Orientales picture Eastern scenes and excel in brilliancy and color. In les Feuilles d'automne domestic scenes are an important feature. After these volumes there was an interval of silence. Les Contem plations (1856) are mainly meditative. Other collections are les Chansons des rues et des bois (1865), l'Année terrible (1872), and les Quatre vents de l'esprit (1881), the last of which contains some fine lyric work with much other. -Les Châtiments (1853) was a satire of marvellous vigor against the Second Empire, and la Légende des siècles (1859-83) was an epic of humanity, which in majesty and depth is Hugo's best work. In the drama must be mentioned Cromwell (1827), celebrated because of its preface, Hernani (1830), his representative drama, and Ruy Blas (1838), perhaps his most powerful one. As a novelist, Victor Hugo's typical work in Romantic fiction is Notre Dame de Paris (1831). Les Misérables (1862) is on the whole his best work. It and les Travailleurs de la mer (1866) were written during his exile in Guernsey. Victor Hugo was the leader of the Romantic school, which revolted against rules and routine in literary composition. The manifesto of the school is the preface to Cromwell. Taking as thesis le libéralisme en littérature, he violates the rules of the classic French stage, abandons periphrases, makes over the Alexandrine, introduces the grotesque element, admits frequent and daring enjambement, and does these things often to excess. A recent critic says of him: "Il n'y a pas de poète au monde dont il soit plus légitime de dire beaucoup de mal et beaucoup de bien." Among the excellencies of his work are his wonderful faculty of word painting, the sweep and rush of his style, never failing poetical suggestion, brilliant coloring, mastery of versification, powerful portrayal of pity, terror, admiration. Defects are subjection of thought to form, lack of proportion, tendency to carry the sublime into the ridiculous, extravagance of rhetoric. Other characteristics of the poet are love of antitheses, skill in the use of proper names, rich rhyme. Victor Hugo changed completely his political views in the course of his life, passing over from pure roy alism to radical republicanism. He had a tender admiration for children. He abhorred capital punishment la peine de mort), and labored unceasingly against it. ATTENTE. — The motto of the poem is Spanish, and means: I awaited, despairing. Line 7: clocher, belfry, steeple, the place containing the cloche(s) (cf. English clock and German Glocke).· donjon (same word as English dungeon), the massive tower of a castle, often used as prison. Line 8: aire, aerie, nest. Page 67. LES DJINNS. - This is a name applied to genii or super natural beings believed in by the Mohammedans. "They are created out of fire, and are both good and evil." The motto is from the Inferno V., 46, and refers to the Second Circle of Hell, where carnal sinners are punished. This poem is much celebrated as a piece of ' lyrical craftmanship.' The arrangement of stanzas is made to indicate the approach and departure of a swarm of Djinns (pron. djin, n not nasal). Page 68, 1. 1: brame, moans. Line 6: grelot, is properly a bell formed by a small hollow ball of metal pierced with holes, and enclosing a movable piece of metal which causes the ringing. Cf. cloche, l. 15. Line 24: escalier; cf. rampe, 1. 26. Line 14: Ploie, bends; cf. plier, to fold (but also to bend, to bow, vid. l. 12, p. 70). The two words are identical, being different developments from Latin plicare. Line 25: Prophète, i. e., Mahomet, to whom the Djinns were subject. Page 70, 1. 2: leur souffle d'étincelles, their fiery breath. Line 4: vitraux. This word is commonly used of church windows, les vitraux d'une église, vitraux peints, etc. The sing. vitrail is not admitted by the French Academy. The word is a derivative of vitre (Latin vitrum), pane of glass. Cf. fenêtre and croisée. Line 17: Ouïr. This verb is derived from Latin audire, to hear. Formerly it was in regular usage. Then it gave way to entendre, from Latin intendere (lit., to stretch toward). Line 20: plomb, alluding to the custom of covering roofs with sheet-lead; Latin plumbum, English plumb. Line 25: sur la grève, on the strand. Grève is also the name formerly given to a public square in Paris, by the bank of the Seine, where executions took place. Then unemployed laborers were accustomed to assemble on the Place de Grève while waiting for work; so the word comes to mean a strike; faire grève, se mettre en grève, to strike. Grève is from the same root as English gravel (Old French gravele, probably of Celtic origin). The square in Paris was formerly covered with gravel. Page 71, 1. 11: vague; cf. onde, 1. 7. "Les vagues sont proprement les ondes de la mer qui viennent battre les rochers où elles se brisent en s'élevant à une plus ou moins grande hauteur." Page 72. EXTASE. -The motto is from Rev. i. 10. LUI. This poem is in praise of Napoleon. Page 73, 1. 