Editing Natalie Clifford Barney (section)

==Early relationships==

===Eva Palmer===
[[File:Eva Palmer-Sikelianos.jpg|thumb|left|upright=0.6|[[Eva Palmer]]]]

Barney's earliest intimate relationship was with [[Eva Palmer-Sikelianos|Eva Palmer]]. They became acquainted during summer vacations in Bar Harbor, Maine, and began a sexual relationship during one such trip in 1893. Barney likened Palmer's appearance to that of a medieval virgin.{{sfn|Rodriguez|2002|pp=56–58}} The two remained close for several years.  As young adults in Paris they shared an apartment at 4 rue Chalgrin and eventually took their own residences in [[Neuilly-sur-Seine|Neuilly]].{{sfn|Rodriguez|2002|p=150}}  Barney frequently solicited Palmer's help in her romantic pursuits of other women, including Pauline Tarn.{{sfn|Rodriguez|2002|pp=149, 164–165}}  Palmer ultimately left Barney's side for Greece and eventually married [[Angelos Sikelianos]]. Their relationship did not survive this turn of events: Barney took a dim view of Angelos and heated letters were exchanged.{{sfn|Rodriguez|2002|pp=169–171}}  Later in their lives the friendship was repaired through correspondence and reunions in New York.{{sfn|Rodriguez|2002|pp=308, 330}}

===Liane de Pougy===

In 1899, after seeing the [[courtesan]] [[Liane de Pougy]] at a dance hall in Paris, Barney presented herself at de Pougy's residence in a [[Page (occupation)|page]] costume and announced she was a "page of love" sent by [[Sappho]].{{sfn|Rodriguez|2002|pp=88–93}} Although de Pougy was one of the most famous women in France, constantly sought after by wealthy and titled men, Barney's audacity charmed her.{{sfn|Rodriguez|2002|pp=87–88,92}}

[[File:Liane de Pougy (1900).jpg|thumb|upright=0.8|[[Liane de Pougy]] in 1900]]

Barney stood to inherit some family wealth held in trust if she either married or waited for her father's death.{{sfn|Souhami|2005|p=18}} While courting de Pougy, Barney was engaged to Robert Cassat, a member of another wealthy railroad family.{{sfn|Souhami|2005|p=12}} Barney was open with Cassat about her love of women and relationship with de Pougy.{{sfn|Souhami|2005|p=18}} In the hopes of securing the Barney trust money, the three briefly considered a rushed wedding between Barney and Cassat and an adoption of de Pougy.{{sfn|Souhami|2005|pp=18–19, 21}} When Cassat ended the engagement, Barney attempted unsuccessfully to persuade her father to give her the money anyway.{{sfn|Souhami|2005|p=21}}

By the end of 1899, the two had broken up after quarreling repeatedly over Barney's desire to "rescue" de Pougy from her life as a courtesan.{{sfn|Rodriguez|2002|pp=91, 95–97, 102–103}} Despite the breakup, the two continued having liaisons for decades.{{sfn|Rodriguez|2002|pp=103, 264–266}}

Their on-and-off affair became the subject of de Pougy's tell-all ''[[roman à clef]]'', ''Idylle Saphique'' (''Sapphic Idyll''). Published in 1901, the book and its sexually suggestive scenes became the talk of Paris, reprinted more than 70 times in its first year.{{sfn|Rodriguez|2002|pp=91, 93–94}} Barney was soon well known as the model for one of the characters.{{sfn|Rodriguez|2002|p=95}}

Barney herself contributed a chapter to ''Idylle Saphique'' in which she described reclining at de Pougy's feet in a screened box at the theater, watching [[Sarah Bernhardt]]'s play ''[[Prince Hamlet|Hamlet]]''.{{sfn|Rodriguez|2002|p=97}} During intermission, Barney (as "Flossie") compares Hamlet's plight with that of women: "What is there for women who feel the passion for action when pitiless Destiny holds them in chains? Destiny made us women at a time when the law of men is the only law that is recognized."<ref>As translated in {{harvnb|Wickes|1976|p=40}}.</ref>  She also wrote ''Lettres à une Connue'' (''Letters to a Woman I Have Known''), her own [[epistolary novel]] about the affair. Although Barney failed to find a publisher for the book and later called it naïve and clumsy, it is notable for its discussion of homosexuality, which Barney regarded as natural and compared to [[albinism]].{{sfn|Rodriguez|2002|pp=95, 101}}  "My queerness," she said, "is not a vice, is not deliberate, and harms no one."<ref>As translated in {{harvnb|Souhami|2005|p=57}}.</ref>

