Satan and His Daughter, the Angel Liberty: Selected Verses

by Victor Hugo, R. G. Skinner (Translator), R. G. Skinner (Introduction), Odilon Redon (Illustrator)

Overview

Victor Hugo spent years in political exile off the coast of Normandy. While there, he produced his masterpiece, Les Misérables—but that wasn’t all: he also wrote a book-length poem, La Fin de Satan, left unfinished and not published until after his death.

Satan and his Daughter, the Angel Liberty, drawn from this larger poem, tells the story of Satan and his daughter, the angel created by God from a feather left behind following his banishment. Hugo details Satan’s fall, and through a despairing soliloquy, reveals him intent on revenge, yet desiring God’s forgiveness. The angel Liberty, meanwhile, is presented by Hugo as the embodiment of good, working to convince her father to return to Heaven.

This new translation by Richard Skinner presents Hugo’s verse in a unique prose approach to the poet’s poignant work, and is accompanied by the Symbolist artist Odilon Redon’s haunting illustrations. No adventurous reader will want to miss this beautiful mingling of the epic and familial, religious and political.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780997228731
Publisher:	Swan Isle Press
Publication date:	04/15/2019
Edition description:	1
Pages:	124
Product dimensions:	5.80(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

Victor Hugo (1802-85) was a great French playwright, novelist, poet and statesman. He is the author of Les Misérables and The Hunchback of Notre Dame.


R. G. Skinner is an independent scholar and poet.



R. G. Skinner is an independent scholar and poet.

Bertrand-Jean Redon, better known as Odilon Redon, was a native of Bordeaux, France. His works can be found in the collections of such museums as the Art Institute of Chicago, the Museum of Modern Art, and the Tate Modern. Candice Black is an author, translator and editor specializing in Surrealist studies. She graduated from Warwick University in England and currently lives in Tokyo.

Date of Birth:

February 26, 1802

Date of Death:

May 22, 1885

Place of Birth:

Besançon, France

Place of Death:

Paris, France

Education:

Pension Cordier, Paris, 1815-18

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations ix

Acknowledgments xiii

Introduction xv

Notes|vxxix

Stella 1

Beyond The Earth 5

Beyond the Earth I And Then There Was Night 7

Beyond the Earth II Satan's Feather 19

Beyond the Earth III I Satan in the Night 23

I, II: In the Air ♦ Song of the Birds 26

III-XVI 37

II The Angel Liberty 61

I, II, VII, VIII

Denouement 83

Bibliography 85

What People are Saying About This

Hélène Huet

"In this book, Satan and his Daughter, The Angel Liberty, R.G. Skinner breathes new life into French poet Victor Hugo by translating selected verses of Hugo’s La Fin de Satan into poetic prose. Notable, moreover, is the use of images by French artist Odilon Redon to illustrate Hugo’s verses. Though not originally created for the poet’s work, Redon's images, introduced to the reading public in Joris-Karl Huysmans’ 1884 novel A rebours (“Against Nature”), perfectly depict the dark themes of Hugo’s verses: evil and its counterpart, forgiveness. I hope that, like myself, readers of this prose translation will be enchanted by both Hugo’s and Redon’s ability to capture the darkest side of our soul, and its redemption."

Marva Barnett

"With Satan and His Daughter, The Angel Liberty, R. G. Skinner poetically offers us Victor Hugo’s compelling story about the compassionate Angel Liberty’s attempts to save her conflicted father, Satan. This fable of good and evil—so exceptionally meaningful in today’s chaotic world—would otherwise be inaccessible to English speakers. Moreover, Skinner’s poetic prose translation of the original verses parallels Hugo’s ingenious melding of poetry and prose. By insightfully connecting Odilon Redon’s symbolist, mystical art with lines from the poem, Skinner underscores Hugo’s visionary, avant-garde literary and artistic qualities. 

As the translator’s well documented introduction explains, this narrative poem expresses many of Hugo’s most deeply held beliefs and actions around social justice and spirituality:  his tenacious battles for liberty, unending belief in the power of forgiveness and the possibility of redemption, and lifelong search to understand God. Too long too little known, Victor Hugo’s beautiful, thought-provoking Satan and His Daughter, the Angel Liberty deserves the fine treatment R. G. Skinner has given it."

Hélène Huet

"In this book, Satan and his Daughter, The Angel Liberty, R.G. Skinner breathes new life into French poet Victor Hugo by translating selected verses of Hugo’s La Fin de Satan into poetic prose. Notable, moreover, is the use of images by French artist Odilon Redon to illustrate Hugo’s verses. Though not originally created for the poet’s work, Redon's images, introduced to the reading public in Joris-Karl Huysmans’ 1884 novel A rebours (“Against Nature”), perfectly depict the dark themes of Hugo’s verses: evil and its counterpart, forgiveness. I hope that, like myself, readers of this prose translation will be enchanted by both Hugo’s and Redon’s ability to capture the darkest side of our soul, and its redemption."