3. This line probably refers to the siege of Toulon in 1793, where Bonaparte distinguished himself as artillery officer. In the next line the allusion is to the insurrection of the Royalists against the government, in Oct. 1795, which was suppressed by Bonaparte. Lines 5-6. The allusion is to the coup d'état of Nov. 9, 1799, when Bonaparte overthrew the Directory, and then established the Consulate. He became First Consul of a body of three, but practically ruled France. Line 9: empereur. He was proclaimed Emperor of the French in May, 1804, under the name of Napoleon I. Line 11: étoile, the decoration of the Legion of Honor instituted by Bonaparte; cf. note to l. 5, p. 36. Line 22: Des porte-clefs; sing. porte-clefs, that is, celui qui porte les clefs; cf. the English compound turn-key. Page 74, 1. 5-6. His cloak, worn in many campaigns, was laid over his dead body. Napoleon's bed at St. Helena had been the iron camp bedstead used on some of his battle-fields. Line 7: le conclave, i. e., of cardinals, legislating as did formerly the Senate. Conclave means primarily a room that may be locked up (con and clavis, key), then the private room in which the cardinals meet to elect the pope, and so the assembly of cardinals. Line 8. The island of Elba is volcanic in structure. Victor Hugo had seen it when a child, and says of it in the Odes et ballades: Je visitai cette île, en noirs débris féconde, The next line refers to Russia and Spain: Kremlin, name applied to the imperial palace and other buildings at Moscow; Alhambra, palace of the Moorish kings at Granada. Line 15: l'émir, referring to Napoleon. 66 Page 75, 1. 5–6. The address of Bonaparte to his army at the battle of the Pyramids (July, 1798), began: Soldats, du haut de ces pyramides quarante siècles vous regardent." Line 7: Debout. This word means lit. upright, on end. Bout (end), but (aim, mark; cf. English butt), and butte (knoll, rising ground), are all the same word, the third being the fem. form of the second. Line 9: Satrapes. Satrap was the title of governor of a province among the ancient Persians. Line 15: Assur, a town of Nubia, on the Nile. Line 21 sans toucher à, without coming upon. Toucher à also means to approach, to meddle with. Toucher indicates more definite contact. Line 24: Memnon, a celebrated Egyptian statue, said to have sung at sunrise. This line is accounted strong language on the part of Hugo. Page 76, 1. 6: est debout. The French has no single verb corresponding to English stand, but must say être debout, rester debout, or se tenir debout. Line 8: Naple, for Naples, to save a syllable in the line. Portici, town near Naples on the site of Herculaneum. Line 10: Ischia, island near Naples, off Cape Miseno. Line 13: Paestum. Victor Hugo says of this line: "Il eût fallu dire la route de Paestum; car de Paestum même on ne voit pas Vésuve." Line 14: Pouzzol, Italian Pozzuoli, a town on the bay of Naples, to the north of the city, famous, like others here mentioned, for its ruins. It is the Puteoli of Acts xxviii. 13, where Paul landed. Line 15 tarentelle, a rapid Italian dance, so named from the tarantula (from the name of the town Taranto), whose bite is supposed to produce a desire to dance. The word here denotes the tune of the dance. Line 17: gisant; s has the hard sound except in the inf. gésir (Latin jacere, to lie). The verb is defective, being replaced by être couché. The pres. ci-gît (here lies) is the formula of epitaphs. Line 19 Pausilippe, the grotto of Posilipo at the edge of Naples on the way to Pozzuoli, and at the entrance of which is shown the supposed tomb of Vergil. From there the singing of the Italian boatmen may be heard. Page 77. LORSQUE L'ENFANT PARAÎT. Victor Hugo is never in a more happy vein than when writing about children. Page 78, 1. 1: phare, light-house, a word of historical origin, from the island of Pharos near Alexandria, which gave its name to a celebrated light-house built upon it. Page 79, 1. 14: oripeau, tinsel, from Latin aurum (or auri), gold, and pellem, skin, hide. Page 80, 1. 14: peines, troubles; peine from Latin poenam, cf. English pain. The three French words peine, trouble, douleur, usually correspond to English trouble, confusion, pain, respectively. Line 18: pervenche, the flowering plant periwinkle. Page 81, 1. 4: aie. The subjunctive is commonly used after superlative or exclusive expressions, such as le meilleur, le seul, le premier, etc. Line 5 pensée; cf. English pansy. Page 82. OCEANO NOX.-These words may be rendered, Night by the ocean.————— Saint-Valery-sur-Somme, a town on the left bank of the river Somme very near where it empties into the English channel. Line 7: morne, dull, gloomy; of German origin; cf. English mourn. Line 8: ont disparu. Avoir is used with this verb when it expresses an action, and être (cf. p. 83, 1. 15) when it expresses a state resulting from an action. Page 83, 1. 1: sur la grève; cf. 1. 25, p. 70, and note. Line 4: Maint, many a; probably from the same root as English Line 18: lasses, weary; las from Latin lassum; cf. English lassitude. Fatigué indicates more exclusively the state resulting from excessive exercise. Page 84, 1. 1: sombrés; sombrer, to founder, sink, may be compared with the adj. sombre, dark, gloomy. 12 |