Home > Victor Hugo

1 Life and work

Hugo was born in Besançon, Doubs in the region of Franche-Comté. He lived in exile during the reign of Napoleon III - in JerseyThe Bailiwick of Jersey is a British crown dependency off the coast of Normandy, France. As well as the island of Jersey itself, it also includes the uninhabited islands of Minquiers and Ecrehous. Along with the Bailiwick of Guernsey it forms the grouping 1852Events January 14 President Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte proclaims a new constitution for the French Second Republic. January 17 United Kingdom recognizes independence of the Transvaal Devil's Island penal colony opens February 11 First British public toilet- 1855Events Births January 5 King Camp Gillette, inventor († 1932) January 21 John Moses Browning, inventor († 1926) January 28 William Seward Burroughs, inventor of the calculator († 1898) March 13 Percival Lowell, astronomer († 19 and in GuernseyFor the garment with this name, see guernsey. The Bailiwick of Guernsey is a British crown dependency off the coast of France. As well as the island of Guernsey itself, it also includes Alderney, Sark, Herm, Jethou, Brecqhou, Burhou and other islets. from 1855 until his return to France in 1870Events January 6 The inauguration of the Musikverein ( Vienna). January 10 John D. Rockefeller incorporates Standard Oil January 15 A political cartoon for the first time symbolizes the United States Democratic Party with a donkey ("A Live Jackass Kicking.

Although Hugo is better known to the English-speaking world as a novelist, it was as a poetPoets are authors of poems. Poets are often regarded as imaginative thinkers or writers. List of poets Apocalypse poets Georgian poets List of romantic poets List of surrealist poets Symbolist Poets List of Albanian language poets List of Arabic language that he broke new ground. The French poetic traditions were as well-established in his time as the English ones were before the time of the Romantic poets, and Hugo's contribution may be compared with that of Wordsworth. He believed that the poet's purpose should be two-fold:

• To echo universal sentiment by revealing his own feelings, uniting the voices of mankind, nature and history.
• To guide the reader: "faire flamboyer l'avenir" - to lead the way.

In his epic, La Légende des Siècles, he attempts, by reference to historical events, to depict humanity's struggle to emerge from obscurity into enlightenment.

Hugo was the Honorary President and founder of the Association Littéraire et Artistique Internationale (ALAI) in 1878 in Paris which gave itself the objective of creating an international convention for the protection of literary and artistic properties which was achieved eight years later with the Berne Convention on September 9, 1886.

Hugo died in Paris on May 22, 1885. His death, and the spontaneous national mourning which followed, inspired the French government to reinvent the Panthéon in Paris as a temple in homage to the great men (and, eventually, women) of France. He is buried in its necropolis.

Hugo also became one of the three primary saints worshipped in the Vietnamese religion Cao Dai.