The dark brain of Piranesi and other essays / Marguerite Yourcenar ; translated by Richard Howard in collaboration with the author.

Main entry:

Yourcenar, Marguerite.

Title & Author:

The dark brain of Piranesi and other essays / Marguerite Yourcenar ; translated by Richard Howard in collaboration with the author.

Publication:

Description:

231 pages ; 22 cm

Notes:
"Humanism and occultism in Thomas Mann translated by Grace Frick in collaboration with the author."
Includes bibliographical references.
Faces of history in the Historia Augusta -- Agrippa d'Aubigné and Les tragiques -- Ah, mon beau château -- The dark brain of Piranesi -- Selma Lagerlöf, epic storyteller -- A critical introduction to Cavafy -- Humanism and occultism in Thomas Mann.
Translation of: Sous bénéfice d'inventaire.

Summary:

Marguerite Yourcenar is known in France as a brilliant essayist as well as a great novelist, but until now her essays have not been widely available to English-language readers. "The Dark Brain of Piranesi" gathers seven of her most important critical essays, essential to the understanding of the searching and remarkably informed spirit of this protean writer. The book begins with an essay on the "Historia Augusta", that chronicles the lives of the Caesars. Next, an essay whose wider subject is human intolerance cruelty in the sixteenth century but whose starting point is the violent Reformation epic "Les Tragiques". Yourcenar's evocation of the unstable life of the the château of Chenonceaux reminds us that we are all playthings of the conjugated powers of politics and money. A masterly account of Piranesi's great series of engraving analyzes the formal motivations of this extraordinary (and imaginary) architecture period. Finally, three great names of modern literature: Selma Lagerlöf, Nobel Prize epic storyteller; the enigmatic Greek poet of Alexandria, Constantin Cavafy; Thomas Mann, and the complex relations of the author to the old and learned traditions of the hermeticists and alchemists. -- From publisher's description.

Resources:
Contributor biographical information
Publisher description
Marguerine Yourcenar is in the Maine Writers Index.

ISBN:

0374177090
9780374177096
0374519196
9780374519193

Subject:

Yourcenar, Marguerite Translations into English
Yourcenar, Marguerite.
French essays 20th century.
CHR 1984
PRO Gotham Book Mart (former owner) (Gotham Book Mart Collection copy)
Essais français 20e siècle.
French essays.

Form/genre:

Translations.

Added entries:

Howard, Richard, 1929-2022, translator.

Holdings:

Location: Library main 63280
Call No.: ID:85-B8211
Status: Available

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