Ive been trying to figure out what the fuss has been about Marguerite Yourcenar. A week ago I read her first published novel, ALEXEI, stifling a yawn. But MEMOIRS OF HADRIAN, written several decades later, is exotic and accomplished. From a section on what the narrator studied and read and how it affected him (history, rhetoric, grammar, and poetry): The reading of the poets had still more overpowering effects; I am not sure that the discovery of love is necessarily more exquisite than the discovery of poetry. Poetry transformed me: initiation into death itself will not carry me farther along into another world than does a dusk of Virgil. (tr. from the French by Grace Frick in collaboration with the author)
Posted on: Thu, 01 May 2014 15:18:18 +0000
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