Memoirs of Hadrian

Cover of the English language edition.

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, quoting Flaubert, 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 parallels to her own post-war European world.

The English edition was translated by Grace Frick.

Quotations

"Of all our games, love’s play is the only one which threatens to unsettle our soul, and is also the only one in which the player has to abandon himself to the body’s ecstasy. …Nailed to the beloved body like a slave to a cross, I have learned some secrets of life which are now dimmed in my memory by the operation of that same law which ordained that the convalescent, once cured, ceases to understand the mysterious truths laid bare by illness, and that the prisoner, set free, forgets his torture, or the conqueror, his triumph passed, forgets his glory."

"Like everyone else I have at my disposal only three means of evaluating human existence: the study of self, which is the most difficult and most dangerous method, but also the most fruitful; the observation of our fellowmen, who usually arrange to hide secrets where none exist; and books, with the particular errors of perspective to which they inevitably give rise."

Film adaptation

A feature film based on Yourcenar's novel was scheduled for production in 2009.^[1] The movie, with a script by Ron Base, Valerio Manfredi and Rospo Pallenberg, will be directed by John Boorman. Hadrian is expected to be played by Daniel Craig. Paz Vega was also reported to be in talks to appear in the film by Production Weekly on October 21, 2005.^[2]

References

1. ^ Cited at
2. ^ Cited at www.comingsoon.net

External links

• Memoirs of Hadrian at the Internet Movie Database