===Renée Vivien===

In November 1899, Barney met the poet Pauline Tarn, better known by her pen name [[Renée Vivien]]. For Vivien it was [[love at first sight]], while Barney became fascinated with Vivien after hearing her recite one of her poems,{{sfn|Rodriguez|2002|pp=105–106}} which Barney described as "haunted by the desire for death".{{sfn|Barney|1992|p=15}} Their romantic relationship was also a creative exchange that inspired both of them to write. Barney provided a feminist theoretical framework which Vivien explored in her poetry. They adapted the imagery of the [[Symbolism (movement)|Symbolist poet]]s along with the conventions of [[courtly love]] to describe love between women, also finding examples of heroic women in history and myth.{{sfn|Jay|1988|pp=xii–xiv}} Sappho was an especially important influence and they studied [[Greek language|Greek]] so as to read the surviving fragments of her poetry in the original. Both wrote plays about her life.{{sfn|Jay|1988|pp=63, 67}}

[[File:Natalie Barney and Renee Vivien.jpg|thumb|left|[[Renée Vivien]] (standing) and Barney; posing for a portrait in [[1795–1820 in fashion|''Directoire''-era costume]]]]
Vivien saw Barney as a [[muse]] and as Barney put it, "she had found new inspiration through me, almost without knowing me". Barney felt Vivien had cast her as a ''[[femme fatale]]'' and that she wanted "to lose herself{{nbs}}... entirely in suffering" for the sake of her art.{{sfn|Barney|1992|pp=19, 24–25}} Vivien also believed in [[monogamy]], which Barney was unwilling to agree to. While Barney was visiting her family in Washington, D.C. in 1901, Vivien stopped answering her letters. Barney tried to get her back for years, at one point persuading a friend, operatic [[mezzo-soprano]] [[Emma Calvé]], to sing under Vivien's window so she could throw a poem (wrapped around a bouquet of flowers) up to Vivien on her balcony. Both flowers and poem were intercepted and returned by a governess.{{sfn|Jay|1988|pp=11–15}}

In 1904 she wrote ''Je Me Souviens'' (''I Remember''), an intensely personal prose poem about their relationship which was presented as a single handwritten copy to Vivien in an attempt to win her back. They reconciled and traveled together to [[Lesbos Island|Lesbos]], where they lived happily together for a short time and discussed starting a school of poetry for women like the one which Sappho, according to tradition, had founded on Lesbos some 2,500 years before. However, Vivien soon got a letter from her lover Baroness [[Hélène van Zuylen]] and went to [[Istanbul|Constantinople]] thinking she would break up with her in person. Vivien planned to meet Barney in Paris afterward, but instead stayed with the Baroness. This time, the breakup was permanent.{{sfn|Jay|1988|pp=11–15}}

Vivien's health declined rapidly after this. The author [[Colette]], who herself had an affair with Barney in 1906, was Vivien's friend and neighbor.{{sfn|Rodriguez|2002|pp=131, 186}} According to Colette, Vivien ate almost nothing and drank heavily, even rinsing her mouth with perfumed water to hide the smell.{{sfn|Colette|2000|pp=87, 95}} Colette's account has led some to call Vivien an [[anorexia nervosa|anorexic]],{{sfn|Jay|1988|p=19}} but this diagnosis did not yet exist at the time. Vivien was also addicted to the sedative [[chloral hydrate]]. In 1908 she attempted suicide by overdosing on [[laudanum]]{{sfn|Rodriguez|2002|pp=116, 186–187}} and died the following year. In a memoir written fifty years later, Barney said, "She could not be saved. Her life was a long suicide. Everything turned to dust and ashes in her hands."<ref>Barney, ''Souvenirs Indiscrets'', quoted in {{harvnb|Souhami|2005|p=52}}.</ref>

