ABSTRACT
A stunning verbal tour de force, Les Miserables may be compared to the equally ambitious projects represented by Marcel Proust's A la recherche du temps perdu (1913-27; translated as Remembrance of Things Past and also as In Search of Lost Time) and James Joyce's Ulysses (1922). More frequently, however, critics class it with major epic poems such as Virgil's Aeneid (19 B.C.) or Dante's Divine Comedy (1321), parallels that Hugo himself readily fostered. Given the absence in 1862 of any French national epic of such scope and stature, the novelist's aspirations for his work seem clear. Les Miserables' unrivaled international fortune shows that Hugo's faith in his work was not misplaced. Today, readers and critics alike consider Les Miserables to be the abiding literary anthem of the French republic.
