The Anti-Romantic Comedies of Dorothy L. Sayers

Abstract

"[W]hat on earth do women want?" Dorothy L. Sayers imagines men asking in her 1938 essay "Are Women Human?" Her answer is unequivocal: “I do not know that women, as women, want anything in particular, but as human beings they want, my good men, exactly what you want yourselves: interesting occupation, reasonable freedom for their pleasures, and a sufficient emotional outlet". Many of Sayers's readers may suspect her of having created detective novelist Harriet Vane to embody her dream of a life that features satisfying work, creature comforts, and a passionate marriage. As the love interest Sayers developed for detective Lord Peter Wimsey, Harriet Vane illustrates the possibility of an intelligent woman's finding happiness in both her work and her marriage to a wealthy and interesting man. As Harriet develops from the damsel in distress in the novel Strong Poison (1930) into a successful writer and amateur sleuth in Have His Carcase (1932) and proves capable of serious scholarship in Gaudy Night (1935), her relationship with Lord Peter resembles the standard romance plot Janice Radway develops in Reading the Romance: Women, Patriarchy, and Popular Literature. Although the Vane-Wimsey romance depicted in the novels follows the romance trajectory Radway traces, Sayers veers from that path in Busman's Honeymoon (1937), her play about the first stage of the couple's marriage. This essay examines Sayers's use of that play and her next, Love All, to question the literary and cultural convention of romantic love. As she transplants Lord Peter and Harriet Vane from the page to the stage in Busman's Honeymoon, Sayers sows the seeds of anti-romanticism that bloom in Love All (1940). Moving away from the conventional courtship plot of the first three Vane-Wimsey novels, Sayers uses her early plays to assert the value of meaningful work, mutual respect, and loving service beyond the realm of romance.