![]() If the reader expects action and description comparable to what one gets from Robert Graves and his Claudius, or from Allen Massie and the first Roman emperors, he is likely to be disappointed. the most profound influence on his middle years, could not be explored in any depth, that section of the narrative suffers to a degree. For example,since Hadrian's homosexual love for Antinous. The distillation of the life and thoughts of Hadrian that results is satisfying in terms of the brilliance and depth of its insights into the nature of power, government, religion, and philosophy, but somewhat sterile in its description of personal relationships, places,and people, partly due to the limited nature of how explicit an author of the 1950's could be. As a result, this memoir in the form of a letter from the Emperor Hadrian to the future Emperor Marcus Aurelius transmits the thoughts of Hadrian through the filter of a brilliant female author who began the work while a refugee in America from WW II. The reader should be aware that this book is a recent edition of a translation of a French novel that was originally published in 1951 after at least a decade of research. She is that most extraordinary thing: a sensual thinker' Independent on Sunday She can make us share passion - for beauty, bodies, ideas, even power - and consider it closely at the same time. ![]() every page is informed by her profound scholarship' Paul Bailey, author of Gabriel's Lament 'Yourcenar conjures worlds. If you enjoyed Memoirs of Hadrian, you might like Robert Graves's I, Claudius, also available in Penguin Modern Classics. When Mémoires d'Hadrien was first published in 1951, it was an immediate success and met with great critical acclaim. Her first novel Alexis was published in 1929 in 1939 she was invited to America by her lover Grace Frick, where she lectured in comparative literature at Sarah Lawrence College in New York. Marguerite de Crayencour (1903-88), who went by the inexact anagrammatic pen name 'Marguarite Yourcenar', was a Belgian-born French novelist and essayist, the first woman to be elected to the Académie française. A work of superbly detailed research and sustained empathy, Memoirs of Hadrian captures the living spirit of the Emperor and of Ancient Rome. The Emperor meditates on his past, describing his accession, military triumphs, love of poetry and music, and the philosophy that informed his powerful and far-flung rule. The Emperor Hadrian, aware his demise is imminent, writes a long valedictory letter to Marcus Aurelius, his future successor. In her magnificent novel, Marguerite Yourcenor recreates the life and death of one of the great rulers of the ancient world. To learn more about how and for what purposes Amazon uses personal information (such as Amazon Store order history), please visit our Privacy Notice.įramed as a letter from the Roman Emperor Hadrian to his successor, Marcus Aurelius, Marguerite Yourcenar's Memoirs of Hadrian is translated from the French by Grace Frick with an introduction by Paul Bailey in Penguin Modern Classics. You can change your choices at any time by visiting Cookie Preferences, as described in the Cookie Notice. Click ‘Customise Cookies’ to decline these cookies, make more detailed choices, or learn more. Third parties use cookies for their purposes of displaying and measuring personalised ads, generating audience insights, and developing and improving products. ![]() This includes using first- and third-party cookies, which store or access standard device information such as a unique identifier. If you agree, we’ll also use cookies to complement your shopping experience across the Amazon stores as described in our Cookie Notice. We also use these cookies to understand how customers use our services (for example, by measuring site visits) so we can make improvements. We use cookies and similar tools that are necessary to enable you to make purchases, to enhance your shopping experiences and to provide our services, as detailed in our Cookie Notice.
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