Thanks to the success of the musical adaptation of Les Misérables and the Disney film The Hunchback of Notre-Dame, Victor Hugo is probably the best known French author in America. In this lesson, you will learn to appreciate the poetry and prose of this great writer. As you study Hugo, keep in mind what you have just learned about literary movements. In the two works presented here, you will see themes of love lost and of longing for a past that has been destroyed by the forces of change.
In this lesson you will learn key information concerning Victor Hugo’s life and works. You will learn to recognize how Hugo expresses certain themes of romanticism in his personal life and in his observations about social and political change in Paris.