Marguerite Yourcenar: 'Feminine Writer?'

While acclaimed for her classicism, her erudition, her interest in the sacred and the uni versal, Marguerite Y ourcenar has not remained inviolate to attack from critics. One area of attack-from both men and women-grows out of her portrayal of women in her fiction and non-fiction. Her female characters are perceived as marginalised, unsympathetically portrayed, silent, mere intermediaries in the power play between men, and as victims. Feminist critics have taken exception to the centrality of male protagonists in most of her works and consequently the lesser place to which her female characters are relegated. In this essay it is these criticisms that I wish to address.The essay constitutes an attempt to redress the balance and to ascertain whether or not it is possible to assign the term "feminine" to Marguerite Yourcenar's writing.