Marguerite yourcenar biography

French novelist and essayist ()

Marguerite Yourcenar (,^[1][2];^[3]French:[maʁɡ(ə)ʁitjuʁsənaʁ]^ⓘ; born Marguerite Antoinette Jeanne Marie Ghislaine Cleenewerck de Crayencour; 8 June – 17 December ) was a Belgian-born French novelist and essayist who became a US citizen in Winner of the Prix Femina and the Erasmus Prize, she was the first woman elected to the Académie Française, in In , she was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature.^[4]

Biography

Yourcenar was born in Brussels, Belgium, as Marguerite Antoinette Jeanne Marie Ghislaine Cleenewerck de Crayencour, to Michel Cleenewerck de Crayencour and Fernande de Cartier de Marchienne. Her father was of French bourgeois descent, originating from French Flanders, and a wealthy landowner.^[5] Her mother, of Belgian nobility, died ten days after Marguerite's birth. She grew up in the home of her paternal grandmother, and adopted the surname Yourcenar as a pen name; in , she also took it as her legal surname.^[6]

Yourcenar's first novel, Alexis, was published in She translated Virginia Woolf's The Waves over a ten-month period in In , her partner at the time,^[7] the literary scholar and Kansas City native Grace Frick, invited Yourcenar to the United States to escape the outbreak of World War II in Europe. She lectured in comparative literature in New York City and Sarah Lawrence College.^[8]

Yourcenar and Frick became lovers in and remained together until Frick's death in After ten years spent in Hartford, Connecticut, they bought a house in Northeast Harbor, Maine, on Mount Desert Island, where they lived for decades.^[7] They are buried next to each other at Brookside Cemetery, Somesville, Mount Desert, Maine.^[9] Yourcenar's last companion was Jerry Wilson, with whom she had a tormented relationship; he died of AIDS in

In , Yourcenar published, in France, the novel Memoirs of Hadrian, which she had been writing on and off for a decade. The novel was an immediate success and met with critical acclaim. In this novel, Yourcenar recreated the life and death of one of the great rulers of the ancient world, the Roman emperor Hadrian, who writes a long letter to Marcus Aurelius, the son and heir of Antoninus Pius, his successor and adoptive son. Hadrian meditates on his past, describing both his triumphs and his failures, his love for Antinous, and his philosophy. The novel has become a modern classic. The English version was translated by Frick.

In , Yourcenar became the first female member elected to the Académie française. An anecdote tells of how the bathroom labels were then changed in this male-dominated institution: "Messieurs|Marguerite Yourcenar" (Gents/Marguerite Yourcenar). She published many novels, essays, and poems, as well as a trilogy of memoirs. At the time of her death, she was working on the third volume, titled Quoi? L'Eternité.^[10]

Yourcenar's house on Mount Desert Island, Petite Plaisance, is now a museum dedicated to her memory. She is buried across the sound in Somesville.

Legacy and honours

Bibliography

Correspondence

• Lettres à ses amis et quelques autres, Édition de Joseph Brami et de Michèle Sarde avec la collaboration d’Élyane Dezon-Jones, Paris, Gallimard, , p. ISBN
• D’Hadrien à Zénon, Correspondance &#;de Marguerite Yourcenar. Texte établi et annoté par Colette Gaudin et Rémy Poignault avec la collaboration de Joseph Brami et Maurice Delcroix&#;; édition coordonnée par Élyane Dezon-Jones et Michèle Sarde&#;; préface de Josyane Savigneau, Paris, Gallimard, , p., ISBN X.
• «&#;Une volonté sans fléchissement&#;». Correspondance , texte établi, annoté et préfacé par Joseph Brami, Maurice Delcroix, édition coordonnée par Colette Gaudin et Rémy Poignault avec la collaboration de Michèle Sarde, Paris, Gallimard, , p.
• Marguerite Yourcenar, Silvia Baron Supervielle, Une reconstitution passionnelle. Correspondance , édition établie, annotée et commentée par Achmy Halley, Avant-propos de Silvia Baron Supervielle, Paris, Gallimard, , 99 p.
• «&#;Persévérer dans l’être&#;». Correspondance &#;(D’Hadrien à Zénon, III), texte établi et annoté par Joseph Brami et Rémy Poignault, avec la collaboration de Maurice Delcroix, Colette Gaudin et Michèle Sarde, préface de Joseph Brami et Michèle Sarde, Paris, Gallimard, , p.
• «&#;En , L’Amérique commence à Bordeaux&#;». Lettres à Emmanuel Boudot-Lamotte (), édition établie, présentée et annotée par Élyane DEZON-JONES et Michèle SARDE, Paris, Gallimard, , p.
• «&#;Le pendant des Mémoires d’Hadrien et leur entier contraire&#;». Correspondance , édition de Bruno Blanckeman et Rémy Poignault, avec préface d’Élyane Dezon-Jones et Michèle Sarde, Paris, Gallimard, coll. “Blanche”, , p.
• «Zénon, sombre Zénon». Correspondance , texte établi et annoté par Joseph Brami et Rémy Poignault, avec la collaboration de Bruno Blanckeman et Colette Gaudin, Paris, Gallimard, coll. “Blanche”, , p.

