'Chateaubriand ou rien, Hugo et tout': Contemplating the Poet's Posterity. (1st October 2016)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Stephens, Bradley
• Is Part Of: Dix-neuf. Volume 20:Number 3/4(2016)
• Page Start: 229
• Page End: 240
• Publication Date: 2016-10-01
• Subjects: Victor Hugo -- Chateaubriand -- posterity -- patriarchy -- biography -- reception -- memorialization -- popular culture -- French national education; France -- Study and teaching -- Periodicals; 944.007
• DOI: 10.1080/14787318.2016.1263429
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1478-7318

Abstract

Abstract : Victor Hugo's vow as a teenager to become Chateaubriand ultimately surpassed even this audacious ambition. Today, Hugo casts an inescapable shadow across contemporary culture as nineteenth-century France's most iconic writer, as recent political, pedagogical, and popular discussions indicate. This article explores some of these examples so as to confirm Hugo's redoubtable cultural capital before asking: what did it actually mean in Hugo's eyes to equal his childhood idol's standing? By returning to Hugo's own understanding of what it meant to become a 'great man', the clichés of patriarchal authority that so often surround his oeuvre can be contested in order to allow for a more probing understanding of both his work and his enduring influence. A closing overview of this special issue of Dix-Neuf situates each of the diverse contributions along this critical line of thinking as an introduction to the scholarship that Hugo's work increasingly encourages in the twenty-first century.