Study of"Les rayons et les ombres" by Victor Hugo

The teaching of literary works in high schools and middle schools in Benin remains a major problem, especially since the works included in the curriculum are sometimes not addressed with students in the classroom. This observation was made during our professional certification internship, where we noted that current classroom practices do not truly incorporate the study of poetic works; in other words, teachers show a lack of interest in teaching poetry in their classrooms. However, this situation has the obvious consequence of fostering students' aversion to poetry. In light of these observations, we have chosen to focus on the study of poetic works in our middle and high schools. Using Victor Hugo's work "Les rayons et les ombres" as a starting point, we analyzed the difficulties associated with studying this work in order to propose solutions. Our objective is to offer some modest reflections on teaching approaches capable of facilitating the study of poetic works, thereby enabling teachers to easily tackle the teaching of poetry in our middle and high schools.