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Hugo, Victor Marie, Vicomte
(1802–1885)
 French
poet, dramatist, and novelist, b. Besançon. His father was a
general under Napoleon. As a child he was taken to Italy and
Spain and at a very early age had published his first book of
poems, resolving “to be Chateaubriand or nothing.” The
preface to his drama Cromwell (1827) placed him at the
head of the romanticists; he remained the greatest exponent of
the school and was considered by many the greatest poet of his
day. His principal poetic works are Les Orientales
(1829), Les Feuilles d'automne (1831), Les Chants du
crépuscule (1835), Les Voix intérieures (1837), Les
Rayons et les ombres (1840), Les Châtiments
(1853), Les Contemplations (1856), and La Légende
des siècles (1859). The production of his poetic drama Hernani
(tr. 1830), which broke with conventions of the French
theater, caused a riot between the classicists and the
romanticists. The drama was the basis of Verdi's opera Ernani;
Verdi also made use of Hugo's play Le Roi s'amuse
(1832) for Rigoletto. Other plays include Marion
Delorme (1831, tr. 1872), Ruy Blas (1838, tr.
1850), and Les Burgraves (1843), the failure of which
spelled the end of the romantic drama. The tragic deaths in
that year of Hugo's daughter and her husband were reflected in
a moving series of poems of childhood, including The Art of
Being a Grandfather (1877). Hugo's two greatest novels are
Notre Dame de Paris (1831, tr. 1833) and Les Misérables
(1862, tr. 1862), which are epic in scope and portray the
sufferings of humanity with great compassion and power. His
other important novels include Les Travailleurs de la mer
(1866, tr. Toilers of the Sea, 1866), and Quatre-vingt-treize
(1874, tr. Ninety-three, 1874). He began his political
career as a supporter of the duke of Reichstadt, Napoleon's
son; later Hugo espoused the cause of Louis Philippe's son,
and then for a short time of Louis Bonaparte. Because he
afterward opposed Napoleon
III, Hugo was banished and went first to Brussels, then to
the isle of Jersey, and later (1855) to Guernsey, where he
lived until 1870, refusing an amnesty. In 1870 he returned to
Paris in triumph. He was elected to the national assembly and
the senate. His last years were marked by public veneration
and acclaim, and he was buried in the Panthéon. Critics are
divided as to his relative greatness, but he was a towering
figure in 19th-century French literature.
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