Victor Hugo

1802 – 1885 · France · Literature

Les Misérables made poverty a moral emergency for a continent.

Index entry

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Continuity of ideas

Who shaped Victor Hugo, and who they shaped

Inherited from1

  • Dante Alighieri

    1265 – 1321 · Literature, Philosophy

    The Commedia's moral architecture stands behind Hugo's vast redemptive novels.

Passed the work to1

  • Leo Tolstoy

    1828 – 1910 · Literature, Philosophy

    Tolstoy called Les Misérables the greatest novel; War and Peace answers its scale.

Sources and references

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