Twenty-five years after Marguerite Yourcenar's death, an exhibition and a book to the author: a talking narrative about the places and the works that inspired her masterpiece. This critical reading of the novel reproduces Hadrian¿s world and time through the writer's eyes.
The volume endeavors to go beyond the recreation of the range of illustrations suggested – or, at least, approved – by the author when she was alive, which are reproduced here, enriched by captions. As well as the archaeology, it reveals that the writer was inspired not only by ancient documents and testimonials, but also by the dialogue with her contemporaries, especially her translator and friend Lidia Storoni Mazzolani, based on new insights into their correspondence. One part of the work is dedicated to ‘the invention of a life’, and Yourcenar’s ‘passion’ for Italy which emerges from her many travels and her strong links with a few Italian friends, evoked by partly unpublished documents (personal belongings, photographs, letters, etc.). The book also investigates her literary beginnings and her novel’s success, up to the most recent adaptations of the work for the theater, and is enriched by contributions written specially for the book by some of the most authoritative members of the Société International d’Études Yourcenariennes. Twenty-five years after Marguerite Yourcenar’s death, talking narrative about the places and the works that inspired her masterpiece, Memoirs of Hadrian. This critical reading of the novel reproduces Hadrian¿s world and time through the writer’s eyes, without neglecting the repercussions of the events of the 20th century on ideas about ancient Greek and Roman civilization.