Victor Hugo was born February 26th, 1802, in Besancon, where his father was commandant of the local garrison. He gained early notoriety for his poems, and before he was thirty years old, he had published numerous works, and his name famous. Hugo did not limit himself to one style of writing, he wrote odes and ballads, romances, and, of course, dramas. Shortly before the French revolution of 1830, a literary revolution took place, at the head of which was Hugo.

In 1827, Hugo published Cromwell, a long, unstageable, historical drama. T

The play is not written in the Alexandrine rhymed couplets of the Classicist style and the very first line was the cause of the riot.

he play is not regarded to be as important to the Romantic Revolution so much as the play’s preface. John Frey states in his book, A Victor Hugo Encyclopedia, that the preface to Cromwell is the “culmination of Romantic emancipation from the tenets of the French classic dramaturgy” (76).

In Hernani, Hugo still follows many of the Classicist rules. The events of the play do take place over more time than one day; however, considering all of the events in the play (the wedding, hangings, crowning of a new emperor) Hugo moves through the plot of the play in just a few days. Hugo very well could have had the events take course over a much longer period. Likewise, the characters can reach the locals in the play very easily. Hugo does not attempt to spread the play throughout Europe, even though many characters speak of important events in France and Germany. Lastly, Hugo seems to follow the rules of no violence on stage. The play gives many characters the opportunity to duel; yet no duels occur onstage and even though murdering Don Carlos is one of the driving forces behind Hernani’s actions throughout the play, he never even attempts the murder. In actual practice Hernani did not depart so widely from the standards of Classicism. The uproar rose from the Classicists who had been trained to criticize any variations from the rules of Classicism. The Romantics, also, had been trained in the same school and still exhibited a Classicist trend in their writings. Regardless of any similarities that Hernani shared with the Classicist style, however, it was heralded as a great Romantic work.

The publication of Cromwell enabled Hugo and his wife, Adele, to hold their own salon, where his influence over the visual artists, as well as writers, only increased. Artists who read his work, or heard him at the salons, could easily place themselves in the shoes of the writer, attacking Classicist positions. They called for "Down with theories and systems! Let us tear away the old lath-and-plaster hiding the face of art! There are neither rules nor models; or, rather, no rules but the general laws of Nature!" (Easton 45).

Some topics in this essay:
King Queen, Don Carlos, Instead Hugo, Romantics Classicists, Classicists Instead, Victor Hugo, Sturm Drang, Denis Diderot, Classicism Hugo, Victor Hugo’s, victor hugo, don carlos, romantic revolution, marion de lorme, preface cromwell, victor hugo’s, marion de, de lorme, tragedy comedy, comedie francaise, events play, michele-jean sedaine beaumarchais, hernani stayed stage, proper subject matter, sturm und drang,