Marguerite Yourcenar, "feminine writer"?

Abstract

In this paper I intend to examine two areas bearing upon the question of whether or not Marguerite Yourcenar can be considered a "feminine" writer. I will consider the thorny question of where her sympathies lie ideologically in the novella 'Le Coup de grâce', published just before the outbreak of the Second World War. These issues were given another twist by a preface which Yourcenar published in 1962. I will also discuss her style: whether or not she is an exponent, in part, or in toto, of an "écriture féminine", or, to use Hélène Cixous' term, of an "écriture au féminin".