Recommendations
Books Like William Shakespeare
Best books to read after William Shakespeare by Victor Hugo
Hugo's greatest critical work (1864) — a philosophical essay on the nature of genius and the poet's prophetic function, using Shakespeare as the occasion for a meditation on Homer, Dante, Cervantes, and the tradition of the great geniuses of humanity. If this powerful argument about art and prophecy inspired you, these books explore similar territory.
- 1
Buy on AmazonLes Contemplations
by Victor Hugo
The great lyric companion — the poetic realization of the theory of genius that William Shakespeare develops; reading both together gives the argument and its demonstration.
- 2
Buy on AmazonLa Légende des siècles
by Victor Hugo
The philosophical epic — the most ambitious practical application of the theory of the prophetic poet that William Shakespeare articulates; the poems are what the essay describes.
- 3
Buy on AmazonPréface de Cromwell
by Victor Hugo
Hugo's earlier great critical manifesto (1827) — the companion theoretical text that establishes the foundations of Romantic aesthetics that William Shakespeare develops and completes forty years later.
- 4
Buy on AmazonThe Lives of the Poets
by Samuel Johnson
Johnson's great critical biographies — the closest English parallel to Hugo's critical approach: a strong personal intelligence engaged with a tradition of great writers, making large claims about the nature of genius and its social function.
- 5
Buy on AmazonBiographia Literaria
by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Coleridge's great critical work — the most direct English parallel to Hugo's theory of imagination and genius, developing similar Romantic arguments about the poet's prophetic function from a very different philosophical tradition.
- 6
Buy on AmazonDe l'Allemagne
by Germaine de Staël
Staël's great critical work (1810) — the predecessor of Hugo's theoretical ambition, which introduced German Romantic ideas into France and established the critical vocabulary that Hugo develops in William Shakespeare.
- 7
Buy on AmazonRacine et Shakespeare
by Stendhal
Stendhal's Romantic manifesto (1823-1825) — the polemical critical text that established the terms of the Romantic-versus-Classical debate that Hugo's William Shakespeare finally resolves in favor of the Romantic tradition.
- 8Buy on Amazon
Sur Shakespeare
by François-René de Chateaubriand
Chateaubriand's translations and essays on Shakespeare — the immediate predecessor of Hugo's engagement with Shakespeare, part of the great Romantic project of discovering Shakespeare as the alternative to French Classicism.
More William Shakespeare Resources
More Reading Recommendations
View all →Monthly Newsletter
Never miss a big release
Get the most anticipated upcoming books delivered to your inbox once a month — no spam, no filler.
Monthly only. Unsubscribe anytime.
Book links are Amazon affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate, BookReleaseRadar earns from qualifying purchases at no extra cost to you.