Literature of the world : an introductory study . s), Chants duCrepuscule (TwilightSongs). It is hard notto speak in constantlysuperlative terms ofHugos great work as apoet. His poetry givesexpression to the soul ofnature and of man, ingreat floods of lofty im-agination, glowing de-scription, and ardentemotion. We shall cer-tainly not go wrong inassigning to his work thesupreme place in Frenchlyric poetry. Hugos political opin-ions had been undergoingduring these years a de-velopment along the lineof increasing liberalism, so that Louis Napoleon upon coming into power in 1851 saw fit tosend hi
Literature of the world : an introductory study . s), Chants duCrepuscule (TwilightSongs). It is hard notto speak in constantlysuperlative terms ofHugos great work as apoet. His poetry givesexpression to the soul ofnature and of man, ingreat floods of lofty im-agination, glowing de-scription, and ardentemotion. We shall cer-tainly not go wrong inassigning to his work thesupreme place in Frenchlyric poetry. Hugos political opin-ions had been undergoingduring these years a de-velopment along the lineof increasing liberalism, so that Louis Napoleon upon coming into power in 1851 saw fit tosend him into exile. He departed in wrath, issuing as he went hissatirical prose volume Napoleon le Petit (Napoleon the Little).He did not see France again for eighteen years. He made his homechiefly on the islands of Jersey and Guernsey. The fruit of his exileappeared in the lyrical poems entitled Contemplations, in a seriesof superb narrative poems on historical themes, called La Legendedes Siecles (The Legend of the Ages), and in three great novels,. VICTOR HUGO 234 LITERATURE OF THE WORLD Les Miserables, Travailleurs de la Mer (Toilers of the Sea),and LHomme qui Rit (The Man who Laughs). Hugo isprobably best known to readers of English by Les Miserables. Itis a novel of very unequal power, consisting of a rather confusedmass of scenes, motives, and characters, with much declamatoryeloquence and philosophizing. Yet it is a great novel by virtue ofthe authors intense sympathy with the outcasts and unfortunatesof society, of the frequent passages of high narrative and descrip-tive power to which he rises, and of the vast sweep of his move-ment, which includes almost the whole of French life from thestreet gamin Gavroche to the emperor Napoleon. The following isthe barest outline of the main action of the story: The peasant Jean Valjean is condemned to the galleys for stealingbread for his sisters starving children. On gaining his freedom he is be-friended by the saintly Bishop Myriel
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