Already in the early period of his work, Hugo addressed one of the most pressing problems of romanticism, which was the renewal of drama, the creation of romantic drama. In the preface to the drama “Cromwell” (1827), he declares that the model for modern drama is not ancient or classic tragedy, which the romantics considered hopelessly outdated, but Shakespeare’s dramas. Refusing to contrast the sublime genre (tragedy) and the funny (comedy), Hugo demands that modern romantic drama express the contradictions of life in all their diversity. As an antithesis to the classicist principle of “ennobled nature,” Hugo develops the theory of the grotesque: it is a means of presenting the funny and the ugly in a “concentrated” form. These and many other aesthetic guidelines concern not only drama, but, essentially, romantic art in general, which is why the preface to the drama “Cromwell” became one of the most important romantic manifestos. The ideas of this manifesto are implemented in Hugo’s dramas, which are all written on historical subjects, and in the novel “Notre Dame Cathedral.”

The idea of ​​the novel arises in an atmosphere of fascination with historical genres, which began with the novels of Walter Scott.

At the end of the 1820s. Hugo plans to write a historical novel, and in 1828 he even enters into an agreement with the publisher Gosselin. However, the work is made difficult by many circumstances, and the main one is that his attention is increasingly attracted modern life. Hugo began working on the novel only in 1830, literally a few days before the July Revolution, and in the midst of its events he was forced to remain at his desk in order to satisfy the publisher, who demanded the fulfillment of the contract. This novel is called "The Cathedral" Notre Dame of Paris"and published in 1831.

The writer considers the expression of the spirit of the era to be the main criterion for the veracity of a historical novel. This piece of art fundamentally different from a chronicle, which sets out the facts of history. In a novel, the actual “outline” should serve only as a general basis for the plot, in which fictional characters can act and events woven by the author’s imagination can develop. The truth of a historical novel is not in the accuracy of the facts, but in fidelity to the spirit of the times. The only immutable requirement for the author's fiction is to meet the spirit of the era: characters, psychology of characters, their relationships, actions, the general course of events, details of everyday life and Everyday life- all aspects of the depicted historical reality should be presented as they actually could have been.

All the main characters of the novel - Claude Frollo, Quasimodo, Esmeralda, Phoebus - are fictional by him. Only Pierre Gringoire is an exception: he has a real historical prototype- this is a person who lived in Paris in the 15th - early 16th centuries. poet and playwright. The novel also features King Louis XI and the Cardinal of Bourbon (the latter appears only occasionally). The plot of the novel is not based on any major historical event, and real facts include only detailed descriptions of Notre Dame Cathedral and medieval Paris.

The abundance of topographical details is striking when reading the novel from the very beginning. The Place de Greve is described in particular detail, bordered on one side by the Seine embankment, and on the rest by houses, among which were the house of the Dauphin Charles V, and the city hall, and the chapel, and the Palace of Justice, and various devices for executions and torture. In the Middle Ages, this place was the center of life in old Paris: people gathered here not only during festive festivities and shows, but also to watch the execution; in Hugo's novel, all the main characters meet on the Place de Greve: the gypsy Esmeralda dances and sings here, causing the admiration of the crowd and the curse of Claude Frollo; in a dark corner of the square, in a miserable closet, a recluse languishes; the poet Pierre Gringoire wanders among the crowd, suffering from the neglect of people and from the fact that he again has no food or shelter; here a bizarre procession takes place, in which a crowd of gypsies, the “brotherhood of jesters”, subjects of the “kingdom of Argo” merge, that is, thieves and swindlers, buffoons and jesters, tramps, beggars, cripples; Here, finally, the grotesque ceremony of the clownish coronation of the “father of jesters” Quasimodo unfolds, and then the culminating episode for the fate of this character, when Esmeralda gives him water to drink from her flask. Describing all this in the dynamics of the events taking place in the square, Hugo vividly recreates the “local flavor” of the life of medieval Paris, its historical spirit. Not a single detail in the description of the way of life of old Paris is accidental. Each of them reflects mass historical consciousness, the specificity of ideas about the world and man, the beliefs or prejudices of people.

