Customer Reviews

The Distance, The Shadows: Selected Poems (Poetica) (French and English Edition)

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Harry Guest has done a remarkable job of translating Hugo's poetry, written at all stages of his life from youth to old age, into clear, lucid, and poetic English. Hugo's poems have display a wide array of themes and subject matter, from lyrical odes to nature and on love to angry outbursts at the excesses of tyranny and the attempts of some human beings to subjugate others. Some of his poems are in effect discourses in verse on various stages of human history, from the creation of the world (literally) through biblical times (Old and New Testament) through the defeat of the Spanish Armada up through the 19th centrury and the excesses of both Napoleons, I and III. Hugo's poems in fact reminded me of Whitman, although I doubt that Whitman was influenced by Hugo.

The original French texts ate appended to the English translations so that the reader can compare the two texts. Guest's translation is more than literal. He manages to translate Hugo's texts into lyrical, poetic English, maintaining the meter of the original wherever possible, even if this has to be at the expense of a literal translation. This volume provides a most enjoyable excursion into some of the lesser known writings of a great author.