Selected Poems of Victor Hugo: A Bilingual Edition

by Victor Hugo, E.H. Blackmore, A.M. Blackmore

Overview

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780226359816
Publisher:	University of Chicago Press
Publication date:	06/01/2004
Edition description:	1
Pages:	664
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.70(d)

About the Author

E. H. Blackmore is a freelance writer and translator. A. M. Blackmore is a member of the faculty at Curtin University. Together, they are the editors and translators of Six French Poets of the Nineteenth Century.

Date of Birth:

February 26, 1802

Date of Death:

May 22, 1885

Place of Birth:

Besançon, France

Place of Death:

Paris, France

Education:

Pension Cordier, Paris, 1815-18

Table of Contents

Lists of Illustrations
Introduction
Chronology
from Odes et ballades / Odes and Ballads (1822-8)
from Les Orientales / Orientalia (1829)
from Feuilles d' automne / Autumn Leaves (1831)
from Les Chants du crépuscule / Songs of the Half-Light (1835)
from Les Vooix intérieures / Inner Voices (1837)
from Les Rayones et les ombres / Sunlight and Shadows (1840)
from Les Châtiments / The Empire in the Pillory (1853)
from Les Contemplations / Contemplations (1856)
from Chansons des rues et des bois / Songs of Street and Wood (1865)
from L'Année terrible / The Year of Horrors (1872)
from Les Quatre Vents de l'esprit / The Four Winds of the Spirit (1881)
from La Légende des siècles / The Legend of the Ages (1859-83)
from La Fin de Satan / The End of Satan (1886)
from Dieu / God (1891)
from Toute la lyre / The Whole Lyre (1888-97)
from Les Années funestes / The Fateful Years (1898)
from Dernière Gerbe / Last Gleanings (1902)
from Océan / Ocean (1942)
Notes
Select Bibliography
List of Poems in Order of Composition
Index of Titles and First Lines

Editorial Reviews

This satisfyingly fat collection has some definite virtues in tracking the poetic output of Hugo (1802-1885), France's monumental 19th-century scribe: it is organized chronologically, with prefaces that mark out his various phases, and the original French texts are included, which is a rare if necessary pleasure in understanding European poetry. Unfortunately, in terms of translation, this huge book is almost a total loss. The Blackmores (Six French Poets) are a freelance writer and a faculty member of Australia's Curtin University, respectively, and they have chosen to render Hugo's work by preserving the rhymes. What results loses almost all of Hugo's power, as his delicate combination of the plainspoken and grandiose is upset by the demands of English jingling. Perhaps Hugo's most famous lyric, "Tomorrow, at Dawn...," becomes: "I'll cross the woods, I'll cross the mountain-height./ No longer can I keep away from you.../ Alone, unknown, hands crossed, and back inclined;..." If the "mountain-height" and "inclined" seem odd, that's because they are inventions of the translators, in order to rhyme with "bright" and "mind" respectively. Hugo wrote a far simpler poem, about how he would "go by the mountain" with his "back bent" to pay his respects at his daughter's grave. It is not an isolated incident, and anyone who reads even a little French must wince at the constant unpoetic interventions in English. This is a particular pity, as the translators have clearly worked hard to set the poet's work in biographical context, even if a preface underrates his novels as "by-products of his career... in which his talents were only half involved." The rather skimpy notes and very limited bibliography are added disappointments. (Apr.) Forecast: As far as bilingual selections of Hugo's verse go, this is presently the only game in town, so university libraries and stores with larger poetry collections will be forced to act accordingly. The French versions and good intentions of the translators provide some succor. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

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