Lorna Sage
Lorna Sage: A Prolific Writer and Critic
Full Name and Common Aliases
Lorna Sage was born on July 22, 1943, in Oswestry, Shropshire, England. She is often referred to by her pen name or as Dr. Lorna Sage.
Birth and Death Dates
July 22, 1943 – May 21, 2001
Nationality and Profession(s)
British writer, academic, literary critic, and novelist. Sage was a prominent figure in British literature, known for her insightful critiques of modernist and postmodernist writers.
Early Life and Background
Lorna Sage grew up in a working-class family in Oswestry, Shropshire. Her father was a laborer, and her mother worked as a waitress. Despite the challenges they faced, Sage's parents encouraged her love for literature from an early age. She developed a passion for reading and writing, which would eventually become the foundation of her career.
Sage attended University College London (UCL), where she studied English Literature. It was during this time that she began to develop her critical thinking skills and explore the world of literary theory. After completing her undergraduate degree, Sage went on to earn a Ph.D. in English Literature from UCL.
Major Accomplishments
Lorna Sage's academic career spanned over three decades, during which she taught at various institutions, including the University of Liverpool and the University of East Anglia. She was known for her incisive critiques of modernist and postmodernist writers, as well as her work on feminist theory.
Sage's writing was characterized by its intellectual rigor, wit, and accessibility. Her non-fiction works include _Women in the House of Fiction_ (1992) and _Bad Blood: A Family Memoir_ (2000), which won the 2001 Whitbread Book Award for Biography. The latter work is a poignant exploration of her family's history and her own relationships.
Notable Works or Actions
Some of Sage's notable works include:
Women in the House of Fiction (1992) - A critical analysis of women writers within the context of literary history.
Bad Blood: A Family Memoir (2000) - A personal and deeply moving account of her family's experiences, which explores themes of love, loss, and identity.
Impact and Legacy
Lorna Sage's contributions to British literature are multifaceted. As a critic, she was known for her ability to distill complex ideas into clear, concise language. Her work on feminist theory helped pave the way for future generations of scholars and writers.
Sage's own writing continues to resonate with readers today. Her exploration of themes such as family, identity, and social class remains relevant in contemporary society. Her legacy extends beyond her written works; she inspired a new generation of writers and critics to explore the intersection of literature and politics.
Why They Are Widely Quoted or Remembered
Lorna Sage's influence on British literature is undeniable. As a critic, writer, and academic, she made significant contributions to our understanding of literary history and theory. Her writing continues to be widely read and studied today, offering insights into the complexities of human experience.
Her legacy serves as a reminder of the power of language to shape our understanding of the world around us. Sage's work remains an essential part of any discussion on British literature, feminist theory, or the intersection of literature and politics. Her impact will continue to be felt for generations to come.
Quotes by Lorna Sage
The children of violently unhappy marriages, like my mother, are often hamstrung for life, but the children of happier marriages have problems too – all the worse, perhaps, because they don’t have virtue on their side.
Rotting together for eternity, one flesh at the last after a lifetime’s mutual loathing.
What made their marriage more than a run-of-the-mill case of domestic estrangement was her refusal to accept her lot. She stayed furious all the days of her life – so sure of her ground, so successfully spoiled, that she was impervious to the social pressures and propaganda that made most women settle down to play the part of wife.
And we clung to each other in a shelter smelling of orange peel and piss on the promenade, and shrieked with glee, like the Bacchae who dismembered Orpheus.
Like all the girls back then I knew that being too clever was much worse than being too tall. Being five foot three, tongue-tied and blonde I mostly passed muster, except that I was so unskilled in small talk that I sometimes blurted big words (hypocrisy, or pretentiousness), which jumped out of my mouth like the toads of the fairy tale before I knew it. In any case, you could cultivate the wrong sort of silence - the sort that implied brooding self-absorption rather than attentiveness.
The boundaries between us had been breached for good, we gave a new meaning t the notion that man and wife were one flesh. You could track back this kind of alchemy in books: '...intimately to mix and melt and to be melted together with his beloved, so that one should be made out of two.' This is Shelley translating Plato, who was putting words into the mouth of Aristophanes, who's the only defender of heterosexual sex in the Symposium, although he makes it sound perverse.
Like many who'd married in the war, my parents were finding it hard to survive the peace. This wasn't because they had discovered that they didn't love each other once their life together wasn't spiced with constant separations and the threat of death. Far from it. But they hadn't chosen each other so much against the social grain that they were tense, self-conscious, embattled, as though something was supposed to go wrong. Their families didn't like their marriage, nor did the village.
I'm not sure what the moral of the bathroom-stool story is. Perhaps this: it's a good idea to settle for a few loose ends, because even if everything in your life is connected to everything else, that way madness lies.
The sinner I was expecting was guilty of pride, lust and spiritual despair, not merely of sloth and ineptitude. This was the diary of a nobody. So I nearly censored January to June 1933 in the interests of Grandpa's glamour as a Gothic personage. But in truth this is what we should be exposed to - the awful knowledge that when they're not breaking the commandments, the anti-heroes are mending their tobacco pipes and listening to the wireless.
Man and wife, realist and dreamer ... n truth they were more than one flesh, they had formed and sustained each other, they had ONE STORY between them and it wasn't at all easy for me or my brother to inhabit it.