It seems an affront, an insult to find Victor Hugo having composed more than one hundred and fifty thousand verses in just one life. One hundred and fifty thousand! It is unbelievable, a real humiliation to be confronted with this unattainable fecundity, this poetic monument coming from the pen of a single man. If we exercise mathematics, we arrive at an average daily production that only seems reasonable to someone who spends his entire life only sleeping and composing verses. Considering the whole creative process that involves ideation, planning, structuring, realization and refinement; considering that a normal mind is exhausted in the tiresome work of hooking words in the dictionary, and that therefore a long working day is unfeasible, discouraging and even counterproductive, how to justify Victor Hugo? How can we accept his poetic work, knowing that there are plays, novels, essays under the same signature? It is amazing…
Victor Hugo’s Fecundity
