Editing Marguerite Yourcenar (section)

==Biography==
Yourcenar was born in [[Brussels, Belgium|Brussels]], Belgium, as '''Marguerite Antoinette Jeanne Marie Ghislaine Cleenewerck de Crayencour,''' to Michel Cleenewerck de Crayencour and Fernande de Cartier de Marchienne. Her father was of [[Bourgeoisie#Haute Bourgeoisie|French bourgeois]] descent, originating from [[French Flanders]], and a wealthy landowner.<ref name="CIDMY">{{cite web |last1=CIDMY |title=Proches |url=https://www.cidmy.be/index.php/ecrivain/proches |access-date=11 November 2019 |website=Centre International de Documentation Marguerite Yourcenar}}</ref> Her mother, of Belgian nobility, died ten days after Marguerite's birth. She grew up in the home of her paternal grandmother, and adopted the surname Yourcenar as a [[pen name]]; in 1947, she also took it as her legal surname.<ref>{{cite book |title=European Writers: Twentieth Century |author=George Stade |page=[https://archive.org/details/europeanwritersv00geor/page/2536 2536] |publisher=Scribner |year=1990 |isbn=978-0-684-19158-4 |url=https://archive.org/details/europeanwritersv00geor/page/2536 }}</ref>

Yourcenar's first novel, ''Alexis'', was published in 1929. She translated [[Virginia Woolf]]'s ''[[The Waves]]'' over a ten-month period in 1937.
In 1939, her partner at the time,<ref name="acocella">{{cite magazine|author=Joan Acocella|title=Becoming the Emperor|url=https://www.newyorker.com/archive/2005/02/14/050214crbo_books?currentPage=6|magazine=The New Yorker|date=14 February 2005|access-date=8 January 2009}}</ref> the literary scholar and [[Kansas City]] native [[Grace Frick]], invited Yourcenar to the United States to escape the outbreak of [[World War II]] in Europe. She lectured in comparative literature in New York City and [[Sarah Lawrence College]].<ref>{{cite journal|url=http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/2538/the-art-of-fiction-no-103-marguerite-yourcenar|journal=The Paris Review|title=Marguerite Yourcenar, The Art of Fiction No. 103| author=Shusha Guppy|date=Spring 1988|volume=Spring 1988 |issue=106 }}, accessed 17 February 2011</ref>

Yourcenar and Frick became lovers in 1937 and remained together until Frick's death in 1979. After ten years spent in [[Hartford, Connecticut]], they bought a house in [[Northeast Harbor, Maine]], on [[Mount Desert Island]], where they lived for decades.<ref name="acocella" /> They are buried next to each other at Brookside Cemetery, [[Somesville, Maine|Somesville]], [[Mount Desert, Maine]].<ref name=andrej>{{cite web|url=http://andrejkoymasky.com/liv/fam/bioy1/yource01.html|title=Marguerite Yourcenar|date=21 February 2002|access-date=11 September 2013}}</ref> Yourcenar's last companion was Jerry Wilson, with whom she had a tormented relationship; he died of [[HIV/AIDS|AIDS]] in 1986. 

In 1951, Yourcenar published, in France, the novel ''[[Memoirs of Hadrian]]'', which she had been writing on and off for a decade. The novel was an immediate success and met with critical acclaim. In this novel, Yourcenar recreated the life and death of one of the great rulers of the ancient world, the Roman emperor [[Hadrian]], who writes a long letter to [[Marcus Aurelius]], the son and heir of [[Antoninus Pius]], his successor and adoptive son. Hadrian meditates on his past, describing both his triumphs and his failures, his love for [[Antinous]], and his philosophy. The novel has become a modern classic. The English version was translated by Frick.

In 1980, Yourcenar became the first female member elected to the ''[[Académie française]]''. An anecdote tells of how the bathroom labels were then changed in this male-dominated institution: "Messieurs|Marguerite Yourcenar" ''(Gents/Marguerite Yourcenar)''. She published many novels, essays, and poems, as well as a trilogy of memoirs. At the time of her death, she was working on the third volume, titled ''Quoi? L'Eternité''.<ref name="Taylor2011">{{cite book|author=John Taylor|title=Paths to Contemporary French Literature|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=dZs9OMIdx4YC&pg=PA261|date=31 December 2011|publisher=Transaction Publishers|isbn=978-1-4128-0951-1|pages=261}}</ref>

Yourcenar's house on Mount Desert Island, ''Petite Plaisance'', is now a museum dedicated to her memory. She is buried across the [[Sound (geography)|sound]] in Somesville.

[[File:Plaque funéraire de Marguerite Yourcenar.JPG|thumb|center|400px|alt=Marguerite Yourcenar funeral plate.|Marguerite Yourcenar's funeral plate. The epitaph, written in French, is from [[The Abyss (Yourcenar novel)|''The Abyss'']]: «''Plaise à Celui qui Est peut-être de dilater le cœur de l'homme à la mesure de toute la vie.''», which can be translated to ''"May it please the One who is perchance to expand the human heart to life's full measure."'']]