française]]'' for her study of French.<ref name="The Leeds Mercury 1883 p. 2">{{cite journal |title=The National Society of French Teachers |journal=The Leeds Mercury |publisher=Edward and Frederick Baines |publication-place=Leeds [England] |issue=17,110 |date=6 February 1893 |oclc=641537675 |page=2 |url=https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000076/18930206/002/0002 |url-access=subscription |via=The British Newspaper Archive}}</ref><ref name="The Jersey Weekly Press and Independent 1883 p. 6">{{cite journal |title=French Masters at the Mansion House |journal=The Jersey Weekly Press and Independent |volume=48 |issue=6 |date=11 February 1893 |publication-place=Saint Helier, Jersey [Channel Islands] |oclc=751646390 |page=6 |url=https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0001580/18930211/112/0006 |url-access=subscription |via=The British Newspaper Archive}}</ref> While she was attending school in [[Paris]], her father died in 1886.<ref name="LC 2017">{{cite web |author=LC |date=2017-06-12 |title=JUNE 11: Renée Vivien (1877-1909) |url=https://365daysoflesbians.tumblr.com/post/161718255637/june-11-ren%C3%A9e-vivien-1877-1909 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181214000805/https://365daysoflesbians.tumblr.com/post/161718255637/june-11-ren%C3%A9e-vivien-1877-1909 |archive-date=2018-12-14 |website=365 Days of Lesbians}}{{better source needed|date=April 2023|reason|[[WPUGC|User-generated content]]}}</ref> Upon his death, Pauline returned to London to receive her inheritance from him.<ref name="Cyane 2006" /> Purportedly, Pauline's mother attempted to declare her legally insane so that she could have her husband's inheritance money instead. The plot failed, and Pauline was taken away from her mother to live as a ward of the court until she came of age.<ref name="LC 2017" /> In 1899, after she turned 21, Pauline returned to France with the inheritance money. It is around this time that she began to go by the name of Renée Vivien.<ref name=":2">{{Cite web|date=10 June 2020|title=Renée Vivien and the Trials of Lesbian Poetry|url=https://artlark.org/2020/06/11/renee-vivien-the-misunderstood-lesbian-sonneteer/|access-date=28 September 2020|website=A R T L▼R K|language=en}}</ref>

===Relationships===
Vivien harbored{{clarification needed|date=April 2023}} an unconsummated romantic relationship with her childhood friend and neighbor, Violet Shillito, who is thought to be referenced in Vivien’s poems with the words “violet” and “purple.”<ref name=":4">{{Cite web |date=2 February 2018 |title=So Much Love of Death: A Crown of Violets by Renée Vivien |url=https://therumpus.net/2018/02/a-crown-of-violets-selected-poems-by-renee-vivien-translated-by-samantha-pious/ |access-date=28 September 2020 |website=The Rumpus.net |language=en}}</ref> After Shillito’s death to [[typhoid fever]], Vivien felt a sense of guilt for her relationship with American heiress [[Natalie Clifford Barney|Natalie Barney]], who Shillito had introduced her to the year before, because she felt that she had sidelined Shillito in favour of Barney.<ref name="Cyane 2006" /> Vivien’s feelings of guilt are thought to be a likely contributing factor—alongside Barney's infidelities—to the end of Vivien and Barney’s relationship in 1901.<ref name="LC 2017" /> 
[[File:Natalie Barney and Renee Vivien.jpg|thumb|Renée Vivien (left) and [[Natalie Clifford Barney]] posing for a portrait in [[1795–1820 in fashion|''Directoire''-era costume]]]]
[[File:Lucien Lévy-Dhurmer - Portrait de Renée Vivien.jpg|thumb|alt=Portrait of Renée Vivien by Lucien Lévy-Dhurmer, before 1909|[[Lucien Lévy-Dhurmer]] ([[wikt:before|b.]] 1909), ''Portrait of Renée Vivien'']]
In 1902, Vivien became romantically involved with the wealthy [[Baron]]ess [[Hélène van Zuylen]], one of the Paris [[Rothschilds]]. After her turbulent prior experience with Barney, Vivien found much-needed emotional support and stability in her relationship with Zuylen. In spite of Zuylen’s social position, which did not allow for a public relationship, the two continued a discreet affair for a number of years, often traveling together. In letters to her confidant, the French journalist and [[Classical scholar]] [[Jean Charles-Brun]], Vivien wrote that she considered herself married to the Baroness.<ref name=":2" />

