THE TENTH MASK IN THE STRUCTURE OF “FIRES“

Abstract

The paper explores the structure of the collection of prose poetry “Fires” (1936) by Marguerite Yourcenar. The book contains nine stories of remarkable Greek and Jewish heroes, and among them short fragments of love passion are situated. The analysis proposed here is a part of a larger study devoted to masks in Yourcenar’s works. The early collection “Fires” is an extremely proper prism through which some of the later fictional strategies in Yourcenar are refracted in a condensed form. The precise object of analysis are the short fragments which I define the tenth mask – the mask of direct speech. The complex play of narrative is grasped as close to Barthes’ fragments of a lover's discourse and Genette’s concept of zero figure. Following Borges’ idea of the precursors, the key concepts of Barthes and Genette become even more visible because of Yourcenar, who preceded them.