Mémoires d'Hadrien

Memoirs of Hadrian

Cover of the English Language Edition (2005)
Author	Marguerite Yourcenar
Country	France
Language	French
Genre	Historical novel, Philosophical novel
Publisher	Librairie Plon, France
Publication date	1951
Media type	Print (hardback & paperback)
Pages	347 pp (2005 paperback)

Memoirs of Hadrian (French: Mémoires d'Hadrien) is a novel by the Belgian-born French writer Marguerite Yourcenar about the life and death of Roman Emperor Hadrian. First published in France in French in 1951 as Mémoires d'Hadrien, the book was an immediate success, meeting with enormous critical acclaim. Although the historical Hadrian wrote an autobiography, 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 similar to Gustave Flaubert's "melancholy of the antique world."

Yourcenar noted in her 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.

Yourcenar first thought of the idea for the book between 1924 and 1929. She then worked on various drafts intermittently between 1934 and 1937. The notion of writing the book from the point of view of a dying Hadrian occurred to her after reading a sentence in a draft from 1937 stating: “I begin to discern the profile of my death.”

She did not resume work on the book in earnest until December 1948. She states that while she based her account of Hadrian on the two most principal sources, Historia Augusta and Cassius Dio's Historia Romana, her goal was to reinterpret the past but also strive for historical authenticity.

The novel is told in the first person by Hadrian and is framed as a letter to Marcus Aurelius in the first chapter, Animula Vagula Blandula. The other chapters form a loose chronological narrative which he often breaks with various insights and recollections. The story begins with Hadrian, who is around sixty years of age, describing his incurable illness. He therefore wishes to recount important events in his life before his death.

His earliest memories are his boyhood years in Italica. He also talks of his early interest in astrology and his lifelong passion for the arts, culture, and philosophy of Greece; themes which he revisits throughout the book. He visits Athens to study, travels to Rome for the first time, and witnesses the accession of Trajan. He eventually joins the army and participates in the Dacian campaign. Hadrian, who is around thirty years old at the end of the war, describes his successes in the army and his relationship with Trajan who is initially cold towards him. He slowly gains Trajan's favor and secures his position for the throne with the help of Plotina, the emperor's wife, and also by marrying Sabina, Trajan's grandniece.