“After Sappho”: Navigating stories of desire, queer identity, and free love in the age of modernity
After Sappho was longlisted for the Booker Prize 2022. It was written by Selby Wynn Schwatz. The book revolves around the lives of queer women intellectuals rooted in Europe at the beginning of the 20th century. Starting with Sappho of Lesbos, the author spins a story line that includes the history of women from the queer and feminist cultural past.
Schwatz’s narrative is strongly influenced by the shared energy of lesbian desire and fragments of anecdotes about real icons of modernity.
Schwatz’s narrative is strongly influenced by the shared energy of lesbian desire and fragments of anecdotes about real icons of modernity. The author offers a catalog of embodied expressions of women longing for women through the gaze of women. The report talks about some established women such as Virginia Woolf, Sarah Bernhardt and Lina Poletti, to name a few.
Source: Amazon
The most important thing we notice about After Sappho is that Schwatz repeatedly uses a collective “we” in the novel, which gives us a touch of feminist activation. The diversity of “we” transcends time and space and marches forward against various forms of misogyny, patriarchy and war.
The narrative style of After Sappho
Throughout the novel we find various incomplete sections of Sappho’s poetry, highlighting the fact that Schwatz wanted readers to remain constantly “in touch” with her. There is also an element of lesbian world-building that is highlighted in each story. The author writes in the prologue of After Sappho: “The first thing we did was change our names. ‘We will be Sappho.’
The overlapping stories, titled with names and supported by timelines, make the stories more reminiscent of Sappho’s poetry. The author tried to shape and reform Sappho’s fragments, each full of desire, longing and love. Schwatz writes: “Each stayed in her place, searching the poem fragments for words to say what it was, that feeling Sappho calls Aithussomenon, the way leaves move when nothing but the afternoon light touches them .”
In the 1900s, queer identity was viewed as ghostly and homosexuals were portrayed as enigmatic.
In the 1900s, queer identity was viewed as ghostly and homosexuals were portrayed as enigmatic. There are many instances in the book where women have changed identities, morphed, and written under a pseudonym just to fit into a world that has consistently refused to accept their autonomy. The core content of the novel gives us a differentiated perception of feminism. But with more than fifteen female characters in After Sappho written in fragments, it becomes very difficult to keep track of every queer story. Perhaps the author wanted to keep the spirit of Sappho alive and therefore chose to write in parts.
The theme of desire and representation of queer love is very clear in the book.
Isadora Duncan and Eleonara Duse, 1913
In After Sappho there is a very prominent section of intimacy between Isadora Duncan and Eleonara Duse. The author notes:
“Like other languages, ancient Greek has a singular and a plural. But there is also the duel, which is used for two things that occur naturally together: twins, a pair of lovebirds, breasts, the two halves of a walnut in a shell. Do you see? Eleonara asked Isadora, looking up from the Greek grammar lying open between them. Just for two things hugging each other. As if you were sleeping in my arms, my sweet.’
Source: TYPE Books
Schwatz wanted to highlight the channeled version of Sappho through the multiple consciousness of women in the early 19th and 20th centuries. The narrative is partly a speculative biography and partly an imaginative invention.
Natalie, Elisabeth and Romaine, 1918
In another case, we witness a blossoming romance between Natalie Barney and Eva Palmer. It was 1900. They met in a salon and the author writes: “As Eva recited poems, Natalie felt the silent crowd of trees bending their crowns to listen…” Natalie embraced her: books, bodies, pine needles. They were young, but they were on their way to becoming something.’
In the age of modernity there is a component of free love. As we read later, we come across the fact that Natalie Barney and French Princess Elisabeth de Gramont wrote down their wedding vows in 1918. Additionally, Barney was already romantically linked to Romaine Brooks. But when we turn the pages, we understand that Elisabeth, Natalie and Romaine were together in their own unique ways for almost forty years. As we read further, polyamorous relationships formed but dissolved over time.
Virginia Woolf and Vita Sackville-West, 1927
Virginia Woolf and Vita Sackville-West next meet in Schwatz’s novel. There is a chapter where Virginia Wolf coined the term “Jessamy.” It’s 18th century slang for lesbians. As Julia Briggs said, Woolf had titled The Jessamy Brides in 1927 and the sole purpose of the novel was to create a portrait for Vita Sackville-West.
As Julia Briggs said, Woolf had titled The Jessamy Brides in 1927 and the sole purpose of the novel was to create a portrait for Vita Sackville-West.
“Sapphism is advisable.” “Virginia Woolf said to herself: “And wildness,” writes Schwatz. Virginia wrote a letter to Vita stating that she could easily revolutionize biography in one night, all she needed was Vita. Sackville replied that Woolf might have every crevice of her, every shadow and every thread of pearly thought.
Source: The Booker Prizes
Of course, we know that several letters were exchanged between the two. The letters and diary entries were full of love and admiration for each other. The novel traces various moments in which every interaction between them represents an echo of tenderness, warmth and tenderness.
According to Sappho: of endings
After Sappho ended in 1928, Virginia Woolf published Orlando. There is a very famous statement by Woolf in her book A Room of One’s Own: “Chloe liked Olivia” in the context of Mary Carmichael’s debut novel.
This statement has made many women reveal their sexuality and express their feelings freely. Mary and Woolf shed light on the unexplored dimensions of women’s lives and fundamentally changed the norms of writing. The depth of the literary depiction of women loving women had not yet been reached before the statement surfaced.
Source: Acast
Schwatz features a very strong interpretation of this historical fiction. She asks us to change our names so that the story feels like our own. Chloe and Olivia couldn’t demand their rights, but we can. Sappho is used as a flame, a beacon that ignites passion and love in the novel and transcends social boundaries in society.
