Analysis of A la fenêtre, pendant la nuit

Victor Marie Hugo 1802 (Besançon) – 1885 (Paris)



Les étoiles, points d'or, percent les branches noires ;
Le flot huileux et lourd décompose ses moires
Sur l'océan blêmi ;
Les nuages ont l'air d'oiseaux prenant la fuite ;
Par moments le vent parle, et dit des mots sans suite,
Comme un homme endormi.

Tout s'en va. La nature est l'urne mal fermée.
La tempête est écume et la flamme est fumée.
Rien n'est, hors du moment,
L'homme n'a rien qu'il prenne, et qu'il tienne, et qu'il garde.
Il tombe heure par heure, et, ruine, il regarde
Le monde, écroulement.

L'astre est-il le point fixe en ce mouvant problème ?
Ce ciel que nous voyons fut-il toujours le même ?
Le sera-t-il toujours?
L'homme a-t-il sur son front des clartés éternelles ?
Et verra-t-il toujours les mêmes sentinelles
Monter aux mêmes tours ? [...


Scheme AABCCB BBCCCC BBAAAA
Poetic Form
Metre 1111011101 0111110111 11111 111111111 110011111111 1111 1111110011111 1110111110111 11011110 1110111111111111 111111111 011 101101111111 11111111011 010111 110111111111 111111111 101111
Closest metre Iambic hexameter
Characters 780
Words 130
Sentences 13
Stanzas 3
Stanza Lengths 6, 6, 6
Lines Amount 18
Letters per line (avg) 31
Words per line (avg) 8
Letters per stanza (avg) 187
Words per stanza (avg) 45
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on April 10, 2023

43 sec read
140

Victor Marie Hugo

Victor Marie Hugo was a French poet, novelist, and dramatist of the Romantic movement. He is considered one of the greatest and best known French writers. In France, Hugo's literary fame comes first from his poetry but also rests upon his novels and his dramatic achievements. Among many volumes of poetry, Les Contemplations and La Légende des siècles stand particularly high in critical esteem. Outside France, his best-known works are the novels Les Misérables, 1862, and Notre-Dame de Paris, 1831. Though a committed royalist when he was young, Hugo's views changed as the decades passed; he became a passionate supporter of republicanism, and his work touches upon most of the political and social issues and artistic trends of his time. He was buried in the Panthéon. more…

All Victor Marie Hugo poems | Victor Marie Hugo Books

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