So. There. A fan page for George Sand's birthday.

One of these days I'd like to write up a profile/essay on George Sand, as she's one of my favorite dead author patron saints and I think she's been highly misunderstood in general. (Not that my skewed take on her would make her any more understood, really, but still .....)

She certainly is often represented haphazardly in literary history. Part of that is simply because she was a she. Because of that, she was often criticized by the mostly male-dominated literary world well into the 20th Century, and in the latter half of the 20th Century, she was seized upon by staunch feminist factions simply because she was woman, hear her roar. Neither, in my humble opinion, usually did her justice.

If you are familiar with George Sand, her works, and/or legend, you might well think it odd I speak so highly of her when it's rather obvious I have an affinity for the Symbolist and Decadent poets. And the Symbolist/Decadent poets pretty much despised her. Baudelaire especially despised her and even called her a cow in print. But ya know. I don't think Baudelaire had much use for women other than grisettes, his mom, and that idealized abstraction of Woman so many of the Symbolists/Decadents were all hot for (and probably would have assassinated outright had She materialized).

George — earthy, trenchant, impassioned, and iconoclastic — didn't stand a chance of being even minutely understood by the likes of Baudelaire. Besides, she was categorized as a Romantic (although I'd quibble with that on some of her works). And Baudelaire, at the height of his own heyday, essentially had declared war on Romanticism.

Still. I find the vitriol Baudelaire and some of his contemporaries used against her very fascinating. Tells more about them than George, like most vitriol does.

So, yes. One of these days, I might give you a good rant on my perspective on George. Adorned with some of the gossipy juicy tidbits I've been collecting through the years on what people have said about her. Everyone, it seems, had an opinion on George. Some good, some bad.

But in the meantime, until I'm ready to do up a little fan page for her, I thought this literal fan page was worth putting up, as it's a kicky piece of George Sand art to share.

Happy Birthday, George.