La Légende des siècles Reading Order

What is Booz endormi and why is it considered Hugo's most perfect poem?

Booz endormi (Boaz Asleep, 1859) is a poem based on the Book of Ruth — the episode in which Ruth gleans grain in the fields of Boaz and comes to him as a supplicant and then as a bride. Hugo transforms the biblical episode into a luminous meditation on patriarchal generosity and the mystery of divine providence: Boaz asleep dreams of a great tree growing from his loins (the Davidic lineage that will lead to Christ), and the poem ends with a series of images of the night sky, the sheaves of grain, and the old man's dreaming sleep that have been compared to Rembrandt in their ability to illuminate ordinary objects with supernatural light. The poem is considered perfect by many readers because it achieves its visionary effect without any of the rhetorical excess that sometimes marks Hugo's poetry — the language is simple, the images are clear, and the mystery emerges from the narrative and the images rather than from explicit philosophical statement. It is also metrically and formally accomplished in a way that is difficult to reproduce in translation, which is why it is less well known outside French than it deserves to be. 'Booz endormi' is the test case for Hugo's claim that the greatest Romantic poetry could achieve the simplicity and luminosity of the classical tradition.