He considers Notre Dame Cathedral to be the symbol of the era when the first shoots of freethinking appear. It is no coincidence that all the main events of the novel take place in the cathedral or on the square next to it, the cathedral itself becomes the object of detailed descriptions, and its architecture is the subject of deep author’s thoughts and comments, clarifying the meaning of the novel as a whole. The cathedral was built over centuries - from the 11th to the 15th. During this time, the Romanesque style, which initially dominated medieval architecture, gave way to Gothic. Hugo perceives the Romanesque church as a petrified dogma, the embodiment of the omnipotence of the church. He calls Gothic, with its variety, abundance and splendor of decorations, in contrast to the Romanesque style, “ folk architecture", considering it the beginning free arts. The architecture of the cathedral combines elements of both styles, which means it reflects the transition from one era to another: from the constraint of human consciousness and the creative spirit, completely subordinated to dogma, to free searches. In the echoing twilight of the cathedral, at the foot of its columns, under its cold stone arches directed towards the sky medieval man had to feel the indisputable greatness of God and his own insignificance. However, Hugo sees in the Gothic cathedral not only a stronghold of medieval religion, but also a brilliant architectural structure, the creation of human genius. Erected by the hands of several generations, Notre Dame Cathedral appears in Hugo's novel as a “stone symphony” and “stone chronicle of centuries.”

Hugo embodies the signs of the depicted era in the characters and destinies of the characters in the novel, primarily such as the archdeacon of Notre Dame Cathedral Claude Frollo and the bell ringer of the cathedral Quasimodo. They're in in a certain sense antipodes, and at the same time their destinies are interconnected and closely intertwined.

The learned ascetic Claude Frollo only at first glance appears to be an impeccable servant of the church, guardian of the cathedral and adherent of strict morality. From the moment he appears on the pages of the novel, this man amazes with a combination of opposite features: a stern, gloomy appearance, a closed expression on his face, furrowed with wrinkles, remnants of graying hair on an almost bald head; at the same time, this man looks no more than thirty-five years old, his eyes glow with passion and thirst for life. As the plot progresses, the duality is increasingly confirmed.

As for Quasimodo, he undergoes a truly amazing metamorphosis. At first, Quasimodo appears to the reader as a creature who can hardly be called a man in the full sense of the word. His name is symbolic: the Latin quasimodo means “as if,” “almost.” Quasimodo is almost like a son (adopted son) to Claude Frollo and almost (meaning not quite) human. He is the center of all conceivable physical deformities: he is blind in one eye, he has two humps - on his back and on his chest, he limps, he cannot hear anything, since he is deaf from the powerful sound of the large bell that he rings, he says so rare that some consider him mute. But his main ugliness is spiritual: “The spirit that lived in this ugly body was just as ugly and imperfect,” says Hugo. There is a frozen expression of anger and sadness on his face. Quasimodo does not know the difference between good and evil, knows neither pity nor remorse. Without reasoning and, moreover, without thinking, he carries out all the orders of his master and master Claude Frollo, to whom he is completely devoted. Quasimodo does not recognize himself as an independent person; what distinguishes man from the beast has not yet awakened in him - the soul, the moral sense, the ability to think.

Esmeralda's compassion became a revelation for him and an impulse to feel the person in himself. The sip of water that he receives thanks to Esmeralda is symbolic: it is a sign of sincere and artless support that an endlessly humiliated person receives from another, also generally defenseless against the elements of prejudice and passions of a rude crowd, and especially before inquisitorial justice. Under the impression of the mercy shown to him, the human soul awakens in Quasimodo, the ability to experience his individual feelings and the need to think, and not just obey.

Hugo's novel is full of contrasts and antithesis images: the freak Quasimodo - the beautiful Esmeralda, the lover Esmeralda - and the soulless Phoebus, the ascetic archdeacon - the frivolous juir Phoebus; the learned archdeacon and the bell-ringer are contrasting in intelligence; in terms of capacity for genuine feeling, not to mention physical appearance, - Quasimodo and Phoebus. Almost all the main characters are marked by internal contradiction. The exception among them is, perhaps, only Esmeralda - an absolutely integral nature, but this turns out tragically for her: she becomes a victim of circumstances, other people's passions and the inhuman persecution of “witches”. The play of antitheses in the novel is essentially the implementation of the author's theory of contrasts, which he developed in the preface to Cromwell. Real life is woven from contrasts, Hugo believes, and if a writer claims to be truthful, he must identify these contrasts in the environment and reflect them in the work, be it a novel or a drama.