Other works available in English translation

• A Blue Tale and Other Stories; ISBN&#; Three stories written between and , translated and published in
• With Open Eyes: Conversations with Matthieu Galey

References

Sources

• Joan E. Howard, From Violence to Vision: Sacrifice in the Works of Marguerite Yourcenar ()
• Josyane Savigneau, Marguerite Yourcenar: Inventing a Life ().
• George Rousseau, Marguerite Yourcenar: A Biography (London: Haus Publishing, ).
• Judith Holland Sarnecki, Subversive Subjects: Reading Marguerite Yourcenar ()
• Giorgetto Giorgi, "Il Grand Tour e la scoperta dell’antico nel Labyrinthe du monde di Marguerite Yourcenar," in Sergio Audano, Giovanni Cipriani (ed.), Aspetti della Fortuna dell'Antico nella Cultura Europea: atti della settima giornata di studi, Sestri Levante, 19 March (Foggia: Edizioni il Castello, ) (Echo, 1), 99–
• Les yeux ouverts, entretiens avec Mathieu Galey (Éditions du Centurion «&#;Les interviews&#;», ).
• Bérengère Deprez, Marguerite Yourcenar et les États-Unis. Du nageur à la vague, Éditions Racine, , p.
• Bérengère Deprez, Marguerite Yourcenar and the United States. From Prophecy to Protest, Peter Lang, coll. «&#;Yourcenar&#;», , p.
• Deprez, Marguerite Yourcenar. Écriture, maternité, démiurgie, essai, Bruxelles, Archives et musée de la littérature/PIE-Peter Lang, coll. «&#;Documents pour l’histoire des francophonies&#;», , p.
• Donata Spadaro, Marguerite Yourcenar et l'écriture autobiographique&#;: Le Labyrinthe du monde, bull. SIEY, no 17, décembre , p.&#;69 à 83
• Donata Spadaro, Marguerite Yourcenar e l'autobiografia (ADP, )
• Mireille Brémond, Marguerite Yourcenar, une femme à l'Académie (Garnier, );.
• Rémy Poignault, L'Antiquité dans l'œuvre de Marguerite Yourcenar. Littérature, mythe et histoire, Bruxelles, coll. Latomus,

External links

• Marguerite Yourcenar, alchimie du paysage, a documentary film by Jacques Loeuille, France Télévisions
• Works by Marguerite Yourcenar at Open Library
• Petri Liukkonen. "Marguerite Yourcenar". Books and Writers.
• Stockinger, Jacob (3 March ) []. "Yourcenar, Marguerite (–)". In Summers, Claude J. (ed.). glbtq: An encyclopedia of gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and queer culture. Chicago: glbtq, Inc. Archived from the original on 16 January
• Marguerite Yourcenar et Suzanne Lilar&#;: plus qu’une rencontre, une complicité by Michèle Goslar
• English translations of Marguerite Yourcenar by Walter Jacob Kaiser, Catalogue of correspondence and manuscripts concerning Walter Kaiser's English translation of works by French writer Marguerite Yourcenar, Houghton Library, Harvard University
• Société Internationale d'Études Yourcenariennes (SIEY)