I'm not sure how one would research the question, even, but it does occur to me that Mary Renault uses "friend" and "lover" almost interchangeably in The Last of the Wine, set in ancient Athens where the characters have no reason to use a euphemism... so perhaps this was a usage she was familiar with, although one that had fallen out of fashion by the time she wrote the book? In The Charioteer, set in the 1940s, the characters only use "friend" to mean "lover" when they're afraid of being overhead, and Laurie never thinks a la Maurice that what he wants is a friend.
The Sayers part of the preface is fascinating. My impression (admittedly I am not deeply versed in Sayers biography) was that Sayers was strictly heterosexual, but then, many biographers struggle to deal with sexual fluidity in their subjects... Anyway, clearly she had witnessed these affairs with enough interest and sympathy to write a poem from the point of view of a participant, whether or not she was ever part of one.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2021-08-09 04:33 pm (UTC)The Sayers part of the preface is fascinating. My impression (admittedly I am not deeply versed in Sayers biography) was that Sayers was strictly heterosexual, but then, many biographers struggle to deal with sexual fluidity in their subjects... Anyway, clearly she had witnessed these affairs with enough interest and sympathy to write a poem from the point of view of a participant, whether or not she was ever part of one.