But the historical novel also has another, even more ambitious and significant goal: to survey the course of history as a whole, to see in the unified process of the movement of society over the centuries the place and specificity of each era; moreover, to grasp the connection of times, the continuity of past and present and, perhaps, foresee the future. Paris, viewed in the novel from a bird's eye view as “a collection of monuments of many centuries,” appears to Hugo as a beautiful and instructive picture. That's the whole story. Having covered it with a single glance, you can discover the sequence and hidden meaning of events. The steep and narrow spiral staircase that a person needs to overcome in order to climb the cathedral tower and see so much, in Hugo’s work is a symbol of humanity’s ascent along the ladder of centuries. Hugo’s fairly integral and harmonious system of ideas about history, reflected in “Notre Dame Cathedral,” gives reason to consider this novel truly historical.

“Notre Dame de Paris” became an event and the pinnacle of the historical novel genre in French literature.

The plot of this story, the events of which develop on the streets of Paris in the 15th century, is connected primarily with very difficult human relationships. The central characters of the novel are a young, innocent, absolutely ignorant gypsy girl named Esmeralda and Claude Frollo, acting deacon at Notre Dame Cathedral.

An equally important role in the work is played by the hunchback Quasimodo, raised by this man, an unfortunate creature despised by everyone, who at the same time is distinguished by genuine nobility and even greatness of soul.

Paris itself can be considered a significant character in the novel; the writer pays a lot of attention to describing everyday life in this city, which in those days was more like a large village. From Hugo's descriptions, the reader can learn a lot about the existence of simple peasants, ordinary artisans, and arrogant aristocrats.

The author emphasizes the power of prejudice and belief in supernatural phenomena, witches, evil sorcerers, which in that era covered absolutely all members of society, regardless of their origin and place in society. In the novel, a frightened and at the same time enraged crowd is completely uncontrollable, and anyone, even someone completely innocent of any sins, can become its victim.

At the same time, the main idea of ​​the novel is that the hero’s appearance does not always coincide with his inner world, with his heart, the ability to love and sacrifice himself for the sake of real feeling, even if the object of his adoration does not reciprocate.

People who are attractive in appearance and wear excellent clothes often turn out to be completely soulless, moral monsters devoid of even basic compassion. But at the same time, a person who seems to everyone to be a repulsive and terrible creature can have a really big heart, as happens with one of the main characters of the work, the cathedral bell ringer Quasimodo.

The clergyman Frollo devotes himself day after day to atone for the sins of his frivolous brother, who does not lead the most righteous existence. The man believes that he can atone for his mistakes only by completely renouncing worldly joys. He even begins to take care of useless orphans, in particular, he saves the hunchbacked baby Quasimodo, who was going to be destroyed only for the congenital defects of his appearance, considering him unworthy to live among people.

Frollo gives the unfortunate boy some education according to his capabilities, but also does not recognize him as his own son, because he too is burdened by the obvious ugliness of the grown-up boy. Quasimodo faithfully serves his patron, but the deacon treats him very harshly and harshly, not allowing himself to become attached to this, in his opinion, “the offspring of the devil.”
The defects in the appearance of the young bell-ringer make him a deeply unhappy person; he does not even try to dream that anyone could treat him like a human being and love him; since childhood, he has been accustomed to the curses and bullying of others.

However, for the lovely Esmeralda, the other main character of the novel, her beauty does not bring any joy. Representatives of the stronger sex pursue the girl, each believing that she should belong only to him, while women experience real hatred for her, believing that she wins men's hearts through witchcraft tricks.

Unhappy and naive young people do not realize how cruel and heartless the world around them is; both fall into a trap set by the priest, which causes the death of both. The ending of the novel is very sad and gloomy, an innocent young girl passes away from this life, and Quasimodo plunges into complete despair, having lost the last little consolation in his hopeless existence.

A realist writer cannot ultimately give these positive characters happiness, pointing out to readers that in the world there is most often no place for goodness and justice, as exemplified by tragic fates Esmeralda and Quasimodo.

Introduction
Victor Hugo - great romantic writer,
patriotic publicist, democratic politician.
Aesthetic principles of Hugo's work

Section 2

Conclusion

Bibliography

Victor Hugo is a great romantic writer, patriotic publicist, and democratic politician.

