Abstract

Victor Hugo began his life in exile in 1851 as a result of his active political opposition to the regime of Napoleon III. After the coup d'etat of December 1851, this opposition culminated in government's pursuit of Hugo and left him with little choice but to leave his homeland. ;Following his exile to Brussels, Hugo began the most productive years of his literary life. The unfinished epic of La Fin de Satan is among the first works that mark this new era and serves as the focus of my dissertation. The importance of La Fin de Satan becomes clear when one understands that Hugo needed to recreate Satan in order to express his own deep-seated sense of alienation; both psychological and political alienation. Thus, my dissertation focuses on both the historical context and on the broader, more universal aspects in an attempt to show Hugo's effort to overcome his feelings of exile and alienation. ;The dissertation will therefore deal with the larger concepts of exile and alienation but also shows in detail how these concerns are worked out in the plot and imagery of the epic poem. Finally, since the notions of alienation and exile remain an important aspect of the actual life of modern societies, the analysis of La Fin de Satan may offer new strategies of reading for contemporary readers in their attempts to understand and interpret this 19th century masterpiece