Book – Henriette Levillain commente Mémoires D'Hadrien

Book – Henriette Levillain commente Mémoires D'Hadrien de Marguerite Yourcenar 
Author : Henriette Levillain

Score:  7/10

Year:  1992

Publisher: Gallimard

ISBN 978-2-07-038497-7

Pages 252 (but starts at 11) 

Language: French (I found no translation of this one). 

This is already the 14th book I finish since January, despite some rather long or heavy ones earlier this year. 

The title announces here that Henriette Levillain comments on Yourcenar's book, which had been initially published in 1951. Just like it, this one is divided into 2 parts, but remains fully nonfictional.

The first part is an Essay, comprised of 7 chapters, and the second part is a dossier, comprised of 9 chapters. 

When I started reading it, it felt only an extension of Yourcenar's own carnet de notes, which she had included in her 1953 and subsequent editions, as it continued explaining how to read her historic fiction, and how she came to write it. 

However, as I continuted, I saw that Henriette Levillain adds further details to these background information, in much longer format, and some of it was totally new to me. For instance, Yourecenar is a pen-name for Marguerite De Crayencour, born in 1903, and she had bourgeois origins. I learned a few more details about her life in the Dossier's first chapter. 

I knew, however, that she had been the first woman to be elected to the Académie Française - in 1980. To keep details short, it was her father who instilled her curiosity for the greco-roman cultures and her visit, at the age of 20, at the Villa Adriana which inspired the entire project of writing about emperor Hadrien. 

The essay continues analyzing this book's literary genre, defining how it can be called a historic fiction, as well as what makes it different from such a specific label. 
Levillain's analysis of specific words and phrasing adds some layers which I'd missed, despite my rather well-developed lit'eye. She describes the voice, wording, self-deception which Yourcenar gave to the emperor, as well as his truer acts of love, of military accomplishments but also of reforms towards peace, and his known passion for the Greek culture. 

For all her analysis, Henriette Levillain uses known references pertaining to Yourcenar's own comments and writings about the subjects, expanding with other references, all marked in page's margins where applicable. 

In the Dossier, not only does Henriette Levillain give a quick mini-bio for Yourcenar's life, but also the known historic or supposed historic events of the emperor and how Yourcenar had used to weave around them her novel. After describing also some of her (Y's) other writings, Levillain explains more about Y's sources for the memoirs, both direct and indirect. 

The last 2 chapters of the dossier discuss the critic's reception of the book, and then a selective bibliography. 

The dossier includes, in pages 190-195, a very quick summary of the events depicted in Yourcenar's book, adding French translations to each of the original chapters, which were, I remind you, all chosen in Latin. 

Thus (I add the English here) 

Animula Vagular Blandula (petite âme vagabone et câline = small vagabond and cuddly soul)
Tellus Stabilata (la terre retrouve son équilibre= the earth finds its equilibrium ; or regional stability) 
Saeculum Aureum (Siècle d'Or =Golden Century, or rather Golden Age)  
Disciplina Augusta (Discipline Auguste=Auguste Discipline) 
Patientia (this one isn't translated but means, evidently, patience).

This portion of the dossier includes a map of the Roman Empire during that period. 

I didn't find this book to bring a whole lot of new information - just some, here and there. Its page format, leaving a margin for additional notes makes it interesting and fast to read, which is a good  bonus. 

A bit dry a moments, it remains more or less pleasant and informative, hence my overall 7/10 score.