WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE.

By

VICTOR HUGO

TRANSLATED BY A. BAILLOT

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS

BOSTON

ESTES AND LAURIAT

PUBLISHERS

1864

Portrait of Victor Hugo.
Photogravureby Goupil et Cie.—From Painting by Pannemaker.

ENGLAND

I Dedicate this Book,

THE GLORIFICATION OF HER POET.

I TELL ENGLAND THE TRUTH; BUT, AS A LAND ILLUSTRIOUS
AND FREE, I ADMIRE HER, AND AS AN ASYLUM.
I LOVE HER.

VICTOR HUGO.

Hauteville House, 1864.

PREFACE

The true title of this work should be, "Apropos to Shakespeare." Thedesire of introducing, as they say in England, before the public,the new translation of Shakespeare, has been the first motive of theauthor. The feeling which interests him so profoundly in the translatorshould not deprive him of the right to recommend the translation.However, his conscience has been solicited on the other part, andin a more binding way still, by the subject itself. In reference toShakespeare all questions which touch art are presented to his mind.To treat these questions, is to explain the mission of art; to treatthese questions, is to explain the duty of human thought towardman. Such an occasion for speaking truths imposes a duty, and he isnot permitted, above all at such an epoch as ours, to evade it. Theauthor has comprehended this. He has not hesitated to turn the complexquestions of art and civilization on their several faces, multiplyingthe horizons every time that the perspective has displaced itself, andaccepting every indication that the subject, in its rigorous necessity,has offered to him. This expansion of the point of view has given riseto this book.

Hauteville House, 1864.

CONTENTS

PART I.

Book

I. Shakespeare.—His Life

II. Men of Genius.—Homer, Job, Æschylus, Isaiah,Ezekiel, Lucretius, Juvenal, Tacitus, St. John, St. Paul,Dante, Rabelais, Cervantes, Shakespeare

III. Art and Science

IV. The Ancient Shakespeare

V. The Souls

PART II.

I. Shakespeare.—His Genius

II. Shakespeare.—His Work.—The Culminating Points

III. Zoilus as Eternal as Homer

IV. Criticism

V. The Minds and the Masses

VI.

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