While still with Zuylen, Vivien received a letter from {{ill|Kérimé Turkhan Pacha|fr||es}}, an admirer in [[Istanbul]] and the wife of a [[Ottoman Empire|Turkish]] diplomat. The two launched a passionate correspondence, followed by brief clandestine encounters. Kérimé, though French-educated and cultivated, lived according to [[Islamic]] tradition, which meant an isolated and veiled life in which she could neither travel freely nor leave her husband.<ref name=":2" /> Meanwhile, Vivien continued her relationship with the Baroness de Zuylen.

In 1907, Zuylen left Vivien for another woman, which left her shocked and humiliated. Another blow came in 1908 when Kérimé, upon moving with her husband to [[Saint Petersburg]], ended their affair.

Vivien, terribly affected by these losses, turned increasingly to alcohol and drugs. The French writer [[Colette]], who was Vivien's neighbour from 1906 to 1908, immortalised this period in ''[[The Pure and the Impure]]'', a collection of portraits showing the spectrum of homosexual behaviour.  Written in the 1920s and originally published in 1932, its factual accuracy is questionable; Natalie Barney reportedly did not concur with Colette's characterization of Vivien.{{citation needed|date=April 2023}}

=== World travels ===
Vivien was cultivated and very well travelled, especially for a woman of her era. She wintered in [[Egypt]], visited China, and explored much of the Middle East, as well as Europe and [[United States|America]].

After the heartbreak from Zuylen and Kérimé, Vivien fled to Japan and then Hawaii with her mother in 1907. Vivien became ill on the voyage.<ref>"Pauline Tarn" in the Honolulu, Hawaii, Passenger and Crew Lists, 1900-1959 (National Archives and Records Administration (NARA); Washington, D.C.; ''Passenger Lists of Vessels Arriving at Honolulu, Hawaii, compiled 13 February 1900 - 30 December 1953''; National Archives Microfilm Publication: ''A3422''; Roll: ''016''; Record Group Title: ''Records of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, 1787 - 2004''; Record Group Number: ''RG 85)''</ref>

Her Paris home was a luxurious ground-floor apartment at 23, avenue du [[Bois de Boulogne]] (now 23, [[Avenue Foch]]) that opened onto a [[Japanese garden]]. She purchased antique furnishings from London and exotic [[work of art|objets d'art]] from the Far East.  She kept an abundant amount of fresh flowers and offerings of [[Lady apple|Lady Apples]] to her collection of shrines, statuettes, icons, and [[Buddhas]].

A public square is named in her honor in Paris: {{ill|Place Renée-Vivien|fr}}, in [[Le Marais]], central historic district of the French capital.

=== Illness and death ===

While visiting London in 1908, Vivien tried to kill herself by drinking an excess of [[laudanum]]. As she waited to die, she stretched out on her [[Divan (furniture)|divan]] with a bouquet of violets held over her heart. She survived the attempt. 

While in England, she contracted [[pleurisy]] and continued to grow weaker upon her eventual return to Paris. According to biographer [[Jean-Paul Goujon]], Vivien suffered from chronic [[gastritis]], due to years of [[chloral hydrate]] and alcohol abuse. She had also started to refuse to eat. By the summer of 1909, she walked with a cane.{{Citation needed|date=June 2024}}

Vivien died in Paris on the morning of 18 November 1909 at the age of 32; the cause of death was reported at the time as "lung congestion", but likely resulted from [[pneumonia]] complicated by alcoholism, [[drug abuse]], and [[anorexia nervosa]] {{citation needed|date=November 2024}}.  She was interred at [[Cimetière de Passy|Passy Cemetery]] in the same Parisian neighbourhood where she had lived.{{sfn |Jay |1988 |pp=[https://archive.org/details/amazonpagenatali0000jayk/page/18/mode/2up?q=pneumonia 18–19]}}