Aesthetic principles of Hugo's work

The personality of Victor Hugo (1802-1885) is striking in its versatility. One of the most widely read French prose writers in the world, for his compatriots he is, first of all, a great national poet, a reformer of French verse and drama, as well as a patriotic publicist and democratic politician. He is known to connoisseurs as an extraordinary master of graphics, a tireless drawer of fantasies based on the themes of his own works. But there is the main thing that defines this multifaceted personality and animates her activities - this is love for man, compassion for the disadvantaged, a call for mercy and brotherhood. Some aspects of Hugo’s creative heritage already belong to the past: today his oratorical and declamatory pathos, verbose eloquence, and penchant for spectacular antitheses of thoughts and images seem old-fashioned. However, Hugo - a democrat, an enemy of tyranny and violence against the individual, a noble defender of victims of social and political injustice - is our contemporary and will resonate in the hearts of many more generations of readers. Humanity will not forget the one who, before his death, summing up his activities, said with good reason: “In my books, dramas, prose and poems, I stood up for the small and unfortunate, begged the mighty and inexorable. I restored the jester, lackey, a convict and a prostitute."

The clearest demonstration of the validity of this statement can be considered the historical novel “Notre Dame de Paris,” begun by Hugo in July 1830 and completed in February 1831. Hugo's appeal to the distant past was caused by three factors in the cultural life of his time: the widespread use of historical themes in literature, a fascination with the romantically interpreted Middle Ages, and the struggle for the protection of historical and architectural monuments. The Romantics' interest in the Middle Ages arose largely as a reaction to the classical focus on antiquity. The desire to overcome the disdainful attitude towards the Middle Ages, which spread thanks to the enlightenment writers of the 18th century, for whom this time was a kingdom of darkness and ignorance, useless in the history of the progressive development of mankind, also played a role here. And finally, almost mainly, the Middle Ages attracted romantics with their unusualness, as the opposite of the prose of bourgeois life, the dull everyday existence. Here one could meet, the romantics believed, with whole, great characters, strong passions, exploits and martyrdom in the name of convictions. All this was still perceived in an aura of a certain mystery associated with insufficient knowledge of the Middle Ages, which was compensated by turning to folk tales and legends that had meaning for romantic writers special meaning. Hugo outlined his view on the role of the Middle Ages back in 1827 in the author’s preface to the drama “Cromwell,” which became a manifesto of democratically minded French romantics and expressed Hugo’s aesthetic position, which he generally adhered to until the end of his life.

Hugo begins his preface by outlining his own concept of the history of literature depending on the history of society. According to Hugo, the first great era in the history of civilization is the primitive era, when a person for the first time in his consciousness separates himself from the universe, begins to understand how beautiful it is, and expresses his delight in the universe in lyrical poetry, the dominant genre primitive era. Hugo sees the uniqueness of the second era, ancient times, in the fact that at this time a person begins to create history, creates a society, realizes himself through connections with other people, the leading type of literature in this era is epic.

It begins with the Middle Ages, says Hugo, new era, standing under the sign of a new worldview - Christianity, which sees in man a constant struggle between two principles, earthly and heavenly, corruptible and immortal, animal and divine. Man seems to consist of two beings: “one is mortal, the other is immortal, one is carnal, the other is incorporeal, one is constrained by lusts, needs and passions, the other is soaring on the wings of delight and dreams.” The struggle of these two principles human soul is dramatic in its very essence: “...what is drama if not this daily contradiction, the every-minute struggle of two principles, always opposing each other in life and challenging each other from the cradle to the grave?” Therefore, the third period in the history of mankind corresponds to the literary genre of drama.

Hugo is convinced that everything that exists in nature and society can be reflected in art. Art should not limit itself to anything; by its very essence it should be truthful. However, Hugo’s demand for truth in art was rather conditional, characteristic of a romantic writer. Proclaiming, on the one hand, that drama is a mirror reflecting life, he insists on the special character of this mirror; It is necessary, says Hugo, for it to “gather and condense light rays, make light from reflection, and flame from light!” The truth of life is subject to strong transformation, exaggeration in the artist’s imagination, which is designed to romanticize reality, to show behind its everyday shell the eternal battle of two polar principles of good and evil.
This leads to another proposition: by condensing, intensifying, and transforming reality, the artist shows not the ordinary, but the exceptional, he draws extremes and contrasts. Only in this way can he reveal the animal and divine principles contained in man.

This call to depict extremes is one of the cornerstones of Hugo's aesthetics. In his work, the writer constantly resorts to contrast, to exaggeration, to a grotesque juxtaposition of the ugly and the beautiful, the funny and the tragic.

Section 1
Image of Notre Dame Cathedral
in the light aesthetic position Victor Hugo

The novel “Notre Dame Cathedral”, which we are considering in this work, provides convincing evidence that all the aesthetic principles set forth by Hugo are not just a theorist’s manifesto, but the foundations of creativity deeply thought out and felt by the writer.

