The biography of victor hugo
Victor Hugo
French writer and politician (1802–1885)
For other uses, see Victor Hugo (disambiguation).
Victor-Marie Hugo, vicomte Hugo (French:[viktɔʁmaʁiyɡo]; 26 February 1802 – 22 May 1885) was a French Romantic author, poet, essayist, playwright, and politician. During a literary career that spanned more than sixty years, he wrote in a variety of genres and forms.
His most famous works are the novels The Hunchback of Notre-Dame (1831) and Les Misérables (1862). In France, Hugo is renowned for his poetry collections, such as Les Contemplations and La Légende des siècles (The Legend of the Ages). Hugo was at the forefront of the Romantic literary movement with his play Cromwell and drama Hernani. His works have inspired music, both during his lifetime and after his death, including the opera Rigoletto and the musicals Les Misérables and Notre-Dame de Paris. He produced more than 4,000 drawings in his lifetime, and campaigned for social causes such as the abolition of capital punishment and slavery.
Although he was a committed royalist when young, Hugo's views changed as the decades passed, and he became a passionate supporter of republicanism, serving in politics as both deputy and senator. His work touched upon most of the political and social issues and the artistic trends of his time. His opposition to absolutism, and his literary stature, established him as a national hero. Hugo died on 22 May 1885, aged 83. He was given a state funeral in the Panthéon of Paris, which was attended by over two million people, the largest in French history.
Early life
Victor-Marie Hugo was born on 26 February 1802 in Besançon in Eastern France. He was the youngest son of Joseph Léopold Sigisbert Hugo (1774–1828), a general in the Napoleonic army, and Sophie Trébuchet (1772–1821). The couple had two other sons: Abel Joseph (1798–1855) and Eugène (1800–1837). The Hugo family came from Nancy in Lorraine, wher
Victor Hugo
Victor Hugo was born on 26 February 1802 in Besançon and died on 22 May 1885 in Paris. He is one of France’s most famous writers. A brilliant poet, playwright and novelist, but also a politician, journalist, designer and even interior decorator, Victor Hugo made a significant impact on the literary, artistic and political life of his time. Two centuries later, his prolific and varied work is still read and studied around the world, and in the collective imagination Victor Hugo is still seen as the embodiment of the socially engaged artist.
1802 – 1804: Victor Hugo’s early childhood under the Consulate
Victor-Marie Hugo was born in Besançon on “the 7th of the month of Ventôse in the year 10”, according to the Republican calendar in force in 1802. He was the third son of Joseph-Léopold-Sigisbert Hugo and Sophie Hugo (born Trébuchet), after Abel, born in 1798, and Eugène born in 1800. Léopold Hugo, Victor Hugo’s father, was a Republican soldier in the French Revolution. He was a major in the Besançon garrison from 1801 to 1802, and then transferred to Marseille and Bastia. Victor Hugo only stayed in Besançon for around six weeks.
1804 – 1814: Victor Hugo’s childhood during the First Empire
Léopold Hugo joined Joseph Bonaparte, the brother of Napoleon I, in Naples in 1806 then in Spain in 1808. He became a colonel and then general of the Empire. His wife and children followed him, and later returned to Paris. They settled in a former convent, the Feuillantines, where Sophie Trébuchet hid Victor de Lahorie, Victor Hugo’s godfather, who would be executed in October 1812 for conspiring against Emperor Napoleon. In 1811, they joined Léopold Hugo in Madrid for a year. Victor Hugo’s memories of Spain would have a significant impact on his work. He and his brother Eugène attended boarding school at the Collège des Nobles in Madrid. In March 1812, Victor’s parents separated: he returned to
Victor Hugo
Victor Marie Hugo (26 February 1802 – 22 May 1885) was a Frenchpoet, playwright, novelist, statesman and human rightsactivist. He played an important part in the Romantic movement in France.
Hugo first became famous in France because of his poetry, as well as his novels and his plays. Les Contemplations and La Légende des siècles are his most famous poetry collections. Outside of France, his novels Les Misérables and Notre-Dame de Paris (known in English also as The Hunchback of Notre Dame) are his most famous works.
When he was young, he was a conservativeroyalist. As he got older he became more liberal and supported republicanism. His work was about many of the political and social problems as well as the artistictrends of his time. He is buried in the Panthéon, in Paris.
Life
[change | change source]Victor Hugo was the son of Joseph Léopold Sigisbert Hugo (1773–1828) and Sophie Trébuchet (1772-1821). He had two older brothers called Abel Joseph Hugo (1798–1855) and Eugène Hugo (1800–1837). He was born in 1802, in Besançon (in the Doubsdepartment). Hugo lived in France for most of his life. During the reign of Napoleon III he went into exile. In 1851, he lived in Belgium, in Brussels.He moved to Jersey in 1852. He stayed there until 1855 when he went to live in Guernsey until 1870. He lived there again in 1872-1873. From 1859, his exile was by choice.
Some great events marked Hugo's early childhood. A few years before his birth, the Bourbon Dynasty was overthrown during the French Revolution. The First Republic rose and fell and the First French Empire rose under the rule of Napoléon Bonaparte. Napoléon became Emperor two years after Hugo's birth. The Bourbon Monarchy was restored when Hugo was 17. His parents had different political and religious views. Hugo's father was an officer. He ranked very high in Napoléon's army. He was an atheistrepublican and considered Napoléon a hero. His mother was an extreme CatholicRoyalist
Victor Hugo
(1802-1885)
Who Was Victor Hugo?
Victor Hugo was a French poet and novelist who, after training as a lawyer, embarked on the literary career. He became one of the most important French Romantic poets, novelists and dramatists of his time, having assembled a massive body of work while living in Paris, Brussels and the Channel Islands. Hugo died on May 22, 1885, in Paris.
Early Life
Victor-Marie Hugo was born in Besançon, France, on February 26, 1802, to mother Sophie Trébuche and father Joseph-Léopold-Sigisbert Hugo. His father was a military officer who later served as a general under Napoleon.
'The Hunchback of Notre Dame'
Hugo studied law between 1815 and 1818, though he never committed himself to legal practice. Encouraged by his mother, Hugo embarked on a career in literature. He founded the Conservateur Litteraire, a journal in which he published his own poetry and the work of his friends. His mother died in 1821. The same year, Hugo married Adèle Foucher and published his first book of poetry, Odes et poésies diverses. His first novel was published in 1823, followed by a number of plays.
Hugo's innovative brand of Romanticism developed over the first decade of his career.
In 1831, he published one of his most enduring works, Notre-Dame de Paris (The Hunchback of Notre Dame). Set in the medieval period, the novel presents a harsh criticism of the society that degrades and shuns the hunchback, Quasimodo. This was Hugo's most celebrated work to date and paved the way for his subsequent political writing.
'Les Misérables'
A prolific writer, Hugo was established as one of the most celebrated literary figures in France by the 1840s. In 1841, he was elected to the French Academy and nominated for the Chamber of Peers. He stepped back from publishing his work following the accidental drowning of his daughter and her husband in 1843. In private, he began work on a piece of writing that would become Les Misérables.
Hugo fled to B