Victor+Hugo

Saha and Zhang 1 Rahul Saha and Joanna Zhang

Ms. Karen Chase

ENG 322

13 April 2009

Victor Hugo: An Annotated Bibliography

Victor Hugo was born Febuary 26, 1802 to the parents of Joseph-Léopold-Sigisbert Hugo and Sophie Trébuchet in Besançon, France. His mother was a Catholic Royalist and his father was a high-ranking official in Napoléon's army. From 1815 to 1818, Hugo attended most of his classes from the Pension Cordier in Paris at the Collège Louis-le Grand. At a young age Hugo began to write poetry and verse tragedies. Hugo published his first collection of poems in 1822, with the inspiration of François René Chateaubriand. He obtained a royal pension from Louis XVIII because of the poems. Hugo debuted with //Han D'Islande// followed by //Bug-Jargal// as his novels. Other works that he wrote included the //The Hunchback of Notre Dame,// and which gave him instant sucess and fame. Hugo deeply influenced the literary movement of Romanticism became one of the most important of French Romantic writers. Victor Hugo was also involved in politics. Hugo was elected to the Académie Francaise in 1841 and was deeply devoted to advocating social justice. He was also elected to the Constitutional Assembly and to the Legislative Assembly after the 1848 revolution. When Louis Napoleon (Napoleon III) took office, Hugo felt that he was in grave danger due to his writings. He then fled to Guernsey in the English Channel in exile with his family, and it was there where he wrote one of his most famous writings, //Les Misérables.// However, Hugo was allowed to return to France. It was when political upheavals in France and the proclamation of the Third Republic that made Hugo return to France, and when he did, he was hailed as a national hero. In February 1881, Hugo celebrated his 79th birthday. Great tributes were made to him and celebrations were made for the writer. Victor Hugo was revered as a brilliant figure in French literature and died on 22 May 1885, at the age of 83.

Davidson, A.F. __Victor Hugo: His Life and Work__.Honulu: University Press of the Pacific, 2003.

In A.F. Davidson's biography of Victor Hugo, he summarizes his life with impeccable detail. He begins with the introduction of Hugo's existence with the ancestral background belonging to the Hugo name. As Davidson discusses the orgins of Hugo and his love interest with literature, he adresses the experimentation of poetry as Hugo's first excursion. He included works such as Les Contemplations and Notre-Dame de Paris. This non-fiction work then explored Hugo's transition into novel works and recognition. It goes on to mention

"A Criticism on Victor Hugo." __The New York Times__. 1872. The New York Times. 13 April 2009. < [] res=990DE6DA1439EF34BC4852DFB7678389669FDE>.

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In this article, the author is hugely biased against Victor Hugo and criticizes his work and ethics. The author depicts Hugo as "persistently dissappointing" and shoots down the works that he has down. The author goes on to list the numerous characteristics of which makes Hugo a horrible novelist, degrading him to a large scale. The author tries to make it seem like the "truth" as to what he is preaching, trying to make it seem that Hugo has no sense of writing and that his overall character is high-strung and reckless. ====== "Victor Hugo-Politcal Life and Exile." __Encyclopedia II-Victor Hugo__. 2004. The Global Oneness Commitment. 13 April 2009. < [] >

Not only was Victor Hugo an avid novelist, his political life affected him as well. This article describes the political life and the exile of Hugo. It talks about his election to the Académie Francaise in 1841and continues on to describe what he supported and how he rose to become a memeber of the Legislative Assembly and the Constitutional Assembly. The article also says that when Louis Napoleon obtained power in France, Hugo declared himself a traitor to the country and fled to Guernsey where he settled down with his family for the rest of his life.

"Victor Hugo (1802-1885)."__The Literature Network__. 2000. Jalic Inc. 13 April 2009. < [] >.

This article discusses a broad range of Victor Hugo's life. It begins with the description of the type of literary works that Hugo writes, and then describes his general background information, such as where he was born and who were his parents. It then fowards to his life in the politics and marriage with a little description of how he became to be exiled from his country. Although he was exiled from France, his works still traveled to his country had a great impact on it. The article ends with little detail about his mistresses and describes how he suffered a mild stroke in June 1878 and died in 1885.