Ruy Blas [Paperback]

Victor Hugo (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1, 1971

Dans l'Espagne de la fin du XVIIe siècle, alors que la monarchie est en proie au complot, un laquais se voit chargé, en secret, d'usurper l'identité d'un grand seigneur, et de diriger le pays. Ce laquais, c'est Ruy Blas, amoureux de la reine qui ignore tout de ce travestissement...Créée en 1838, cette pièce est bien plus qu'une simple espagnolade. Car, par le drame, Victor Hugo entend « ressusciter le passé au profit du présent » : de l'Espagne de Charles II à la France de Louis-Philippe, il n'y a qu'un pas. Et, comme dans Lorenzaccio de Musset, la question centrale est ici celle du peuple, incarné par Ruy Blas - « le peuple, orphelin, pauvre, intelligent et fort ; placé très bas, et aspirant très haut » (Préface). Œuvre hybride où Hugo mêle en virtuose sublime et grotesque, tragique et comique, et manie la langue avec une aisance souveraine, Ruy Blas connut un succès sans précédent, et demeure l'une des pièces majeures du drame romantique.

--This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Victor Hugo's romantic melodrama Ruy Blas was first performed in 1838 for the opening of the Theatre de la Renaissance. There was a revival at the Odeon with Sarah Bernhardt in 1872, and at the Theatre-Francais in 1879.

Victor Hugo (1802-1885) was a novelist, poet, and dramatist, and the most important of French Romantic writers. In his preface to his historical play Cromwell (1827) Hugo wrote that romanticism is the liberalism of literature. Hugo developed his own version of the historical novel, combining concrete, historical details with vivid, melodramatic, even feverish imagination. Among his best-known works are The Hunchback of Notre Dame and Les Misérables.

Victor Hugo was one of the greatest personalities of French literature. Though not without the faults and eccentricities which frequently characterize great geniuses, he never entered any field of literature without excelling in it. The novel, the lyric, the drama, criticism, all fell from his facile pen without apparent effort. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 225 pages
• Publisher: French & European Pubns (October 1, 1971)
• ISBN-10: 0785910727
• ISBN-13: 978-0785910725
• Product Dimensions: 6.4 x 4.3 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The English Tranlation of Victor Hugo's "Ruy Blas", November 8, 2001

By 

"[e-mail]" (COLCHESTER, Essex United Kingdom) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Ruy Blas (Paperback)

This is an interesting translation and I quote from the translator's preface.

I have adopted the twelve syllable metre of rhyming verse, because it is the nearest approach possible to the great original, and carries out the design I had from the first, namely: to render into English the form, as well as, if possible, the spirit of the great French drama.

End of quote.

The story is of court intrigue in Spain in the late seventeenth century but Victor Hugo is writing about human nature in general. Not a pretty sight !

It is strange for the modern reader to be presented with social attitudes of a bygone age and they are rather difficult for us to appreciate but that is, presumably what it was like in those days. How the world has changed !

Rather frustratingly, we do not know the translator's name or when the work was done but I am impressed with his effort.

In my opinion, this is certainly worth reading for it's own sake as well as being an excellent pre-cursor to reading it French.

4.0 out of 5 stars Classic Hugo, September 20, 2010

By 

Bill R. Moore (New York, USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Ruy Blas: A Drama in Five Acts (Paperback)

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 Ruy Blas, often called his dramatic masterpiece, will see why. Much of Hugo's greatness is here in near full force: possibly unequaled emotion portrayal, stirring suspense, bittersweet tragedy, grandiloquent dialogue, etc. Anyone who loves these traits in Hugo's novels will enjoy them here. The real treat is his brilliant lyricism, which reaches truly sublime heights; the speeches are so beautiful and moving that the play is worth reading for them alone. This is in part a love story of the high-pitched kind that only Hugo can make but also a political allegory that sadly still rings true. A distinct move forward from Hugo's simpler prior plays, though not as ambitious, complex, or original as some of his other work, Ruy 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 Ruy.

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Definetely close to real life., July 27, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Ruy Blas (Ldp Theatre) (French Edition) (Mass Market Paperback)

I totally enjoyed reading Ruy Blas because it dramatically presents a situation that anyone could live. The character Ruy Blas himself and the relationship he has with the Queen, is one of the most realistic ones I have seen in a play. Not only because he is French, Hugo deserves a 5-star rating on this book!