glish Literature at Rome University. The marriage was an initiator of Russian symbolism, one of the larg-ended with his death in 1969. Since her first child-est and most influential literary movements in Russia hood poems, through years of personal tragedy and this century. Gippius was not only a leading and well-political upheaval, Natalia Ginzburg has continued to regarded writer but also wielded considerable insti-write. She is now living in Rome. tutional power in the avant garde literary establish-ment of St. Petersburg from the 1890s until her emigration in 1915. With her husband, the writer : which she attracted confirm this impression: she was known as "Messalina" and "the white she-devil," and Trotsky wrote of her, "I do not believe in witches in a.k.a. Hippius general, not counting the above-mentioned Zinaida Bom November 20, 1869, Belev, Tula District, Russia

doi:10.4324/9781315050898-86

Chapter

glish Literature at Rome University. The marriage was an initiator of Russian symbolism, one of the larg-ended with his death in 1969. Since her first child-est and most influential literary movements in Russia hood poems, through years of personal tragedy and this century. Gippius was not only a leading and well-political upheaval, Natalia Ginzburg has continued to regarded writer but also wielded considerable insti-write. She is now living in Rome. tutional power in the avant garde literary establish-ment of St. Petersburg from the 1890s until her emigration in 1915. With her husband, the writer

Chapter

glish Literature at Rome University. The marriage was an initiator of Russian symbolism, one of the larg-ended with his death in 1969. Since her first child-est and most influential literary movements in Russia hood poems, through years of personal tragedy and this century. Gippius was not only a leading and well-political upheaval, Natalia Ginzburg has continued to regarded writer but also wielded considerable insti-write. She is now living in Rome. tutional power in the avant garde literary establish-ment of St. Petersburg from the 1890s until her emigration in 1915. With her husband, the writer

ABSTRACT

On the other hand, the complications of Gippius's personality were great, and it is unwise to claim that her ideas can easily be appropriated by modern feminism. She was capable of writing very dismissively of "female psychology," describing it as unstable and unreliable. She reacted to other women with suspicion; she was, for example, violently jealous of Marina Tsvetaeva, and seemed happiest in a dominating, patronizing role with a younger woman, such as Bérbero va. Her attitude to lesbianism was likewise contradictory: her views on sexual freedom had been initiated by an erotic interest in male homosexuality. She regarded actual sexual contact as secondary to spiritual communication, writing to Filosofov "It was all in God, from God, through Him. A moment of religious feeling (not only for you but for God and for nature) touched my spirit and my soul and my flesh" Her relations with women seem also to have been emotional or sentimental rather than sexual. All in all, she was an advanced case of the so-called Queen Bee complex; that is, a woman who regards freedom as uniquely her prerogative.