Marguerite Yourcenar (1903 - 1987 ), La Nouvelle Eurydice, 1931 novel.

 

Yourcenar’s second novel, after Alexis ou le traité du vain combat and considered by Yourcenar herself an inferior production, was written during the young married author’s sojourn on an Aegean island.

Stanislas narrates in first-person his love affair with Thérèse d’Olinsauve, who was already married to Emmanuel. When Emmanuel leaves on a business trip, Stanislas and Thérèse experience love that passes from Platonic admiration to “unwanted intimacy” (P.L. Horn, p. 12). Stanislas is also homoerotically attracted to Emmanuel, which results in a tense love triangle. Emmanuel commits suicide; Thérèse dies of pneumonia; Stanislas goes looking for her grave, “like a modern Orpheus” (Horn, p. 12).

 

“What makes this work so fascinating is not so much the further development of the theme of destruction of the loved one (as in Alexis) or a more complex analysis of homosexual love, but the multiple mystery present in the various relationships.” (Horn, 12)

 

 

Pierre L. Horn, Marguerite Yourcenar, TWAS (Boston: Twayne, 1985).