Sex & The Book / Carnal love and linguistic virtuosity in the verses of the writer George Sand
George Sand, born Amandine Aurore Lucie Dupin, was born in Paris in 1804 and was one of the most significant and prolific authors of French romanticism. Writer, critic, playwright, painter, political activist and feminist, she lived the political and cultural changes of her time with great passion and audacity. She grew up in the countryside, educated by a cultured and aristocratic grandmother, but averse to any kind of social convention, who let her grow up freely wearing men's clothes and reading the Illuminists. When in 1832 he published the novel under the pseudonym of George Sand Indiana, the fame of this mysterious writer began to spread in Paris. Amandine did not want her work to suffer any gender bias and to be considered inferior because it was written by a woman. He soon decided to adopt that name, as well as a male disguise, even in life, so as not to have to suffer any exclusion from the intellectual environment. She thus became close friends with writers such as Flaubert, Dumas father, the Goncourts, Gautier. However, her transvestism had very little to do with an ambiguity of a sexual nature. Although rumors of her alleged lesbianism were rumored, George Sand formed important and passionate relationships with men, and certainly not just any men, but with intellectuals of the caliber of Merimée, Chopin and Alfred de Musset. A famous one is dedicated to the latter Letter, a surprising love poem, reported here in Jacqueline Spaccini's translation, which we recommend that you read very carefully, although at first glance a few words may seem like a mistake:
I am very excited to tell you that I have
understood very well the other night you had
always a mad desire to do a little "
dance. I keep the memory
d "love and I would really like it to be
this is a proof that I can be loved by you
with all the might. I am ready to show you mine
disinterested affection, without calculation but-
ass and if you want to see me too
to reveal my soul to you without any artifice
completely naked, come and visit me.
We will chat frankly, like good friends.
I will prove to you that I am the woman
sincere able to offer you affection
as deep as even the narrowest
friendship, in short, the best proof
that you can dream since yours
soul is free. Do you think that the loneliness that I love
mace is long, very hard and thick
hard. So, reflecting on it, I have the soul
swollen. Hurry up quickly and come to me
to make people forget with that love in which I want myself
Thread all.
Romantic yes, but nothing particularly erotic - you might say. Well, now try to re-read it by skipping the even lines and you will see how the perspective changes! George Sand and the writer Alfred de Musset met in 1833 thanks to some mutual friends. Musset had read the novel Lélia Sand and he had written to her that he loved her. Theirs was a troubled, passionate, tormented story. Although she was still married, they left together for Italy, where George fell ill and, while Alfred spent his nights in the company of prostitutes, the writer formed a relationship with her doctor and decided to stay in Venice with him.
Returning to Paris, however, she resumed her story with Alfred, which lasted until 1835 and which has been handed down to us by an extensive correspondence between the two (from which, among other things, the film was based The children of the century, with Juliette Binoche) and from Sand's autobiographical novel entitled Her and him.
George Sand, in her novels, is very good at dissecting feelings, investigating the depths of the heart and psyche and this is also evident in her beautiful letters to her beloved Alfred. In the case of this poem with a coded message and a light tone, eros is linked to play, to intellectual fun that certainly would not fail to tickle a man's desire. Imagine a writer.
by Giuliana Altamura
Here you can read the previous appointment with the column, Sex & The Book / Eroticism and licentiousness at the Renaissance court of the Queen of Angoulême
© Stuart Oken and Daniel A. Sherkow Photo taken from the film Chopin my love
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