SOURCE: "Genius and Writings of Victor Hugo," in North American Review, Vol. 81, October, 1855, pp. 324–46.

In this excerpt, the critic offers a laudatory review of Hugo's verse up to and including Les châtiments.

[If] the genius of Victor Hugo is great as a novelist, it is still greater as a poet. And he seems to be almost equally distinguished in the lyric and the dramatic schools of poetry. His first publication was the Odes et Ballades, a volume strewn with beautiful verses, inspired with a religious and royalist enthusiasm. His next volume of lyric poetry was Les Orientales,—differing widely in form and substance from any of his other works. This collection, the idea of which was a sudden fantasy which flashed across his mind one evening in connection with some reminiscence of Spain, depicts Moorish and Oriental life in its many romantic phases. Here his lyrical power...