Dec 30, 2009
The Abyss | The Abyss
At a glance:
- Author: Marguerite Yourcenar
- First Published: 1968
- Type of Work: Period realism
- Time of Work: 1510-1569
- Setting: Reformation Europe
- Principal Characters: Alberico de’ Numi, Zeno, Henry Justus Ligre, Henry Maximilian Ligre, Hilzonda Ligre, Jean-Louis de Berlaimont, Bartholomew Campanus, Simon Adriansen, Jan Myers, Philibert Ligre
- Genres: Long fiction, Historical fiction, Biographical fiction
- Subjects: Self-discovery, Philosophy or philosophers, Sex or sexuality, Suicide, Europe or Europeans, Capital punishment, Trials, Truth, Cults, Sixteenth century, Catholics or Catholic Church, Alchemy, Inquisition, Catholic, Reformation
- Locales: Europe, Flanders
The Novel
The Abyss is the story of one man’s devotion to truth. As Zeno relentlessly
searches for knowledge, vast historical forces—Catholicism and Protestantism, France and
the Holy Roman Empire, agrarianism and commercialism—turn Reformation Europe into
a bloodbath. Marguerite Yourcenar’s careful documentation adds to this continent-sized
clash between dissidence and dogma a great sense of period realism.
The story opens in 1530. Henry Maximilian Ligre runs into Zeno outside Dranoutre, Henry
Justus Ligre’s Belgian country estate, and the two...
[The entire page is 2547 words long]
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