Inkhorn Modules 5-8

LES ANNÉES FUNESTES translation and original

Module 5: Victor Marie Hugo's Environment (1802-1885) and Les Années Funestes; look for influences of Aristotle.

Hugo emphasizes serenity as the condition and atmosphere that he prefers (page 20, for example); through grand literary style, he conveys the catastrophe of an inferno created by despotic leaders, an Anagnorsis (experience of recognition) that continues throughout the work. He also implements elements of tragedy, oxymoron, catharsis, Nemesis, metaphor, strophe, contexture of circumstances and actions, and references to the ancient tragedian Aeschylus (424-456 B.C.), who had fought against the Persians. His reference to Dante indicates his academia that followed the line of students educated through student predecessors of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, for example. Dante had written that Aristotle was “Master of those who know,” and all writers even during Shakespeare’s times had studied through the original Academy (and Lyceum) of Aristotle and Plato, because Aristotle had studied with Plato; Plato with Socrates. The cause for his death was completely unjust—he was a martyr—a saint to those who learned of his wisdom. Referring to the “saintly cause,” “inhumane groups,” and his “lofty spirit” that plays “tempest hymns” that “shine” and “blaze” (page 19, 20), Hugo creates an evocation to superimpose the “ideal sphere” where havoc and infernal impossibilities multiply. Clearly, Hugo was intricately educated in the ancient tragedians. To him, conquerors and tyrants are inhumane and intolerable, and from the lofty heights of skies, his heart had to endure the dead who sacrificed their lives as martyrs to fulfill the will of despots. Relieving his pain compels qualities that evoke transcendence, compassion, and profound wisdom—components of Aesthetics.

Napoleon’s name first appears on page 22; simultaneously, “dreadful dreams,” “disaster,” “altars of danger,” an “empire with no rightful claimant,” immense “remorse” for the massacres. Why recall Corneille (page 26)? To continue with the tremendous evocation of worthy reality, in contrast to the desires of the Emperor who compels poverty and sorrow. Reinforcing the grievous plagues brought forth by despots, kings—Hugo is tormented by Brutus and Caesar, who he deplores for their extortion of finances, resources, and labor. Hugo staunchly opposes the caesars who he declares do wash from their streets the blood of those who have lost their lives to the same opulent despots who ever hide behind the sacred word and altars. In fact, he considers tyrants who work others inhumanely to be traitors—deceitful in respect to the humanitarian codes that they purport. On page 28, Bonaparte’s name appears again—a fallacy persists about those who justify to themselves the massive massacres that they commit against their communities. Furthermore, a reversal of situation (peripeteia) is evident (page 41) after Hugo relieves himself of his tormenting grief by considering the other side of England’s support for Bonaparte. “I will intoxicate him [the laborer] through the machine gun,” and he states that he does not desire Bonaparte’s finale--that everyone recovers when Bonaparte knows that they will fall again. Yet, he reverts again in another reversal of situation to the tragic revelation about egocentric unjust standards that support the sword (page 53) to eliminate rivals to resources. Hugo’s thought is relentless as an intellectual element of his introspective dialogues through himself and through the interactive characterization that he recounts.

A germane exercise includes the highlighting of words, phrases, and statements that indicate Hugo’s education in the ancient tragedians. Very much evidence exists that foundations exist which relate to the causes for diplomatic methods and distinguishable diction--semantics that may be translated across languages; hence, a universal language and aesthetic. To begin and perhaps substantially prove these theories, the following should be underlined or highlighted:

• Page 17: Reference to comedian Moliére (actor, dramatist); Tyrtaeus: an elegiac Athenian poet who had inspired the Spartans by his songs so as to defeat the Messenians;

• Page 18: Reference to Dante with grand esteem--Dante who had declared Aristotle to be the “Master of those who know”;

• Page 19: Aeschylus—Greek tragic dramatist (525-456 B.C.) who fought against the Persians, and highly respected by Aristotle (384-322 B.C.);

• Page 20: Electra again; Hugo prefers serenity. Why mention Boccaccio and Venus, who midst these conditions would fly away? Hugo clearly emphasizes his discontent with Sophism and intimate relations;

• Page 25: “creation seems an apotheosis”;

• Page 26: Emperor;

• Page 28: Bonaparte’s name first appears in reference to one of the tyrants who have devastated civilization through unconscionable massacres

• Page 30: Hellé, Ipsara;

• Page 31: Caïphe

• Page 34: “Where the infamous thrive”—the “black shadow down of monstrous day”—“Paris set in bondage by tyrants, kings, emperors, conquerors”;

• Page 35: Baudin;

• Page 36: Napoleon III’s Minister Rouher whose “vile mouths…”

• Page 37: Clio—muse of music;

• Page 41: “I will intoxicate him [the laborer]—the machine gun; he “desires not the death of Bonaparte, that everyone recovers,” when he knows that they will fall again;” Irony;

• Page 53: “innocence is by the sword”—completely innocent individuals are unjustly imprisoned, forced to a premature unjust death, and even executed—a theme that is reworded repeatedly with different historic figures and literary tactics

• Page 54: “these Sophists”

• Page 58: Nemesis

• Page 66: Reading Homer will have magnificent effects

• Page 80: “The English admire Bonaparte”

