We explain who Victor Hugo was, what his most important works were and why he is one of the greatest representatives of French and European literature.
Victor Hugo is one of the greatest writers of the French language.
Who was Victor Hugo?
Victor Hugo was a French novelist, poet and playwright, considered as one of the great voices of French literature and one of the most renowned intellectuals of the 19th century. His novels The Miserables and Our Lady of paris They are probably some of the most well-known and celebrated works of the European literary tradition.
Brother of the writers Eugène and Abel Hugo, he was also a politician committed to French history and a fervent opponent of Napoleon III Bonaparte and the Second French Empire. That’s why His work includes not only literary fiction, but also travel chronicles and political speeches. and morals.
Victor Hugo He was a central figure in European romantic thought.whose work was appreciated by writers and intellectuals as well as by the rest of the French people. For this reason, upon his death, the nation gave him a state funeral and his remains rest in the Pantheon in Paris.
Birth and youth of Victor Hugo
Victor Marie Hugo was born in the town of Besançon, located in eastern France, on 26 February 1802. He was the youngest of three sons of General Joseph Léopold Sigisbert Hugo (1773-1828), head of the battalion of the Dubois Imperial Regiment, and his wife Sophie Trebuchét (1772-1821). His two older brothers were Abel (1798-1855) and Eugène (1800-1837).
His first years were marked by continuous moves.since his father travelled as the Napoleonic army needed him: Paris, Elba, Naples and Madrid were some of the places that young Victor visited during his childhood. His mother, however, always remained in Paris, since her parents did not have a very stable relationship.
In 1813, the couple separated permanently, due to an affair that her mother had started with General Victor Lahorie.godfather of Victor Hugo and to whom he owed his name.
In this context, the Hugo brothers lived erratic times, alternating between their paternal and maternal homes. Until Napoleon’s defeat in 1815 allowed them greater stability. That year Víctor and his brother Eugène entered the Cordier Pension and then the Lyceum. Louis-le-Grandwhere they studied until 1818. Victor then continued his studies at the University of Paris, in the branch of law..
During those years of youth, Víctor discovered his literary vocation in a self-taught way: he filled entire notebooks with verses and kept personal diaries. in which, at barely fourteen years of age, he noted: “I want to be a Chateaubriand, or nothing.” His ambitions were tremendously high. His mother and his brother Eugène were his only readers.
Thus, in 1817 he participated in a poetry contest sponsored by the French Academy of Letters and received a mention for his poem “Just Three Lustros” (Three lustres à combin French). In 1819, he won his first poetry prizes from the Academy of Floral Games in Toulouse.and in 1820 another award for his poem “Moses on the Nile” (Moses on the Nile).
In 1819, encouraged by his mother and his recent successes, Victor He founded, together with his brothers, the literary magazine The Literary Conservatorwhich housed the first essays of the poets Alphonse de Lamartine and André de Chénier. In 1821 it ceased to be published, the same year that his mother died suddenly.
Marriage and first publications
Victor Hugo and Adèle Foucher were married for 46 years.
When his mother died, Victor Hugo was courting the young Adèle Foucher, daughter of a couple who were friends of his parents and a childhood friend. He wrote her around 200 love letters, even though his brother Eugène was also in love with her..
In 1822, the successful publication of Victor’s first collection of poems, Odes and various poems, earned him an annual pension of one thousand francs from King Louis XVIII. With that money, Victor was encouraged to ask Adèle to marry him. At the age of 20 and with 1,500 copies of his first book sold, Víctor Hugo married his wife of forty-six years..
His brother Eugène was plunged into a deep depression by his disappointment. Later, he developed a mental illness that forced him to spend the rest of his days in an asylum until his death in 1837.
Víctor and Adéle had a close relationship that brought five children into the world.: Leopold, died a few weeks after birth; Léopoldine (1824-1843); Charles (1825-1871); François-Victor (1828-1873) and Adèle (1830-1915). After his marriage, Victor Hugo began to write his first narrative works.
In 1823 he published They have from Icelandhis first novel, which was received without much enthusiasm. A positive review by the author Charles Nodier (1780-1844), however, led to a friendship between the two writers, which opened the doors of Victor Hugo to Library of Arsenalwhere the literary group met Cenaclecradle of French Romanticism.
Throughout 1824, collaborated in the monthly publication The Muse Française (1823-1824), official publication of the romantic movementand published a new collection of verses: new odesin which he dedicated some poems to his father. Also public Bug Jargala novel he had begun working on when he was just 16 years old.
