Vernon Lee’s The Ballet of the Nations: A Modern Morality, an Intermedial Mosaic

Abstract

Vernon Lee’s The Ballet of the Nations: A Present-Day Morality (1915) documents the rise of nationalist discourses that led to World War I, as well as Lee’s zealous commitment to the promotion of pacifist values in contradiction to the rhetoric that had been fuelling the hostilities. The letter that she addressed to the secretary of the Women Suffrage Alliance, Rosika Schwimmer, which appeared in the Evening Post on 3 October 1914, is a blatant vindication of her activism. Besides stating the need for women across the world to take sides against the barbarity that was plaguing Europe, Lee offers a passionate summary of her engagement with contemporary politics.