Victor Hugos Auffassung von Musik in seinen Gedichten

Abstract

The article examines the idea of music Victor Hugo developed in his poems. Focusing on his programmatic poem “Que la musique date du seizième siècle” published in Les Rayons et les Ombres in 1840, I argue that Hugo’s view of music has a historical perspective and an anthropological one. To Hugo, in both cases music has a healing and civilizing potential. In historical terms, Hugo locates, the beginning of real music in the 16th century. Palestrina in particular is praised as a genius. He represents the beginning of modernity in the Renaissance. Later, in romanticism, Beethoven embodies the musical spirit of the time. In anthropological terms, music is determined by its affective potency, its proximity to nature and the unconscious, its ability to express the ineffable and the transcendent.