WILD OLIVE
THE LIFE & WORK OF OLIVE CUSTANCE

   
    Poet.  Lesbian.  Feminist.  Noblewoman.  Wife.  Mother.  There is no doubt that Olive Custance was a fascinating, contradictory, and thoroughly modern woman.  Yet her intriguing life and absorbing poems have been all but lost to history.  Besides her slim editions of poetry, there is just one book in existence dedicated entirely to her:  a  volume by Father Brocard Sewell, part of an Eighteen Nineties Society series, which runs a scant 37 pages in length.  Any other information has to be gathered from publications about her friends, lovers, and acquaintances whose fame has better stood the test of time.  Beyond these tenuously connected sources, Olive Custance's contributions to history and literature have been relegated to the status of anthologized marginalia.

    This website is intended to be an initial step towards a correction of this unfortunate oversight.  I have created the site as a part of a project for a class (the Distinction in English Seminar at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, taught by Dr. Mike Sell, which focuses on literature and avant-garde social transformation), but my personal interest in Olive Custance goes far deeper.  I myself discovered Olive through an anthology, and the small taste of her I received there was enough to inspire me to attempt to make sure that she did not stay confined to those pages. 

    Since I have long been interested in Oscar Wilde and the people surrounding him, I was amazed that I had failed to previously learn about Olive (who was the wife of Wilde's infamous lover, Lord Alfred Douglas), especially since her life was so fraught with drama and intrigue.  I was particularly struck by the thought that there was wonderful potential for a play in her life story; as an aspiring playwright, that is a project that I hope to take on later.  I am primarily a student of dramaturgy, so I am deeply interested in the historical aspect of any playscript.  As a result, I am thinking of this project as sort of reverse-dramaturgy:  I am doing the research and analysis to create a dramaturgical guide, and then writing the play.  Somewhat unconventional, I know, but when you are dealing with a woman like Olive Custance, following convention seems like it should be of little concern.

    Even a limited image of Olive's life can only come together like a jigsaw puzzle, however, and ultimately it still only gives an incomplete picture.  This may not entirely be a disadvantage in the quest to understand Olive, though.  True to the spirit of the Aesthetic age she was a part of, Olive Custance can be said to have lived her life in pieces.  Her life was a part of her art, and her personality was an assemblage of various personas which she created in her poetry and her personal relationships.  She performed these "characters" in her everyday life, always keeping those around her guessing.  Years later, we are still guessing, and Olive's importance as a poet and a figure of her time has yet to be assessed.  Olive seemed to purposefully cloak herself in mystery, and the relative blank that history has drawn of her life has simply helped her along that path.  I think that the time has come, though, to give Olive Custance another look. 

    An understanding of Olive cannot be arrived at through an attempt to "cut through" the performance to arrive at the "real" woman, however.  Olive's personas are too much a part of her to be separated, and they are certainly the key to an analysis of her status as a symbol of her era.  Each section of this site analyzes a particular persona and examines the related problems that emerge when attempting to construct an accurate representation of Olive. 

   The section simply labeled Olive Custance contains a brief biography and contextual timeline of Olive's life which I have compiled from the scarce available sources.  This epitomizes the dry, bare-bones account of Olive which has been left to us by history; she is most often present as a veritable footnote in the lives of others.  Before we can begin an examination of Olive's performativity, this representational challenge of discerning the radical woman from the conservative texts must first be overcome. 

    The other three main sections of the site are dedicated to the analysis of what I have identified as the three principle personas which Olive played in her daily life: Opal, The Little Page, and Lady Alfred Douglas.  Opal is Olive's literary persona, through which we can begin to understand how her art related to her life within the context of the Aesthetic Movement.  The Little Page represents the aspect of Olive's personality which she showed in her private relationship with her husband - also, ironically, her most sexually subversive side.  Lady Alfred Douglas is her most public persona, and it allows an examination of how Olive fit into (or, as the case may be, stood out from) her time and its repressive politics. 

    Though these personas are distinct and should be viewed as separate components of a less-than-cohesive whole, there are a few thematic throughlines that I have identified as an important part of Olive and her place in history and literature:  connection to the Aesthetic Movement, nonnormative sexuality, and the practice of performative gender subversion.  These items will be examined at further length as each of Olive's personas is encountered in depth.

    Nearly all of Olive's poetry is out of print, and so I have taken the liberty of reproducing some of it in part or in full as part of my analysis of her life and work.  If there are problems with this or any other copyrighted material contained on this site, do not hesitate to contact me, and I will remove it at once.  Please keep in mind, though, that this is a project for a college course, and therefore is intended for educational purposes only.  Any feedback on the site or questions regarding Olive Custance can also be sent to me via e-mail.