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Hippolyte La Morvonnais

Hippolyte; un homme pieux et poëte; père; ami

The poet and host at Le Val, identified in the historical editor’s note as the author of La Thébaïde des Grèves.

From the book

The Green Notebook

Maurice de Guérin · Diotimos Editions · 2026

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Orientation

At a Glance

  • The wordThe poet and host at Le Val, identified in the historical editor’s note as the author of La Thébaïde des Grèves.
  • In GuérinHippolyte’s role is less that of a quoted literary authority than a companion who makes perception shareable.
  • In this editionThe identification appears in both supplied witnesses’ historical notes.
  • A reading distinctionThe additional 1861 address occurs at 8 December 1833 · ¶3 · 1861 variant and is not part of the 1864 storm scene.

Meaning

The poet and host at Le Val, identified in the historical editor’s note as the author of La Thébaïde des Grèves. His wife and young daughter are both named Marie.

Use in the book

Hippolyte’s role is less that of a quoted literary authority than a companion who makes perception shareable. The coastal scenes repeatedly use a plural subject: two people watch the storm, listen without speaking, and remain so still that they resemble ancient statues on promontories. Their companionship is compatible with silence. In the household portrait, study and poetic exchange occupy their place among meals, walks, family play, and collecting fuel. A poet’s life is shown through the shape of days, not illustrated by an excerpt from his published work. The January farewell again includes reading: the friends contemplate Guérin’s account of their happiness as though looking at the image of someone already dead. After Marie’s actual death, Hippolyte’s demand that grief remember the happy days becomes a sentence Guérin can speak to himself. His presence therefore links the original experience, its written record, and its painful afterlife. The journal gives no warrant to derive Guérin’s poetics from the title of Hippolyte’s book alone.

Places to read

  1. 7 December 1833 · ¶4The unnamed pious poet of the household portrait is identified as Hippolyte by the historical note.
  2. 9 December 1833 · ¶2The evening walk names Hippolyte and places shared hearing at the centre of their relation to the coast.
  3. 20 January 1834 · ¶3The friends read the notebook’s image of past days together before departure.
  4. 9 February 1835 · ¶2Hippolyte’s words about weeping for the good days with Marie enter Guérin’s own mourning.

Translation in this edition

The identification appears in both supplied witnesses’ historical notes. The 1861 December 8 paragraph directly addresses Hippolyte while thanking heaven for contemplating the storm without present danger to living beings.

Source note

Historical notes S7 and historical note S13. The additional 1861 address occurs at 8 December 1833 · ¶3 · 1861 variant and is not part of the 1864 storm scene.