Analysis of C'est à coups de canon qu'on rend le peuple heureux

Victor Marie Hugo 1802 (Besançon) – 1885 (Paris)



C'est à coups de canon qu'on rend le peuple heureux.
Nous sommes revenus de tous ces grands mots creux :
- Progrès, fraternité, mission de la France,
Droits de l'homme, raison, liberté, tolérance. -
Socrate est fou ; lisez Lélut qui le confond ;
Christ, fort socialiste et démagogue au fond,
Est une renommée en somme très surfaite.
Terre ! l'obus est Dieu, Paixhans est son prophète.
Vrai but du genre humain : tuer correctement.
Les hommes, dont le sabre est l'unique calmant,
Ont le boulet rayé pour chef-d'oeuvre ; leur astre,
C'est la clarté qui sort d'une bombe Lancastre,
Et l'admiration de tout peuple poli
Va du mortier Armstrong au canon Cavalli.
Dieu s'est trompé ; César plus haut que lui s'élance ;
Jéhovah fit le verbe et César le silence.
Parler, c'est abuser ; penser, c'est usurper.
La voix sert à se taire et l'esprit à ramper.
Le monde est à plat ventre, et l'homme, altier naguère,
Doux et souple aujourd'hui, tremble. - Paix ! dit la guerre.


Scheme AAAABBBBBBCCDDAACCCC
Poetic Form
Metre 11110111011 111111111 11110111 1111101011 1011111101 11111111 0111111111 101011101111 11110111 111010011011 1001111111 11111111 1101011110 111001110010 11011111111011 11101111010 101010111 1111111011 010111011110011 111101101111
Closest metre Iambic heptameter
Characters 986
Words 162
Sentences 14
Stanzas 1
Stanza Lengths 20
Lines Amount 20
Letters per line (avg) 36
Words per line (avg) 9
Letters per stanza (avg) 712
Words per stanza (avg) 170
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on April 18, 2023

53 sec read
257

Victor Marie Hugo

Victor Marie Hugo was a French poet, novelist, and dramatist of the Romantic movement. He is considered one of the greatest and best known French writers. In France, Hugo's literary fame comes first from his poetry but also rests upon his novels and his dramatic achievements. Among many volumes of poetry, Les Contemplations and La Légende des siècles stand particularly high in critical esteem. Outside France, his best-known works are the novels Les Misérables, 1862, and Notre-Dame de Paris, 1831. Though a committed royalist when he was young, Hugo's views changed as the decades passed; he became a passionate supporter of republicanism, and his work touches upon most of the political and social issues and artistic trends of his time. He was buried in the Panthéon. more…

All Victor Marie Hugo poems | Victor Marie Hugo Books

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