Selected Poems of Victor Hugo: A Bilingual Edition

Front Cover
University of Chicago Press, 2001 - Literary Criticism - 631 pages
Although best known as the author of Notre Dame de Paris and Les Misérables, Victor Hugo was primarily a poet—one of the most important and prolific in French history. Despite his renown, however, there are few comprehensive collections of his verse available and even fewer translated editions.

Translators E. H. and A. M. Blackmore have collected Victor Hugo's essential verse into a single, bilingual volume that showcases all the facets of Hugo's oeuvre, including intimate love poems, satires against the political establishment, serene meditations, religious verse, and narrative poems illustrating his mastery of the art of storytelling and his abiding concern for the social issues of his time. More than half of this volume's eight thousand lines of verse appear here for the first time in English, providing readers with a new perspective on each of the fascinating periods of Hugo's career and aspects of his style. Introductions to each section guide the reader through the stages of Hugo's writing, while notes on individual poems provide information not found in even the most detailed French-language editions.

Illustrated with Hugo's own paintings and drawings, this lucid translation—available on the eve of Hugo's bicentenary—pays homage to this towering figure of nineteenth-century literature by capturing the energy of his poetry, the drama and satirical force of his language, and the visionary beauty of his writing as a whole.
 

Contents

Épitaphe Epitaph
4
from Les Orientales Orientalia 1829
18
La Ville prise The Captured City
24
from Feuilles dautomne Autumn Leaves 1831
30
La Pente de la rêverie The Slope of Reverie
36
Jaime les soirs sereins et beaux I love these calm clear evening
46
Demain dès laube à lheure où blanchit la campagne At dawn
199
Écoutez Je suis Jean Jai vu des choses sombres Hear me I John
211
Bivar Vivar
372
La Rose de linfante The Infantas Rose
378
Je marchais au hasard I walked at random went forward
392
Un homme aux yeux profonds passait A deepeyed man went by
398
Tout était vision sous les ténébreux dômes All in the vaulted dark
404
O Dieu dont lœuvre va plus loin que notre rêve O God whose work
411
from La Fin de Satan The End of Satan 1886
418
Le TriompheThe Triumphal Procession
432

Hélas tout est sépulcre Its all a tomb
220
from Chansons des rues et des bois Songs of Street and Wood 1865
246
Saison de semailles Le soir SeedTime Evening
252
from LAnnée terrible The Year of Horrors 1872
262
Les Insulteurs The Revilers
268
Grandfather 1877
270
Les bêtes cela parle Animals see they talk
280
from Les Quatre Vents de lesprit The Four Winds of
291
Elle passa Je crois quelle mavait souri She went past And I think
297
Je suis fait dombre et de marbre Marble and night created me
304
from La Légende des siècles The Legend of the Ages 185983
313
Les LionsThe Lions
326
Dieu invisible au philosophe God Invisible to the Thinker
342
Inscription Inscription
354
Au lion dAndroclès To the Lion of Androcles
356
MahometMuhammad
362
Commencement de langoisse The Agony Begins
438
JudasJudas
446
from Hors de la terre III Beyond the Earth III
458
Que ce poëme au vol de feu May this work in its blazing flight
466
La Chauvesouris The Bat
478
Le Corbeau The Raven
488
LAigle The Eagle
500
La Lumière The LightSource
514
from Toute la lyre The Whole Lyre 188897
540
La LuneThe Moon
548
from Les Années funestes The Fateful Years 1898
560
from Dernière Gerbe Last Gleanings 1902
568
from Océan Ocean 1942
574
Select Bibliography
615
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About the author (2001)

Victor Hugo was born in Besançon, France on February 26, 1802. Although he originally studied law, Hugo dreamed of writing. In 1819, he founded the journal Conservateur Litteraire as an outlet for his dream and soon produced volumes of poetry, plays, and novels. His novels included The Hunchback of Notre Dame and Les Miserables. Both of these works have been adapted for the stage and screen many times. These adaptations include the Walt Disney version of The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and the award-winning musical sensation Les Miserables. In addition to his literary career, Hugo also held political office. In 1841, he was elected to the Academie Francaise. After political upheaval in 1851, he was exiled and remained so until 1870. He returned to Paris in 1871 and was elected to the National Assembly, though he soon resigned. He died on May 22, 1885.

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