Grace Constant Lounsbery

Grace Constant Lounsbery (1876 – 1964)[1] was an American author, poet and playwright. She also founded a Buddhism society in France.

Grace Constant Lounsbery
Born1876
Died1964
Occupationauthor

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. {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)
  2. Innerly, Ida (January 26, 1906). "Doings of the Smart Set". Lexington Leader. Lexington, Kentucky.
  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. 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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