Constructing Women's Love of Women: Sappho and Queen Christina of Sweden in the Letters and Work of the Viennese Poet Marie von Najmájer

Author: Woodford, Charlotte¹

Source: The Modern Language Review, Volume 103, Number 3, 1 July 2008 , pp. 784-799(16)

Publisher: Modern Humanities Research Association

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Abstract:

This article analyses how the Hungarian-Viennese poet Marie von Najmájer (1844-1904) constructs her sexual identity in letters and poetry of the 1870s. Her correspondence with Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach (1830-1916) is a rare private commentary on sexual identity from a woman in this period. Najmájer's poems explore a homosexual identity through historical models, using Sappho and Queen Christina of Sweden, who is the subject of Najmájer's narrative poem Gräfin Ebba (1877). At this important moment in the construction of homosexuality in medical discourse, Najmájer's and Ebner's writings draw on some of the available scientific paradigms for their understanding of sexual identity.

Keywords: Marie von Najmájer; sexual identity; Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach; Sappho; Queen Christina of Sweden; homosexuality; medical discourse

Document Type: Research article

Affiliations: 1: Selwyn College, Cambridge

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