("Who is the greatest French poet?")
Victor Hugo, alas!
--
André Gide, as quoted in Victor Hugo's Night-Fallen Line by Aleksis Rannit in New Directions, Issue 44 (1982)Victor Hugo
It was quite fashionable to poke fun at Hugo. You remember Gide’s “Victor Hugo is the greatest French poet, alas!” or Cocteau’s “Victor Hugo was a madman who thought he was Victor Hugo.” Anyway, I hated rhetoric and eloquence. I agreed with Verlaine, who said, “You have to get hold of eloquence and twist its neck off!” Nonetheless, it took some courage. Nowadays it is common to debunk great men, but it wasn’t then.
Eugene Ionesco
Victor Hugo was a madman who thought he was Victor Hugo.
Jean Cocteau
Victor Hugo was a madman who thought he was Victor Hugo.
Victor Hugo
But it's a prize that... if you're into science-fiction and fantasy you grow up reading books with "Hugo [Award-winner]" on the cover. And this is very, very moving, to be in that position oneself. It's an odd situation [too], because, as you say, it was a tie, which is very rare with the Hugo, which has happened, like three times over sixty years, or something. But I prefer to think of it as a quantum Hugo and that Paolo Bacigalupi and I oscilate between between Hugo particle and wave form, this year. So it's properly science-fictional.
China Mieville
"Alas, alas! another day gone by,
Another day and no soul come," she said;
"Another year, and still I am not dead!"
And with that word once more her head she raised,
And on the trembling man with great eyes gazed.William Morris
Hugo, Victor
Huizinga, Johan
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