Victor Hugo: Romanticism in France
Born in France, in 1802 to Joseph Leopold Sigisbord Hugo and Sophie Trebuchet, Victor Hugo was the third and last son of his parents. Despite the fact that their family was of the working class, his mother was an unwavering monarchist and she raised her sons to be of the same mind. However, it was only a matter of time until Victor would change his perspective and become a representative for the common people. His political career blossomed in his later years, even “being elected as senator twice in his old age.” (220 Halsall). This intellectual metamorphosis was accompanied by a vast number of literary works. Victor wrote and published an incredible volume of texts; novels, plays, and poems alike. His most famous novels, Les Miserables and Notre-Dame de Paris, are well known in modern day America. The former, as a broadway musical and an award winning film, and the latter as the classic disney animation The Hunchback of Notre Dame. His longer works were often political in nature, calling attention to the inequalities of industrial society and the political system. However, it is in his lyric poetry that the values considered to be unique to the romantic period become very visible. In particular, one reading his works will find an appreciation of nature, the exploration of death, a presence of the supernatural, self-reflection and recognition of the individual. When Madame Hugo separated from her husband, she and her three sons moved into the deserted convent of Feuillantines in 1812. According to Victor Hugo: A Concise Biography, the grounds surrounding the convent helped to form Victors appreciation for nature. Written in the first person, “June Nights”, found in Hugos’ Lights and Shadows, is a succinct yet ethereal poem which celebrates the beauty of nature and man innate connection to it: In summer, after the day’s passed, spread with flowers the meadows shed a fragrance masking the sense. Sleep becomes transparent and you keep your eyes closed half aware of the drifting sounds of summer. (“June Nights” 769) This leading sexain from June Nights resonates with Wordsworths' proclamation that poems are meant to highlight experiences from the common life and that they should be written with a “certain colouring of imagination” (William Wordsworth 1127). This is exactly what Hugo accomplished with this brief but beautiful poem. Inspired by an experience that any person could have, no matter their gender, religion, or wealth, he elegantly captured the truest essence of one of the kindest earthly pleasures; lying in a field on a warm summer night. Unfortunately for Hugo, his …show more content…
Born during the development of Napoleons’ dictatorship, Victor was witness to many tragedies from a very young age. In his childhood, he saw a great number public executions, as most children did in that time. He had also experienced the dissolution of his parents marriage. None of these events affected him so deeply as the drowning of his beloved daughter, Leopoldine. Her untimely death was, without doubt, the cause of his deepest sorrow. “At Dawn, Tomorrow” explores Leopoldines’ death in a heartbreakingly relatable fashion. “I’ll take the forest road, the upland road. / I can’t go on living so far from you” (3-4). Although his word choice is simple and the lines are short, the emotion they contain is profoundly intimate; a quintessential quality of romantic
Born in France, in 1802 to Joseph Leopold Sigisbord Hugo and Sophie Trebuchet, Victor Hugo was the third and last son of his parents. Despite the fact that their family was of the working class, his mother was an unwavering monarchist and she raised her sons to be of the same mind. However, it was only a matter of time until Victor would change his perspective and become a representative for the common people. His political career blossomed in his later years, even “being elected as senator twice in his old age.” (220 Halsall). This intellectual metamorphosis was accompanied by a vast number of literary works. Victor wrote and published an incredible volume of texts; novels, plays, and poems alike. His most famous novels, Les Miserables and Notre-Dame de Paris, are well known in modern day America. The former, as a broadway musical and an award winning film, and the latter as the classic disney animation The Hunchback of Notre Dame. His longer works were often political in nature, calling attention to the inequalities of industrial society and the political system. However, it is in his lyric poetry that the values considered to be unique to the romantic period become very visible. In particular, one reading his works will find an appreciation of nature, the exploration of death, a presence of the supernatural, self-reflection and recognition of the individual. When Madame Hugo separated from her husband, she and her three sons moved into the deserted convent of Feuillantines in 1812. According to Victor Hugo: A Concise Biography, the grounds surrounding the convent helped to form Victors appreciation for nature. Written in the first person, “June Nights”, found in Hugos’ Lights and Shadows, is a succinct yet ethereal poem which celebrates the beauty of nature and man innate connection to it: In summer, after the day’s passed, spread with flowers the meadows shed a fragrance masking the sense. Sleep becomes transparent and you keep your eyes closed half aware of the drifting sounds of summer. (“June Nights” 769) This leading sexain from June Nights resonates with Wordsworths' proclamation that poems are meant to highlight experiences from the common life and that they should be written with a “certain colouring of imagination” (William Wordsworth 1127). This is exactly what Hugo accomplished with this brief but beautiful poem. Inspired by an experience that any person could have, no matter their gender, religion, or wealth, he elegantly captured the truest essence of one of the kindest earthly pleasures; lying in a field on a warm summer night. Unfortunately for Hugo, his …show more content…
Born during the development of Napoleons’ dictatorship, Victor was witness to many tragedies from a very young age. In his childhood, he saw a great number public executions, as most children did in that time. He had also experienced the dissolution of his parents marriage. None of these events affected him so deeply as the drowning of his beloved daughter, Leopoldine. Her untimely death was, without doubt, the cause of his deepest sorrow. “At Dawn, Tomorrow” explores Leopoldines’ death in a heartbreakingly relatable fashion. “I’ll take the forest road, the upland road. / I can’t go on living so far from you” (3-4). Although his word choice is simple and the lines are short, the emotion they contain is profoundly intimate; a quintessential quality of romantic