Marguerite Yourcenar

Marguerite Yourcenar

Marguerite Yourcenar (born Marguerite Antoinette Jeanne Marie Ghislaine Cleenewerck de Crayencour; 8 June 1903 – 17 December 1987) was a Belgian-born French novelist and essayist, who became a US citizen in 1947. Winner of the Prix Femina and the Erasmus Prize, she was the first woman elected to the Académie Française, in 1980. Yourcenar was born Marguerite Antoinette Jeanne Marie Ghislaine Cleenewerck de Crayencour in Brussels, Belgium, to Michel Cleenewerck de Crayencour, of French bourgeois descent, originating from French Flanders, a very wealthy landowner, and a Belgian mother, Fernande de Cartier de Marchienne, of Belgian nobility, who died ten days after her birth. She grew up in the home of her paternal grandmother. She adopted the surname Yourcenar – an almost anagram of Crayencour, having one fewer c – as a pen name; in 1947 she also took it as her legal surname. Yourcenar's first novel, Alexis, was published in 1929. She translated Virginia Woolf's The Waves over a 10-month period in 1937. In 1939, her partner at the time, 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. Yourcenar was a lesbian; she and Frick became lovers in 1937 and remained together until Frick's death in 1979 and a tormented relationship with Jerry Wilson. After ten years spent in Hartford, Connecticut, they bought a house in Northeast Harbor, Maine, on Mount Desert Island, where they lived for decades. They are buried alongside each other at Brookside Cemetery, Somesville, Mount Desert, Maine. In 1951, she 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 great 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. The Emperor 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. In 1980, Yourcenar was 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, called Quoi? L'Eternité. 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, Maine. Source: Article "Marguerite Yourcenar" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0.

  • Popularity : 0.638
  • Known For : Writing
  • Birthday : 1903-06-08
  • Place of Birth : Brussels, Belgium
img

Marguerite Yourcenar Movies

  • 2023
    imgMovies

    Little Girl Blue

    Little Girl Blue

    6.171 2023 HD

    In 2016, French writer and photographer Carole Achache took her own life. After Carole's death, her daughter Mona Achache, a film director, discovers...

    img
  • 2015
    imgMovies

    Les vendredis d'Apostrophes

    Les vendredis d'Apostrophes

    6 2015 HD

    40 years of "Apostrophes". Hours and historical meetings, Pierre Assouline has composed an anthology of the best extracts presented in the form of a...

    img
  • 2019
    imgMovies

    Zénon the Rebel

    Zénon the Rebel

    1 2019 HD

    Zénon is the hero of “The Abyss”, the famous novel by Marguerite Yourcenar published in 1968. He is also the main character in...

    img
  • 1988
    imgMovies

    The Abyss

    The Abyss

    5.4 1988 HD

    img
  • 1987
    imgMovies

    How Wang-Fo Was Saved

    How Wang-Fo Was Saved

    7 1987 HD

    img
  • 1976
    imgMovies

    Coup de Grâce

    Coup de Grâce

    6.4 1976 HD

    img
  • 1973
    imgMovies

    Le dialogue dans le marécage

    Le dialogue dans le marécage

    1 1973 HD

    img
  • 1975
    imgS16 E25

    Apostrophes

    Apostrophes

    8.5 1975 HD

    Apostrophes was a live, weekly, literary, prime-time, talk show on French television created and hosted by Bernard Pivot. It ran for fifteen years...

    img
  • 1970
    imgS1 E39

    Apostrophes

    Apostrophes

    7 1970 HD

    Animation TV magazine.

    img