La Fin de Satan Reading Order

How does La Fin de Satan develop Hugo's philosophical theodicy?

La Fin de Satan is Hugo's most direct engagement with the problem of evil and its relationship to the ultimate goodness of existence — the theodicy that is implicit in La Légende des siècles and Les Contemplations is here made the explicit subject of the poem. Hugo's argument is essentially a form of optimistic universalism: Satan himself will eventually be redeemed, and with his redemption the existence of evil in the universe will be shown to have been necessary as the condition for the development of human freedom and love. This is a deeply heterodox theological position — it is incompatible with any orthodox version of Christian theology, and Hugo is aware of this — but it emerges from the same moral and philosophical commitments that drive all of Hugo's work: the belief that the universe is fundamentally rational and beneficent, that history has a direction toward goodness, and that even the greatest suffering is ultimately part of a movement toward a redemption that will justify it. The poem is unfinished, and Hugo's notes suggest that he was never entirely satisfied with the philosophical resolution — the ending, in which an Angel of Liberty redeems Satan by forgiving him, is powerful but perhaps too simple for the complexity of the problem the poem has raised. La Fin de Satan is best read as a noble, sustained, and ultimately unresolved engagement with the deepest philosophical question of Hugo's century.