Hugo loves especially to endow with life objects that suggest a struggle. It is the wrecked and broken ship of Pleine Mer rather than the triumphant vessel of Plein Ciel that is animate.
Ce Titan se rua, joyeux, dans la tempête;
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Quand il marchait, fumant, grondant, couvert de toile,
Il jetait un tel râle â l'air épouvanté
Que toute l'eau tremblait.
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Et pour l'âme il avait dans sa cale un enfer.
Allied with this habit of vivifying the inanimate is the more subtle artifice of transfiguring or magnifying concrete objects, so that they become symbolic without ceasing to be real. This blending of the actual and the figurative is seen in the description of the King and Emperor in Éviradnus:
Leurs deux figures sont lugubrement grandies