This generous, varied selection of poems by one of France's best-loved and most reviled poets is presented with facing originals, detailed notes, and a lively introduction to the author's life and work. Steven Monte presents more than eighty poems in translation and in the original French, taken from the earliest poetic publications of the 1820's, through collections published during exile, to works published in the years following Hugo's death in 1883. The introduction provides helpful background information about Hugo's life and work, the selection, and what is involved in translating a poet whose effortless rhymes are central to the poetry's power. Detailed notes at the back of the volume offer information about the poems and their publishing and historical contexts. This is an ideal introduction to a poet whose work, for all its renown, remains for Anglophone readers undiscovered.

Table of Contents:
Introduction; from Odes et Ballades (1822, 1823, 1824, 1826, 1828); À Mes Odes; from Les Orientales (1829); La Captive; Clair de lune; Les Djinns; Rêverie; Extase; from Les Feuilles d’automne (1831); La Pente de la rêverie; Soleils couchants (II); Soleils couchants (VI); from Les Chants du crépuscule (1835); À la Colonne; from Les Voix intérieures (1837); À Albert Durer; «Jeune homme, ce méchant fait»; La Vache; from Les Rayons et les ombres (1840); «Comme dans les étangs»; Ècrit sur le vitre d’une fenêtre flammande; Tristesse d’Olympio; Oceano Nox; Nuits de juin; from Les Châtiments (1853); Souvenir de la nuit du 4; Ce que le poëte se disait en 1848; L’Expiation; Au Peuple; Stella; «Sonnez, sonnez toujours»; «Cette nuit, il pleuvait»; from Les Contemplations (1856); Autrefois (1830-1843); «Le poëte s’en va dans les champs»; Mes Deux Filles; «Le firmament est plein de la vaste clarté»; À André Chénier; La Vie aux champs; Réponse à un acte d’accusation; Vere Novo; La Fête Chez Thérèse; «Heureux l’homme»; Halte en marchant; Le Rouet d’Omphale; Lettre; Paroles dans l’ombre; Écrit au bas d’un crucifix; «L’enfant, voyant l’aïeule à filer occupée»; Magnitudo Parvi; Aujourd’hui (1843-1855); «Oh! je fus comme fou dans le premier moment…»; «Elle avait pris ce pli dans son âge enfantin»; «Elle était pâle, et pourtant rose»; «O souvenirs! printemps! aurore!»; Veni, Vidi, Vixi; «Demain, dès l’aube»; À Villequier; Mors; Le Mendiant; Paroles sur la dune; Mugitusque boum; «Je payai le pêcheur qui passa son chemin»; Pasteurs et troupeaux; «J’ai cueilli cette fleur pour toi»; «O strophe du poëte»; «Un spectre m’attendait»; «Un jour, le morne esprit»; Èclaircie; Nomen, Numen, Lumen; À Celle qui est restée en France; from Les Chansons des rues et des bois (1865); Saison des semailles. Le soir; «Les enfants lisent, troupe blonde»; La Méridienne du lion; from L’Année Terrible (1872); «J’entreprend de conter l’année»; Du Haut de la muraille de Paris; 1er Janvier; Lettre à une femme; from L’Art d’être grand-père (1877); Fenêtres ouvertes; Jeanne endormie («Elle dort»); from La Légende des siècles (1859, 1877, 1883); La Conscience; Boozendormi; Première Rencontre du Christ avec le tombeau; L’Hydre; Mahomet; Le Parricide; Le Travail des captifs; La Rose de l’Infante; Après la Bataille; La Sœur de Charité; Après les Fourches Caudines; from La Fin de Satan (1886); Et Nox Facta Est; from Toute la Lyre (1888); «L’hexamètre…»; À Théophile Gautier; Notes; Index of Titles; Index of First Lines; from Odes and Ballads; To My Odes; from Orientalia; The Captive; Moonlight; The Djinns; Reverie; Rapture; from Autumn Leaves; The Slope of Reverie; Setting Suns (II); Setting Suns (VI); from The Songs of Daybreak; To the Column; from Inner Voices; To Albrecht Dürer; ‘The war that scoundrel wages’; The Cow; from Sunbeams and Shadows; ‘Just as in a forest’s drowsy pools’; Written on the pane of a Flemish window; Olympio’s Sadness; Oceano Nox; June Nights; from Punishments; Memory of the Night of the Fourth; What the poet said to himself in 1848; The Expiation; To the People; Stella; ‘Blow forever, trumpets of thought’; It was raining that night’; from Contemplations; Former Times; ‘The poet goes away into the fields ’; My Two Daughters; ‘The clarity that fills’; To André Chénier; Life in the Fields; Reply to an Act of Accusation; Vere Novo; The Party at Thérèse’s; ‘Happy the man ’; A Stop in the Middle of a Walk; The Spinning Wheel of Omphale; Letter; Words Spoken in the Shadows; Written on the Bottom of a Crucifix; ‘Seeing her grandmother occupied spinning wool ’; Magnitudo Parvi; Today; ‘I felt I had gone mad ’; ‘She had formed this habit ’; ‘She was pale ’; ‘Oh spring! oh dawn! oh memories!; Veni, Vidi, Vixi; ‘Tomorrow, at dawn ’; At Villequier; Mors; The Beggar; Words on the Dunes; Mugitusque Boum; ‘I paid the fisherman ’; Shepherds and Flocks; ‘I gathered this flower for you on the hill…; ‘Strophe of the poet ’; ‘A shade was waiting ’; ‘One day the solemn spirit; Clearing; Nomen, Numen, Lumen; To the One Who Stayed Behind in France; from Songs of the Streets and the Woods; Sowing Season. Evening; ‘The troop of children read and spell’; The Lion’s Midday Sleep; from The Horrific Year; I’m setting out to narrate that horrific year’; On Top of Paris’s Ram Parts; 44562; Letter to a Woman; from The Art of Being a Grandfather; Open Windows; Jeannine Asleep (‘She’s asleep’); from The Legend of the Centuries; Conscience; Boaz Asleep; Chapter rist’s First Encounter with the Tomb; The Hydra; Mohammed; The Parricide; The Work of the Prisoners; The Infanta’s Rose; After the Battle; The Sister of Mercy; After the Battle of the Caudine Forks; from The End of Satan; Et Nox Facta Est; from All the Lyre; The hexameter ’; To Théophile Gautier.