Les Mis Education Background.Indd

ABOUT VICTOR HUGO Victor was an excellent student who During the next 15 years he excelled in mathematics, physics, produced six plays, four volumes philosophy, French literature, Latin, of verse, and the romantic historical and Greek. He won fi rst place in a novel The Hunchback of Notre national poetry contest when he was 17. Dame, establishing his reputation as As a teenager, he fell in love with the greatest writer in France. a neighbour’s daughter, Adele Foucher. However, his mother In 1831, Adele Hugo became discouraged the romance, believing romantically involved with a well that her son should marry into a known critic and good friend of fi ner family. When his mother died Victor’s named Sainte-Beuve. Victor in 1821, Victor refused to accept became involved with the actress fi nancial help from his father. He Juliette Drouet, who became his lived in abject poverty for a year, but mistress in 1833. Supported by a then won a pension of 1,000 francs small pension from Hugo, Drouet a year from Louis XVIII for his fi rst became his unpaid secretary and volume of verse. Barely out of his travelling companion for the next teens, Hugo became a hero to the fi fty years. common people as well as a favourite of heads of state. Throughout his After losing one of his daughters lifetime, he played a major role in in a drowning accident and VICTOR HUGO’S enormously France’s political evolution from experiencing the failure of his successful career covered most of dictatorship to democracy. play Les Burgraves in 1843, Hugo the nineteenth century and spanned decided to focus on the growing both the Romantic and Realistic He lived in abject poverty social problems in France. He movements. A great poet, novelist, was joined in his increasing playwright, essayist, pamphleteer, for a year, but then won interest in politics by a number of diarist, politician and moralist, Hugo a pension of 1,000 francs a other Romantic writers, marking was a man of immense passion and year from Louis XVIII. the beginning of the Realistic- endless contradictions. Naturalistic era in French literature. In 1822, he married Adele Foucher, Hugo was born on February 26, who became the mother of his 1802. His father, General Joseph children, Leopold-Victor, Charles- Leopold Hugo, was the son of a Victor, Francois-Victor, Adele, and carpenter who rose through the Leopoldine. ranks of Napoleon’s citizen army. However, Victor’s mother decided In 1830, Victor became one of the not to subject her three sons to the leaders of a group of Romantic diffi culties of army life, and settled rebels who were trying to loosen in Paris to raise them. Madame the hold of classical literature in Hugo became the mistress of her France. His play Hernani, whose husband’s commanding offi cer, premiere was interrupted by fi st- General Lahorie, who was a father fi ghts between Hugo’s admirers and fi gure to Hugo and his brothers until detractors, took a large step towards the General’s execution in 1812. a more realistic theatre and made him a rich man. Background | 1 ABOUT VICTOR HUGO Hugo was a moderate republican Napoleon, returned to his poetry and portions of his royalties to purchase who was made a Peer of France in published several novels including weapons. He lost two sons, one in 1845. After the Revolution of 1848 Les Misérables, which he had begun 1871 and one in 1873. Although he and the founding of the Second years earlier. was elected to the Senate in 1876, Republic, he was elected a deputy poor health caused him to return to to the Constitutional Assembly. Over 3 million spectators Guernsey. Mme. Hugo died in 1868 Three years later, when Louis and Mme. Drouet in 1882. Napoleon abolished the Republic follwed his cortege to the and reestablished the Empire, Hugo Pantheon. Hugo died in 1885 at the age of risked execution trying to rally the eighty-three. Although he left workers of Paris against the new When Les Misérables was published instructions that his funeral be Emperor. However, his efforts failed, in Brussels in 1862, it was an simple, over 3 million spectators and he had to escape to Brussels. immediate popular success in spite followed his cortege to the Pantheon, of negative reaction by critics, who where he was buried amid France’s As a result, Hugo spent the next considered it overly sentimental, and great men. Hugo’s death came decade in exile with his family the government, who banned it. at the end of a century of war, and Mme. Drouet on the islands of civil confl ict, brutally repressed Jersey and Guernsey. During these After the Franco-Prussian War insurrections such as the student years, he wrote