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Module 6: Hugo’s Environment, Philosophy, Ethics, Style and Les Années Funestes

Impressed by other French tragedians who were also educated in the classic tradition of Socrates-Plato-Aristotle, Hugo was also influenced by François René Chateaubriand (1768-1848), who portrayed the realistic side of Revolutionary inspiration and aspiration through his detailed chronicles. Written during the earliest stages of Romanticism, his chronicles consist of a style of prose that are vibrantly passionate and circumspective, and that abound in a unique fervency for nature. According to Binet’s Encyclopedia (Binét & Dingler, 1987), Chateaubriand was a foremost influential writer who had served as minister of foreign relations and as ambassador to Germany, England, and Italy. Research indicates that Chateaubriand’s themes did impress Hugo through critical sensitivity that strived to detect and prevent exacerbating conditions. Chateaubriand had instilled current tradition into his focus of the Crusades, as evident in his Les Martyrs (1809) and L’Itinéraire de Paris à Jérusalem et de Jérusalem à Paris (1811), centerpieces of the Holy Land, ancient and current Greece, and surrounding Middle Eastern lands. Hugo’s meditation did permeate in a blend of the original tragedians and Chateaubriand’s chronicles—he had been influenced also by the mortal struggle and dilemma that Chateaubriand had addressed, and the complex evocations of Spirit that the enduring diplomat had expressed through his Mémoires d’Outre-Tombe (Binet & Dingler, 1987).

Emperor Bonaparte I was portrayed by Chateaubriand and Hugo through three generations of multi-faceted splendor; as a leader throughout Europe; he had lead tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands of soldiers from Poland, Prussia, Austria, France, and Switzerland, for example, who traversed helter-skelter trenches, blazing aftermaths of canon ball, torch; incendiary ruins reminiscent even of Xerxes fiercest pyre; the multiple decline of Troy. The detailed prose of Chateaubriand did influence the disciplined structure of Hugo’s panorama and observation, the distances between the Emperor and his subservient riffraff that Hugo recognized as inhumane and preventable massacres.

• Check out the Memoires d’Outre-Tombe and look for evidence of it in Hugo’s magnificent dramatic poetry, Les Années Funeste. How are the two similar? How do they differ? Please check out the rhyme and meter of the original French version.

Module 7: More Topics that Relate to the Romantic Era and Revolutionary Literature

More Topics about Revolutionary Literature. Of relatively obscure derivation, tragedy has remained evident in dramatic works that recount fiction and non-fiction reports, even since the times of ancient tragedian Seneca. Leon Trotsky (1879-1940) had written extensively of the subject as it relates aesthetics, political influences, social reactions, extrinsic revolutionary actions, and internal conflicts with the dialectic analyses involved in the qualities and artistic emanation of literature. Some of the following topics are important to the analysis of all forms of literature, because all protagonists convey some conflict that resolves in some profound revelation or resolution that coincides with the problem-solving characteristics of the tragedian model, even when the tragedy evokes the revenge form associated with the dramatic features of William Shakespeare (1564-1616) and Johann Wilhelm von Goethe (1785-1830).

Some of the topics associated with the critical analyses and metacognitive orientation of exceptional literature include the following:

ü Comparisons of social activity and phenomenon that pertain to the existence and cycles of natural science;

ü Effects of social and political conflict among the bourgeoisie, proletariat, and aristocracy--terms that vary among languages and nations;

ü Individual creativity as influenced through economic distinctions or class society;

ü Prevalent conditions and discrepancies that initiate and exist due to war or other revolution;

ü Similarities that relate to the anti-structuralism of Jacques Derrida (1930-2004) (Lawlor, 2006; 2011) and that expound upon a method of cultural criticism that is more distinct; See, for example: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/derrida/

ü References to economic distinction evoked by trends of social activities—dilemmas of war; the profundity that evokes thoughts about transcendence; laborers and troops interacting in problematic and tragic ways; proletariat ideals; expressive emotions and metaphor;

ü Similarities to the dual impressions of dialectic thinking that are important to the observation and criticism of surface or explicit areas of politics, implications of Marxism, the expression of lifestyle, and proletarian culture as on official social system;

ü Implications of revenge tragedy in revolutionary literature and the evocation of spiritual domain;

ü Profound impressions that are neoclassic as the concept of tragedy from Seneca to English and French Middle Ages and Elizabethan dramatic histories, chronicles, and references;

ü Bohemian Art

ü Seneca Tragedy versus Revenge Tragedy

ü Hudibras and Tragedy

ü Trotsky’s Workingman Poetry

ü Highest are form to Aristotle and Trotsky

ü Intelligentsia of the Formalist School’s Denouncing of Marx by Trotsky

ü Trotsky Art for the Sake of Art

ü Creative Artistic Literature

ü Social Influences as a Catalyst in Art

ü Cosmos and Proletarian Art

ü Cataclysmic and Insight as Generational Literature

ü Futurism and Aesthetical Revelations in Literature

ü Materialistic Dialectics and Aestheticism

ü Influence of Trotsky and Dewey on Innovative Literature

The topics evoke challenging discussion, debate, and expository; additionally, they evoke insight into new literary work, to the educational vocabulary portfolio, and to critical, analytical development.