Victor Hugo

Le roi s'amuse, best translated as ‘The King Amuses Himself’, is a play in five acts. It is set in Paris in the 1520s and the plot was used for Verdi's 1851 opera Rigoletto. The main person of the play is Triboulet, a witty court jester, through whose words Hugo frequently attacks contemporary society.

Les Contemplations is a collection of poetry by Victor Hugo, published in 1856. It consists of 156 poems in six books. Most of the poems were written between 1841 and 1855, though the oldest date from 1830. Memory plays an important role in the collection, as Hugo was experimenting with the genre of autobiography in …