satires about Louis and the fall of the Empire in 1870, rebellion in Les Misérables, and Hugo made a triumphant return to social injustice. Because of his belief Paris. He remained there through in the triumph of good over evil and the siege of the city and contributed his pleading for tolerance and non- violence, Victor Hugo was the herald of the new democratic spirit. Background | 2 ABOUT THE NOVEL LES MISÉRABLES is a melodramatic him. Inside there was a dazzlingly Foreshadowing the success story of novel written from the premise beautiful woman dressed in velvet, the musical, over one hundred years that any man can rise above his playing with a child hidden under later, the novel Les Misérables was, circumstances to reach perfection. ribbons, embroidery and furs. The initially, a popular, rather than a The plot of the novel is suspenseful impoverished man stared at the critical, triumph. “All the reviews,” from start to fi nish; it follows both woman in the carriage, but she was wrote Hugo, “are reactionary and Jean Valjean’s and society’s struggles totally unaware of him. Hugo wrote more or less hostile.” with good and evil. that he saw this man as, “the spectre of misery, the ghostly forewarning Like the musical, critical opinion Hugo began to think about Les in full light of day, in the sunshine, had absolutely no effect on Misérables as early as 1829. He of the revolution still plunged public interest in Les Misérables. observed the specifi c incident in the shadows of darkness, but Bookshop owners and other vendors that triggers the novel’s action on emerging from them. The moment literally battled to buy copies of the the streets of Paris in 1845. On he become aware of her existence, book for their customers. Long lines a sunny but cold day, he saw an while she remained unaware of his, and traffi c jams were observed all impoverished man being arrested a catastrophe was inevitable.” over the city as people fought to buy for stealing a loaf of bread. As one of the 48,000 copies put on sale the man stood on the street, an When Les Misérables the fi rst day. ornate carriage pulled up beside was published in 1862, it This phenomenon was echoed in generated more excitement 1985, when the musical version of than any book in the Hugo’s novel opened in London history of publishing. to mostly poor reviews. When Cameron Mackintosh, discouraged As the years passed, Les Misérables by the adverse critical response, evolved as Hugo’s own life called the box offi ce, he was greeted experiences shaped his philosophy. by a happily busy ticket salesman. He incorporated personal memories of all kinds in the novel, often mixing everyday trivial fact with fi ction to give the story a sense of journalistic truth. By the time it was published in 1862, it had become an epic novel, expressed in rich prose within a strong framework of history, philosophy, and political theory. “This is a leviathan I am about to ship out to sea,” he said before publishing. When Les Misérables was published in 1862, it generated more excitement than any book in the history of publishing. It was widely advertised in Paris with giant sketched portraits of Cosette, Fantine, Marius and Jean Valjean. Background | 3 ABOUT THE NOVEL “I’m amazed you managed to get The book was a sensation for social change, the novel through,” Mackintosh was told, Les Misérables acquired many “the phones haven’t stopped in America, whose own enemies. Conservatives feared the ringing.” As with the novel, the civil unrest at the time social impact of the novel, and the story of Les Misérables had touched seemed to many to mirror Vatican banned it for several years. a common chord, and its great the events and feelings of A theatrical version, written by success was built on word of mouth. Hugo’s son Charles, was banned the novel. in France, opening instead in Brussels. The French newspaper Hugo wrote about his book, “I don’t The initial French language success The Constitutionnel wrote that know if it will be read by everyone, was copied all over the world as if the ideas of the novel were but it is meant for everyone. It soon as the book became available acknowledged, “no part of the social addresses England as well as Spain, in translation. The book was a order would remain standing.” Italy as well as France, Germany as sensation in America, whose own well as Ireland, the republics that civil unrest at the time seemed Nonetheless, Les Misérables has harbour slaves as well as empires to many to mirror the events and been translated into nearly every that have serfs. Social problems feelings of the novel.

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