Les Orientales

poems by Hugo

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July 1, 2026

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Les Orientales, published in 1829 by Victor Hugo, is a collection of poems that Hugo himself described as "useless" and dedicated to "pure poetry". This work is associated with the l'art pour l'art (art for art's sake) movement, emphasizing the exotic and visual aspects of poetry, combined with inventive language and form. The poems explore a range of themes, often focusing on the exotic and visual, and showcase Hugo's mastery of poetic techniques. This collection represents a significant contribution to French Romantic poetry, highlighting the movement's interest in diverse subjects and stylistic innovation.12

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Victor Hugo
Early years (1802–30)
…also characteristic of another collection, Les Orientales (1829), which appealed to the Romantic taste for Eastern themes and settings. In these poems Hugo, while skillfully employing a great variety of meters in his verse and using ardent and brilliant imagery, was also gradually shedding the legitimist royalism of his youth.…
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…also characteristic of another collection, Les Orientales (1829), which appealed to the Romantic taste for Eastern themes and settings. In these poems Hugo, while skillfully employing a great variety of meters in his verse and using ardent and brilliant imagery, was also gradually shedding the legitimist royalism of his youth.…
Read More

French literature
The early poetry of Hugo
Hugo called his Les Orientales (1829; “Eastern Poems”) a useless book of pure poetry. It can be linked with Théophile Gautier’s l’art pour l’art movement, concentrating on the exotic and the visual, combined with verbal and formal inventiveness. Hugo published four further important collections in the 1830s, in…
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Hugo called his Les Orientales (1829; “Eastern Poems”) a useless book of pure poetry. It can be linked with Théophile Gautier’s l’art pour l’art movement, concentrating on the exotic and the visual, combined with verbal and formal inventiveness. Hugo published four further important collections in the 1830s, in…
Read More