Victor Hugo

Gautier, Théophile, 1811-1872Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

3.9

Word count: 293K words
Chapters: 30

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.Victor Hugo by Théophile GautierAuthor: Gautier, Théophile, 1811-1872,Language: French, Class: PQ: Language and Literatures: Romance literatures: French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Release Date: May 3, 2016

Editor's review

This is a critical biography of Hugo written by the French Romantic writer Gautier, published in the original French and made freely available by Project Gutenberg. Its value lies not in providing a chronological account of Hugo's life but in offering one contemporary writer's close-up observation and literary assessment of another giant of letters: Gautier was himself a key participant in the Romantic camp, and his portrait of Hugo carries the warmth of firsthand experience and the judgment of a peer. The book sketches Hugo's creative temperament, spiritual character, and historical situation, and its language bears the rhetorical style of nineteenth-century French prose. It is suitable as a primary source for understanding Hugo's reception history and the Romantic literary circle. It should be read as a literary critical biography rather than a modern scholarly biography; French readers will better appreciate the flavor of its style.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Readers studying French Romantic literature and the reception history of Hugo
Readers with French reading ability who want to read nineteenth-century critical texts
General readers interested in authorial biographies and materials on literary circles

Not a good fit for

Readers who cannot read French and do not intend to use a translation
Readers expecting modern scholarly conventions, detailed notes, and a chronology
Beginners seeking only quick access to basic facts about Hugo's life

Reading tips

First understand the relationship between Hugo and Gautier in the Romantic movement; this makes the evaluative stance of the text easier to grasp.
Read the book's judgments alongside later Hugo biographies, noting the biases of a contemporary perspective.
Readers with limited French may read alongside a reliable translation to avoid being stalled by rhetorical sentence structures.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

FAQ

Was this book written by Hugo himself?

No. The author is Théophile Gautier, a French Romantic writer who belonged to the same literary era as Hugo. This book is his critical writing on Hugo, a critical biography rather than Hugo's own account.

Is there a Chinese translation of this book?

The information indicates that this e-book is in the original French and does not mention a Chinese translation. Readers who need to read in Chinese should look for a relevant translation or reference materials separately; this entry itself should not be taken as evidence of a Chinese edition.

What language background is needed to read this book?

The main text is in French, so a certain reading ability in French is recommended, sufficient to handle the sentence structures and rhetoric of nineteenth-century literary prose. Readers with limited French may first use a translation or introduction to understand the framework, then read against the original.

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About the author

Gautier, Théophile, 1811-1872 Author

Théophile Gautier (1811–1872) was a French poet, novelist and critic, with 24 works held in this collection. His verse collection Émaux et camées (Enamels and Cameos) is known for its finely wrought language and pursuit of formal beauty, and is regarded as a practice of the doctrine of art for art's sake; the two volumes of Poésies Complètes gather his poetry. In fiction, Mademoiselle de Maupin and One of Cleopatra's Nights and Other Fantastic Romances display his romantic and fantastical narrative interests. Gautier's style attends closely to color, line and sensory experience, and influenced later aesthetic literature. Public information is limited, so biographical details are not elaborated here.