In 1949, two years after the death of Hélène van Zuylen, Barney restored the [[Renée Vivien Prize]]<ref name=gmiron>{{cite journal |editor-last1=Grindea |editor-first1=Miron |editor1-link=Miron Grindea |year=1962 |title=Combat with the Amazon of letters |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9bwpAQAAIAAJ |journal=ADAM International Review |location=London, UK |volume=29 |issue=299 |pages=5–24 |access-date=October 17, 2015 |quote=As to the moving tributes by Yanette Deletang-Tardif, Anne-Marie Kegels and Lucienne Desnoues they represent the admiration of three of the more interesting laureates of the Prix Renee Vivien which, since 1949, the Amazon has awarded to women poets writing in French}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Klaich |first1=Dolores |year=1974 |title=Woman+woman: attitudes toward lesbianism |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WneGAAAAIAAJ |location=New York (New York), USA |publisher=Simon and Schuster |isbn=9780671216955 |page=176 |access-date=April 27, 2016 |quote=In 1949 she would endow a Renée Vivien Prize for women poets}}</ref>{{sfn|Wickes|1976|p=198}}{{sfn|Barney|1992a|p=262}} with a financial grant<ref name=dtb>{{cite thesis |last=Tyler-Bennett |first=Deborah |date=October 1993 |title='A foreign language which you understand': The art and life of Djuna Barnes 1892–1982 |type=Ph.D. |chapter=4. Barnes Among Women 1920–39: Ladies Almanack and Biography |publisher=University of Leicester |docket=U058027 |chapter-url=https://lra.le.ac.uk/bitstream/2381/34897/1/U058027.pdf |access-date=April 10, 2016 |quote=The salon, which had altered from the days of the tableaux, still held its own in the literary world, and the Prix Renée Vivien (of 500,000 francs) enable young writers such as Marguerite Yourcenar to establish themselves. |archive-date=November 1, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181101071357/https://lra.le.ac.uk/bitstream/2381/34897/1/U058027.pdf |url-status=dead }}</ref>  under the authority of the ''[[Société des gens de lettres]]'' and took on the chairmanship of the jury in 1950.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Paul-Margueritte |first1=Eve |last2=Paul-Margueritte |first2=Lucie |date=July 12, 1951 |title=Deux frères, deux sœurs : deux époques littéraires |trans-title=Two brothers, two sisters, two literary eras |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=v6FDAAAAIAAJ |language=fr |location=Paris, F |publisher=Editions J. Peyronnet |oclc=751644475 |access-date=April 10, 2016 |page=233 |quote=En souvenir de son amie, Miss Barney a fondé le " Prix Renée Vivien " que décerne la Société des Gens de Lettres}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Lafitte |first1=Jacques |last2=Taylor |first2=Stephen |year=1969 |title=Qui est qui en France 1969–1970 |trans-title=Who's who in France 1969–1970 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qBkMAQAAMAAJ |language=fr |location=Paris, F |publisher=Editions Jacques Lafitte |version=9° édition |oclc=465578548 |access-date=April 10, 2016 |page=197 |isbn=9782857840138 |quote=A rétabli le prix Renée Vivien dont elle est la Présidente (depuis 1950) à la Société des gens de lettres}}</ref><ref>{{cite magazine |last1=Lottman |first1=Herbert R. |editor1-last=Brown |editor1-first=Francis |date=September 28, 1969 |title=In Search of Miss Barney |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ngscAQAAMAAJ |magazine=The New York Times Book Review |location=New York (New York), USA |publisher=Arno Press |issn=0028-7806 |page=60 |volume=74 |version=January–December 1969 |access-date=April 10, 2016 |quote=As recently as 1950, 41 years after Miss Vivien's death, she endowed a Renee Vivien poetry prize and became chairman of a committee of the French Society of Men of Letters which awards it}}</ref>

===Olive Custance===

Barney purchased and read ''Opals'' in 1900, a debut collection of poems by [[Olive Custance]]. Responding to the lesbian themes in the poetry, Barney began corresponding with Custance and exchanging poems.{{sfn|Rodriguez|2002|p=119}} The two met in 1901 at Barney and Vivien's home in Paris, and they soon began a short romantic relationship. While Barney's infidelity aggravated Vivien, Custance was also pursuing a relationship with [[Lord Alfred Douglas]], who she would later marry.{{sfn|Rodriguez|2002|pp=125–127}}