This book offers a critical appreciation of Marguerite Yourcenar's historical novel Memoires d'Hadrien as an authentic portrait of a Roman emperor.
Marguerite Yourcenar is best known as the author of the 1951 novel Memoires d'Hadrien, her recreation of the life of the Roman emperor Hadrian.
The work can be examined from the perspective of the issues raised by writing Roman imperial biography at large and the many ways in which Memoires has a claim to historical authenticity. In Marguerite Yourcenar's Hadrian, Keith Bradley explains how Memoires d'Hadrien came to be written, gives details on Yourcenar's own biography, and describes some of the intricate historical problems that her novel's portrait of Hadrian presents. He draws on Yourcenar's correspondence, her interviews with journalists, and her literary corpus as a whole, emphasising Yourcenar's profound knowledge of the ancient evidence on which her life of Hadrian is based and exploiting a wide range of contemporary Yourcenarian criticism. The book pays special attention to the methods by which Yourcenar believed Hadrian's life history to be recoverable, compares examples of modern life-writing, and contrasts the procedures of conventional Roman biographers. Revealing how and why Memoires d'Hadrien is as it is, Marguerite Yourcenar's Hadrian illustrates how imaginative literary recreation is often little different from historical speculation.
"Thanks to his intimate knowledge of Yourcenar's entire work, Keith Bradley carries out a fascinating study of the ways in which Marguerite Yourcenar, in Memoirs of Hadrian, succeeded in linking the search for accuracy and poetics by creating a fictional biography that takes us into the thoughts of the emperor, plausibly."--RοΏ½my Poignault, Professor Emeritus of Latin Language, Literature, and Civilization, UniversitοΏ½ Clermont Auvergne
"Keith Bradley's enthralling exploration of MοΏ½moires d'Hadrien examines what a life is, and how to recreate a life authentically and unforgettably. Bradley's deep learning illuminates Yourcenar as a biographer who perfected a poetics of history. The whole is a profound meditation on history, historiography, and poetic interpretation."--Mary T. Boatwright, Professor Emerita of Classical Studies, Duke University
"Marguerite Yourcenar was a Belgian-born historical novelist, the first woman to be elected to join the 'Immortals' of the AcadοΏ½mie FranοΏ½aise, whose 1951 MοΏ½moires d'Hadrien channelled a Spanish-born Roman emperor who fancied himself a Greek philosopher. Confused? Not distinguished Roman historian Keith Bradley, who gives us bountifully two for the price of one: a compelling account of the fictional Hadrian, 'a true biographical character, ' and, interwoven, a thoroughly modern biography of the original emperor himself, both utterly brilliant."--Paul Cartledge, A.G. Leventis Professor Emeritus of Greek Culture, University of Cambridge
"Keith Bradley's characteristic clarity, erudition, and humanity dazzle in a beautifully written labour of love. He explores the delicacy needed in analysing ancient sources, Yourcenar's expertise in the relevant evidence and scholarship, and her poetic reconstruction of the inner life of the man she regarded as a friend."--Susan Treggiari, Professor of Classics Emeritus, University of Oxford
Keith Bradley is the Eli J. and Helen Shaheen Professor of Classics Emeritus at the University of Notre Dame and an adjunct professor in the Department of Greek and Roman Studies at the University of Victoria. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.
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