Presencia del tema de la muerte en la obra narrativa de Marguerite Yourcenar

Abstract

The study analyses the role of the life-death dichotomy, which is in Yourcenars works the literary engine and organizing principle that triggers and coordinates the action in her novels. This analysis is organised from a double diachronic perspective, both from a biographical (A lived death) and a literary point of view in her narrative universe (A created death). In the latter some aspects, amongst others, are tackled, such as: - Maternity and death, which are always linked in Yourcenars works. - Existential attitudes that her characters adopt when facing the critical moment of death. - Elements which shape Yourcenars aesthetics of death: symbols and stylistic resources. - Special mention of the voluntary death, where suicide becomes the foremost expression of the autonomy and rebelliousness of the human being. - Conscious agony, which allows the reader to witness the whole process her characters go through until their end, throughout their different phases and stages. - Presence of Love as a tragic element which triggers death. - Anticipatio mortis or early experience of death which allows Yourcenars characters to prepare themselves for their last ordeal.