Victor Hugo, French Author #5

Portrait of Victor Hugo at 18 years old. Victor Marie Hugo (February 26, 1802 - May 22, 1885) was a French poet, novelist, and dramatist of the... more

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Victor Hugo, French Author #5

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Photo Researchers

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Portrait of Victor Hugo at 18 years old. Victor Marie Hugo (February 26, 1802 - May 22, 1885) was a French poet, novelist, and dramatist of the Romantic movement. He is considered one of the greatest and best known French writers. In France, Hugo's literary fame comes first from his poetry but also rests upon his novels and his dramatic achievements. Outside France, his best-known works are the novels Les Miserables and Notre-Dame de Paris (The Hunchback of Notre-Dame). Because of his concern for the rights of artists and copyright, he was a founding member of the Association Littéraire et Artistique Internationale, which led to the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works. His novels as well as his plays have been a great source of inspiration for musicians, stirring them to create not only opera and ballet but musical theatre. His poems attracted an exceptional amount of interest from musicians, and numerous melodies have been based on his poetry. His death from pneumonia in 1885, at the age of 83, generated intense national mourning. He was not only revered as a towering figure in literature, he was a statesman who shaped the Third Republic and democracy in France. More than two million people joined his funeral procession in Paris from the Arc de Triomphe to the Panthéon, where he was buried. He shares a crypt within the Panthéon with Dumas and Zola.

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July 7th, 2014