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Why is Les Contemplations divided into âAutrefoisâ and âAujourdâhuiâ?
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Victor Hugo
French poet, novelist, and dramatist Victor Hugo, photograph by Nadar (Gaspard-Félix Tournachon). Hugo's best-loved works are the novels Notre-Dame de Paris (1831; The Hunchback of Notre-Dame) and Les Misérables (1862).
Victor Hugo divided his poetry collection Les Contemplations into two sections, âAutrefoisâ (Formerly) and âAujourdâhuiâ (Today), to reflect a profound personal turning point in his life.
The division is marked by the tragic death of his daughter, LĂ©opoldine, who drowned in an accident in September 1843. The moment of her death serves as the definitive boundary between the two parts of the work, separating his life into the time before the loss and the time after.1