Suggested Readings: Victor Hugo and Romanticism

Selected Poems of Victor Hugo: A Bilingual Edition
By Victor Hugo, translated by E.H. Blackmore
ISBN: 0226359808

“As Caesar straddled ‘the world like a colossus,’ according to Shakespeare’s Cassius, Hugo straddles French literature. France’s greatest and most monumental poet, he stretched the rules of French verse and the reach of French vocabulary as did no other poet, which makes him very difficult to translate. . . . That said, it must also be affirmed that the Blackmores, by exploiting the metrical diversity of nineteenth-century English verse, have fashioned highly readable versions of Hugo from every volume of his poetry.“ —Booklist

Romanticism and Its Discontents
By Anita Brookner
ISBN: 0374251592

“Characterizing Romanticism as an expression of ‘infinite longing,’ Brookner deftly traces its rise and fall in a time of upheaval during which tradition was challenged, the personal took precedence over the social, and the spiritual was invested in the artistic. She then vigorously analyzes these paradigm shifts in lively profiles of a handful of influential painters and writers and, along the way, chronicles the birth of serious art criticism. In the visual realm, she portrays the pioneering Antoine-Jean Gros, and contrasts the dramatic and searching Delacroix with the more serene and content Ingres.” —Booklist

Classic, Romantic, and Modern
By Jacques Barzun
ISBN: 0226038521

“The erudite pundit surveys the great style movements of modernity.” —The Reader’s Catalog

“Drawing from the works of influential figures in art and literature, the author traces the development of romanticism from classicism and the emergence of the modern ego.”—Amazon.com.uk book description

Victor Hugo: A Biography
By Graham Robb
ISBN:0393318990

“Biographies, particularly biographies of writers, are all too often boringly unnecessary, adding nothing new but a slight spin. In the preface to his Victor Hugo, Robb refers to a previous life of Hugo that falls lamentably into this category. His own book is both necessary and highly readable, and easily outclasses all existing Hugo biographies in English. It is very fully documented and makes use of the latest research, but is never ponderous.” —New York Times Book Review