The Eighteenth Century
O Eighteenth Century! by Heaven chastised!Godless thou livedst, by God thy doom was fixed.Thou in one ruin sword and sceptre mixed,Then outraged love, and pity's claim despised.Thy life a banquet--but its board a scaffold at the close,Where far from Christ's beatic reign, Satanic deeds arose!Thy writers, like thyself, by good men scorned--Yet, from thy crimes, renown has decked thy name,As the smoke emplumes the furnace flame,A revolution's deeds have thine adorned!
Words in this poem
- godless a.
- Having, or acknowledging, no God; without reverence for God; impious; wicked.
- sceptre n.
- A staff or baton borne by a sovereign, as a ceremonial badge or emblem of authority; a royal mace. [F. sceptre, L. sceptrum, from Gr. shaft. See Shaft, and cf. Scape a stem, shaft.]
- satanic a.
- Of or pertaining to Satan; having the qualities of Satan; resembling Satan; extremely malicious or wicked; devilish; infernal.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Eighteenth Century is in the public domain. This text is taken from Poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #8775, the various hands translation; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Victor Hugo, The Eighteenth Century, in Poems (1888), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #8775, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/hugo-poems/the-eighteenth-century.html, id L26778.
Form and metre
The Eighteenth Century is 10 lines in a single stanza. It rhymes ABBACCDEED. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 91%).
See other poems in iambic pentameter.
Measured by Laurel's pipeline, not copied from a handbook: how stress and metre are counted, how rhyme is lettered, how a drifted rhyme is found. Where the dictionary cannot confirm a rhyme the letter is withheld, not guessed.
Rhyme words, stanza by stanza
The word that ends each line, lettered by the rhyme it makes; a dash is a line whose rhyme the dictionary could not confirm.
- 1 ABBACCDEED chastisedA · fixedB · mixedB · despisedA · closeC · aroseC · scornedD · nameE · flameE · adornedD
Scansion, line by line
Each line with its syllable count and the stresses the words themselves fix: / stressed, ˘ unstressed, · a syllable the word leaves free and the metre decides. Read against iambic pentameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| O Eighteenth Century! by Heaven chastised! | 10 | ·///˘˘·/˘/ |
| Godless thou livedst, by God thy doom was fixed. | 11 | /˘········· |
| Thou in one ruin sword and sceptre mixed, | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| Then outraged love, and pity's claim despised. | 10 | ·/···/˘·˘/ |
| Thy life a banquet--but its board a scaffold at the close, | 14 | ···/˘····/˘··· |
| Where far from Christ's beatic reign, Satanic deeds arose! | 13 | ·······˘/˘·˘/ |
| Thy writers, like thyself, by good men scorned-- | 10 | ·/˘·˘/···· |
| Yet, from thy crimes, renown has decked thy name, | 10 | ····˘/···· |
| As the smoke emplumes the furnace flame, | 9 | ······/˘· |
| A revolution's deeds have thine adorned! | 10 | ··˘/˘···˘/ |
The reader shows the same poem with its rhymes coloured and a stress row above each line, the notes beside their stanzas, and any word's definition on a tap; the analysis page takes the whole book apart. How every part of this site was made.