Hugo

Use in the book

The response to Lucrèce Borgia is admiring but discriminating. Guérin describes Hugo’s work as leaving the soul shaken and the head heated, then divides the author’s characteristic power into two impulses. One is violent, excessive, drawn to terrifying and fantastic adventure; the other is calm, tender, and attentive to what is pure and fruitful in humanity. Several earlier works are listed as carrying this double impress. The new drama appears to embody the contrast with particular force, in accord with what Guérin has read in its prefatory warning. Yet the closing restriction matters as much as the praise. Hugo may produce magnificent work through this duality, but will do harm if he makes it a practice for other writers. An individual strength must not automatically become a school’s rule. The passage thus distinguishes recognition of a writer’s singular organization from submission to a transferable formula. The additional judgement that one impulse is fatalistic because insufficiently near God belongs to Guérin’s critical perspective in April 1833.

Places to read

1. 10 April 1833 · ¶2The extended review names two impulses, surveys their earlier manifestations, and resists turning Hugo’s method into a general prescription.
2. 15 April 1833 · ¶1Hugo also figures among the poets discussed on the walk to Saint-Malo, showing the place of contemporary books in companionship.

Translation in this edition

The French title is Lucrèce Borgia. The claim about the drama’s importance is Guérin’s report of Hugo’s avertissement; no separate wording from that preface is supplied here.