Question

[telophase]

I just reached the introduction of the student revolutionaries in Les Miserables, and there's a reference i think i may not be getting.

One of them is named Jean, and the text says that he called himself Jehan, 'with the touch of fantasy that characterized the profound and widespread impulse of that time, which has given rise to our most necessary study of the Middle Ages.'

Is it that Jehan is an older form of the name, is it that it's a more rustic version, what?

At lunch right now and on my phone so Hoogling isn't much of an option. (I like that typo so won't change it to Googling.)

Comments

[ellen_fremedon]

It's an older form of the name.

[telophase]

Thank you!

[movingfinger]

It points him out as an ardent Romantic, too, with all the associations that implies. Not quite as powerful a hit as naming a German character Werther, but heavy with implied information.

[telophase]

Possibly like "George Washington Carver"?

[kore]

The Middle Ages bit is also possibly a reference to "Jehan de Saintré" by Antoine de la Sale, which is partly based on the life of a famous knight -- Jean (or John, or Jehan) Froissart mentions him. Hugo was certainly famous with chivalric epics (don't know that much about his prose, though).