Memoirs of Hadrian (French: Mémoires d'Hadrien) is a novel by the French writer Marguerite Yourcenar about the life and death of Roman Emperor Hadrian. The book was first published in France in French in 1951 as Mémoires d'Hadrien, and was an immediate success, meeting with enormous critical acclaim. The historical Hadrian did write an autobiography, but it has been lost.
The book takes the form of a letter to Hadrian's cousin and eventual succes...
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Memoirs of Hadrian (French: Mémoires d'Hadrien) is a novel by the French writer Marguerite Yourcenar about the life and death of Roman Emperor Hadrian. The book was first published in France in French in 1951 as Mémoires d'Hadrien, and was an immediate success, meeting with enormous critical acclaim. The historical Hadrian did write an autobiography, but it has been lost.
The book takes the form of a letter to Hadrian's cousin and eventual successor "Mark" (Marcus Aurelius). The emperor meditates on military triumphs, love of poetry and music, philosophy, and his passion for his lover Antinous, all in a manner not inconsistent with Gustave Flaubert's "melancholy of the antique world."
Yourcenar noted in her own postscript "Carnet de note" to the original edition that she had chosen Hadrian as the subject of the novel in part because he had lived at a time when the Roman gods were no longer believed in, but Christianity was not yet established. This intrigued her for what she saw as...
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