Ionesco's Hugoliade or the Prototype of a New Theatre

Abstract

Pubished in 1935 in Romania and translated into French in 1982, Eugene Ionesco's Hugoliade is considered an "anti-biography" of Victor Hugo. By voluntarily and completely deforming the general traits of Hugo's life between 1802-1846, Ionesco adopts an ironic style, even sarcastic, that tends to "demythify" this legendary figure. This grotesque deformation seems to reflect the essential characteristics of Ionesco's theatre in 1950 marked mostly by a taste for reversing the facts and a rejection of conventional values.