In 1827 it appeared Cromwellhis first play, which breaks with the classical dramatic tradition and consists of 6000 verses. The play was never performed, but it was the content of its preface that created a literary stir.. This text is considered a founding stone of French Romanticism.
The following year, his father died. But the duel did not prevent Victor Hugo’s creative streak.. That same year he published Odes and balladsanother poetic compendium, and the novel The last day of a person sentenced to death. The following year it appeared The orientals, a collection of poems that firmly supports romantic exoticism. In 1830 he made the romantic drama Hernani. In 1831 Marion de Lorme and also Our lady from Parisa novel that definitively launched Victor Hugo to stardom.
The literary stardom of Victor Hugo
Victor Hugo met Juliette Drouet in 1833 and they began a romance that would last until the actress’s death.
Literary recognition brought the Hugos new friends, such as the painter Eugène Delacroix (1798-1863), the playwright Alfred de Musset (1810-1857), the historian Prosper Mérimée (1803-1870), the poet Alphonse de Lamartine (1790 -1869) and the literary critic Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve (1804-1869), with whom Adèle had an affair during 1831.
Victor Hugo also frequented the composers Hector Berlioz (1803-1869), Franz Liszt (1811-1886) and Giacomo Meyerbeer (1791-1864), as well as his childhood idol, the French prose writer François-René de Chateaubriand (1768-1848). In addition, he produced various collections of poetry, among which is his famous autumn leaves.
However, his real successes in those years took place in the theater. The appearance in 1830 of Hernani turned Victor Hugo into the icon of a movement renewing theatrical formsled by the poet and playwright Théophile Gautier (1811-1872) and inspired by the changes brought about by the Revolution of 1830. These were unstable times in politics, and this was reflected in the arts.
Some of Hugo’s works were banned by the government, such as Marion de Lorme in 1829 (although it premiered in 1832) and The king has fun the next year. This only increased Hugo’s importance as a revolutionary playwright..
In 1833, he met the actress Juliette Drouet, the most important of his many mistresses, who would become his secretary and traveling companion. From that date until the day of his death in 1883, Juliette dedicated her life to Victor Hugo. She gave up her acting career and came to live practically cloistered, waiting for the company of the French novelist..
During those years, Hugo did not stop producing new plays. In 1841 his talent was recognized by the French Academy of Letters, where he was finally accepted.after three failed attempts due to the opposition of the opponents of Romanticism.
However, her creative streak soon came to an end: in 1843 her newlywed daughter, Leopoldine, drowned along with her husband in an accident. This family tragedy intensely affected Victor Hugo, who after writing some more verses of The contemplationshe plunged into a literary silence of almost eight years.
The Revolution of 1830, also called the July Revolution or the Three Glorious Ones, was an insurrection of the middle and popular classes against the autocratic government of King Charles X of France. It took place in Paris, in July 1830, when the king dissolved parliament after elections that were unfavorable to him. Then, the so-called “citizen king”, Louis Philippe I of France, was elected in his place, and France had a liberal Constitution.
Politics and exile
Victor Hugo became involved in politics and had to go into exile in response to the coup d’état of 1851.
As the years went by, Victor Hugo moved away from realist positions. Instead, he moved closer to the social sectors that fought for democracy and the establishment of the French Republic, until he eventually became a furious republican.
This political transition took its first steps around 1844, when his literary relevance allowed him to become a confidant of King Louis Philippe I, something that Victor Hugo understood as the opportunity to introduce some changes in the system. In 1845, he was awarded the title of pair of Francereserved for the king’s relatives and other distinguished personalities.
When a new revolution broke out in 1848, Victor Hugo was mayor of the eighth arrondissement of Paris and was involved in the suppression of the June workers’ riots.. However, he later openly criticized the killing of protesters. That same year he founded the newspaper L’Événement and was elected as a national deputy of the Second Republic, by the conservative political faction.
The Revolution of 1848 was a popular insurrection that occurred in Paris during the month of February of that year, through which the monarchy of King Philip I of France was ended and the Second Republic was established. The events occurred due to the government’s ban on the right to assembly, an attempt to curb the proliferation of opposition gatherings. This revolution lit the fuse of the so-called “People’s Spring” that involved similar insurrections throughout Europe, and was a key event in the modern history of the West.
However, starting in 1849, after…