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

 

Yourcenar�s second novel, after Alexis ou le trait� 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 Th�r�se d�Olinsauve, who was already married to Emmanuel. When Emmanuel leaves on a business trip, Stanislas and Th�r�se 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; Th�r�se 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).