Victor Hugo Influences in writing Just like the writers of his generation, Hugo was intensely influenced by the

e founder of Romanticism and Frances preeminent literary figure du ring the early 1800s, Franois-Ren de Chateaubriand. Hugo set on to be Chateaubriand or nothing, and indeed, his life is almost an equivalent of his predecessors in many ways. Like Chateaubriand, Hugo would further the cause of Romanticism, become involved in politics as a champion of Republicanism, and be forced into exile due to his political stances. The passion and eloquence of Hugo's early work brought success and fame at an early age. His first collection of poetry (Nouvelles Odes et Posies Diverses) was published in 1824, when Hugo was only twenty two years old, and it earned him a royal pension from Louis XVIII. Though the poems were admired for their spontaneous fervor and fluency, it was the collection that followed two years later in 1826 (Odes et Ballades) that revealed Hugo to be a great poet, a natural master of lyric and creative song. The fall of Paris from 1815 to 1818, gave Victor Hugo a time of uninterrupted study at the Pension Cordier and the Lyce Louis-le-Grand, after which he graduated from the law faculty at Paris, where his studies seem to have been purposeless and irregular. Memories of his life as a poor student later inspired the figure of Marius in his novel Les Misrables (Brittanica Encyclopedia) Plans for a major novel tackling social misery and injustice started out as early as the 1830s but it was only after 17 years that Hugos most popular work, Les Miserables was finally published in 1862. Today the novel is considered a literary masterpiece, adapted for cinema, television and musical stage to an extent equaled by few other works of literature. (ReadEasily) In 1831, Hugo published his novel, The Hunchback of Notre-Dame which tells a story of great breadth and emotional power that revolves around his political convictions. The novel demonstrates how the poor function as scapegoats for bourgeois society and makes demands for greater rights. His work, Les Chatiments, is on the political indictment of Napoleon and his repressively dictatorial policies. Following the fall of Louis Bonaparte in 1870, Hugo returned to France as a hero and once more took an interest in political life during another period of upheaval further complicated by the FrancoPrussian war. He was elected to the National Assembly in 1871 and was by now a famous public and literary figure. Publication of his works continued, including, in 1877, 'L'Art d'tre grand-pre', one of the first books in French literature to deal specifically with childhood, and much of which was written in Guernsey. (Victor GG) Resources: http://www.readeasily.com/victor-hugo/index.php http://www.victorhugo.gg/victor-hugo/ Brittanica Encyclopaedia Lives and Legacies: An Encyclopaedia of People Who Changed the World edited by Michel Bossy, Thomas Brothers and John McEnroe, 2001, The Onyx Press, New York