When the dead speak in verse: collective writing and hauntological rhythms at Victor Hugo's Jersey séances

While the infamous séances held by Victor Hugo in Jersey from 1853 to 1855 have inspired much debate, the central role played by verse has escaped critical attention. I argue that the tensions inherent in séance practice also underpin anxieties around verse in nineteenth-century France. The transcripts show how verse itself is a kind of séance, or intergenerational writing project, in which rhythm performs a hauntological function, producing a singular, original text while re-animating textual antecedents. By making visible what is usually an internal creative process, the séances reveal how verse composition occupies a liminal space between individual and collective act.