Slang and neologisms in the letters of Juliette Drouet
Juliette Drouet letters to Victor Hugo
Juliette Drouet and Les Misérables
Juliette Drouet "reporting" on the Second Republic
Juiliette Drouet's Illustrations in her letters to Victor Hugo
Slang and neologisms in the letters of Juliette Drouet
Medicine and disease in the letters of Juliette Drouet
In her letters Drouet regularly used slang language and neologisms – words that she coined herself. This was something new in written literature at the time.
Eugène Sue was the first to introduce it in his Mystères de Paris in 1842, and Hugo followed in Les Misérables, principally in the character Gavroche. As Drouet transcribed Hugo’s works, it is logical to see her reproducing these words in her letters.
In her letters to Hugo, Drouet frequently alternates between the “tu” and “vous” distinctions, sometimes even in the same sentence, for instance: “Je t’aime, et vous?” She generally uses the more distant “vous” distinction to playfully scorn him or poke fun at his official titles, such as “Monsieur l’académicien”, or “Monsieur le représentant” whilst she kept the informal “tu” for most of her casual talk.
When the collection arrived in Leeds at the end of 1920s, a librarian tried to translate the letters in English. In order to perform the linguistic acrobatics they resurrected the defunct “thou” to keep the tu/vous distinction, but left several phrases blank, puzzled by the peculiar language, full of witticisms, patois and neologisms.
In a letter dated 5th July 1848 (see images), Drouet asks Hugo to buy a secret home where they could meet incognito. You can see the translator’s difficulty on the transcripts, with many scrambled words and deleted passages.
