Customer Reviews

Hernani

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To English readers, Victor Hugo is known almost entirely for his great novels. However, he was also a dramatist - France's most important through much of the nineteenth century and the preeminent force in Romantic drama generally. His plays are still widely admired in France, and anyone who reads Hernani, his first major dramatic work, will see why. Debuting in 1830, it is early Hugo, but much of his greatness is here in near full force: possibly unequaled emotion portrayal, stirring suspense, bittersweet tragedy, high action, grandiloquent dialogue, etc. Anyone who loves these traits in Hugo's novels will enjoy them here. Though not as ambitious, complex, or original as his later prose work, this is a very fine drama that exemplifies Romantic plays and still stands up very well on its own. Those who have been through Hugo's best work and thirst for more would do well to seek out Hernani.