Victor Hugo

Victor Hugo (French: Victor Marie Vicomte Hugo) (February 26, 1802 - May 22, 1885) was a French novelist, poet, and playwright, and the most prominent representative of the French Romantic movement. From his early teenage years, he recognized his literary talent and began translating works from Latin as well as creating his own original poetic works. His value was soon acknowledged within the French academic circle and among the wider reading public. Simultaneously, he engaged in politics, gradually transforming from a pro-monarchist conservative to a radical democrat. In the latter part of his life, he was adored by the French nation, identifying himself with France itself, as he stated in his poem "Lettre à une femme" (Letter to a Woman): "Je ne sais plus mon nom, je m'appelle Patrie!" (I no longer know my name, I am called Homeland). Above all, as the greatest French writer of the immediate post-revolutionary era, he was the poet of the new world, the prophetic, visionary philosopher and myth-maker of a radically new age.