Selected Poems (Penguin Classics) (French Edition) [Paperback]

Victor Hugo (Author), Brooks Haxton (Translator)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 26, 2002 | Series: Penguin Classics

For most of his life, Victor Hugo (1802-1885) was the most famous writer in the world. His legacy includes the nineteenth century's most celebrated works of drama, fiction, memoir, and criticism. But in his day Hugo was know foremost as a poet-indeed the greatest French poet of the age. He wrote with passion about history, erotic experience, familial love, philosophy, nature, social justice, art, and mysticism.

In this new bicentennial edition, acclaimed poet and translator Brooks Haxton offers an exquisite selection of Hugo's finest work: love poems, historical tableaux, elegy, and idyll, including his incomparable "Boaz Asleep," which Marcel Proust praised as the most beautiful poem of the nineteenth century.

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About the Author

Born in 1802, the son of a high officer in Napoleon’s army, Victor Hugo spent his childhood against a background of military life in Elba, Corsica, Naples, and Madrid. After the Napoleonic defeat, the Hugo family settled in straitened circumstances in Paris, where, at the age of fifteen, Victor Hugo commenced his literary career with a poem submitted to a contest sponsored by the Académie Française. Twenty-four years later, Hugo was elected to the Académie, having helped revolutionize French literature with his poems, plays, and novels. Entering politics, he won a seat in the National Assembly in 1848; but in 1851, he was forced to flee the country because of his opposition to Louis Napoleon. In exile on the Isle of Guernsey, he became a symbol of French resistance to tyranny; upon his return to Paris after the Revolution of 1870, he was greeted as a national hero. He continued to serve in public life and to write with unabated vigor until his death in 1885. He was buried in the Pantheon with every honor the French nation could bestow.
Brooks Haxton's poetry translations include Dances for Flute and Thunder: Poems from the Ancient Greek, which was nominated for a PEN translation award, and Victor Hugo's Selected Poems for Penguin Classics.

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 18 and up
  
• Paperback: 144 pages
• Publisher: Penguin Classics (February 26, 2002)
• Language: French
• ISBN-10: 0142437034
• ISBN-13: 978-0142437032
• Product Dimensions: 6.9 x 6.1 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,430,322 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful to have!, October 18, 2005

By 

A. R. Greenlee (Montana, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Selected Poems (Penguin Classics) (French Edition) (Paperback)

Since almost no poetry by Hugo is available in English, this is a welcome sampling. THAT deserves five stars. The introduction is informative (and none too shy on opinions). The French original on the facing page is helpful for comparing with the translation. And the translator's notes on his method of translating put things in perspective. As usual, the translator must make a choice between two basic options: literalness (which may sacrifice "tone" or "rhyme"), or keeping the "sound" or rhyme of the original (which may necessitate substituting English words or phrases for those in the original). The current translator opted for the former choice. Fine. How odd, then, that he also mixes in elements of the second choice! The result sometimes is that you have neither the tone nor the rhyme nor the literal rendering of the original.

In one poem, for example, Hugo ends with a line that is six syllables long, with three of those words (and four syllables in those three words) carrying the same vowel sound -- "aw". Those words in French are "maison," "sans," and "enfants" (the last word ending the line.) Six syllables, four homonyms! Not bad! However, the translation has more than six syllables, and no words that sound alike,and some of the words in the translation are not in the original. How does that convey either the tone, mood, or rhyme of the original? In fact, the orignal has four phrases at the end of the poem, each of which repeats a pattern of contrast using the words "sans" ("without"): spring without flowers, a cage without bird, a hive without bees, a house without children. This obvious, simple, and intentional pattern is not maintained in the translation, and I wonder why. Instead, "poetic" license is in evidence by the translator. Part of Hugo's madness in this method may well have been to end with his clever (and lyrical) six-syllable, four-homonym ending, and in English, the "pay off" would not have been there. Still, how much license should a translator take?

In all, I am glad to have these poems, but I am restless till someone can find a way to come closer to Hugo. Maybe I should just learn French.

4.0 out of 5 stars Selected Poems (Penguin Classics), January 5, 2011

By 

l.yin - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Selected Poems (Penguin Classics) (French Edition) (Paperback)

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