L’Aphrodite des Lettres et des Arts chez Marguerite Yourcenar

Abstract

In its original meaning the “ ekphrasis” was a general description, not restricted to any piece of art. It becomes today a figure which gives to the reader a description reminding another artistic expression than literature. Marguerite Yourcenar uses it to express a symbiosis where sculpture, painting, numismatic, often take precedence over a written creation. More than a support, iconography becomes there a living source. Aphrodite (Roman Venus) is frequently invoqued in the erudite work of M. Yourcenar. “ Universal Lover” and metaphor of Love, she expresses the many attributes associated across time with female gender. Deep structure of «longue durée » , the feminity changes with the civilisations. Jacqueline Karageorghis has shown how the complex cults associated with feminity emphasized in their turn, maternity, virginity and the powerful violence of sex. M. Yourcenar’s lover of the Arts follows all the variations of Love, from the Aphrodite in Pindar to the Shakespearean Venus, from “ Hail Aphrodite” to “ Narcissus with closed eyes” (the Hermaphrodite in the Uffizzi), for ever plumbing the endless human desire.