The basis, the core of this novel-legend is the constant for everything creative path Hugo's mature view of the historical process as an eternal confrontation between two world principles - good and evil, mercy and cruelty, compassion and intolerance, feelings and reason. The field of this battle is different eras and attracts Hugo to an immeasurably greater extent than the analysis of a specific historical situation. Hence the well-known supra-historicism, the symbolism of the heroes, the timeless nature of psychologism. Hugo himself frankly admitted that history as such did not interest him in the novel: “The book has no claims to history, except perhaps to describe with a certain knowledge and a certain care, but only briefly and in fits and starts, the state of morals, beliefs, laws , finally, civilization in the fifteenth century. However, this is not the main thing in the book. If it has one advantage, it is that it is a work created by imagination, whim and fantasy." However, it is reliably known that in order to describe the cathedral and Paris in the 15th century, images of the morals of the era Hugo studied a considerable historical material. Researchers of the Middle Ages meticulously checked Hugo’s “documentation” and could not find any serious errors in it, despite the fact that the writer did not always draw his information from primary sources.

The main characters of the novel are fictitious by the author: the gypsy Esmeralda, the archdeacon of Notre Dame Cathedral Claude Frollo, the cathedral bell ringer the hunchback Quasimodo (who has long since become a literary type). But there is a “character” in the novel who unites everyone around him characters and wraps almost all the main storylines novel. The name of this character is included in the title of Hugo's work. This name is Notre Dame Cathedral.

The author's idea to organize the action of the novel around Notre Dame Cathedral is not accidental: it reflected Hugo's passion for ancient architecture and his activities in defense of medieval monuments. Hugo visited the cathedral especially often in 1828 while walking around old Paris with his friends - the writer Nodier, the sculptor David d'Angers, the artist Delacroix. He met the first vicar of the cathedral, Abbot Egge, the author of mystical writings, which were later recognized as heretical by the official church, and he helped him understand the architectural symbolism of the building. Without a doubt, the colorful figure of Abbot Egge served as the writer’s prototype for Claude Frollo. At the same time, Hugo was studying. historical works, makes numerous extracts from books such as Sauval’s “History and Study of the Antiquities of the City of Paris” (1654), “Review of the Antiquities of Paris” by Du Brel (1612), etc. The preparatory work on the novel was thus thorough and scrupulous; none of the names of the minor characters, including Pierre Gringoire, were invented by Hugo; they were all taken from ancient sources.
Hugo's concern about the fate of architectural monuments of the past, which we mentioned above, is more than clearly visible throughout almost the entire novel.

The first chapter of book three is called "The Cathedral of Our Lady." In it, Hugo talks in poetic form about the history of the creation of the Cathedral, very professionally and in detail characterizes the building’s belonging to a certain stage in the history of architecture, and describes its greatness and beauty in a high style: “First of all - to limit ourselves to the most striking examples - it should be pointed out that it is unlikely in the history of architecture there is a page more beautiful than the one that is the facade of this cathedral... It is like a huge stone symphony of both man and people, united and complex, alike; Iliad And Romansero, to which it is related; a wonderful result of the combination of all the forces of an entire era, where from every stone splashes the imagination of the worker, taking hundreds of forms, guided by the genius of the artist; in a word, this creation of human hands is powerful and abundant, like the creation of God, from whom it seems to have borrowed its dual character: diversity and eternity.”

Along with admiration for the human genius who created the majestic monument to the history of mankind, which Hugo sees as the Cathedral, the author expresses anger and sorrow that such a beautiful building is not preserved and protected by people. He writes: “Notre Dame Cathedral is still a noble and majestic building. But no matter how beautiful the cathedral remains, decrepit, one cannot help but mourn and be indignant at the sight of the countless destruction and damage that both years and people have inflicted on the venerable monument of antiquity ...On the forehead of this patriarch of our cathedrals, next to the wrinkle, you invariably see a scar...

On its ruins one can distinguish three types of more or less deep destruction: first of all, those that are inflicted by the hand of time, inconspicuously gouging and covering the surface of buildings with rust, are striking; then hordes of political and religious unrest, blind and furious in nature, rushed at them randomly; completed the destruction of fashion, more and more pretentious and absurd, replacing one another with the inevitable decline of architecture...

This is exactly what they have been doing for two hundred years with the wonderful churches of the Middle Ages. They will be mutilated in any way - both inside and outside. The priest repaints them, the architect scrapes them; then the people come and destroy them."

Section 2
Image of Notre Dame Cathedral and its unbreakable bond with images of the main characters of the novel

We have already mentioned that the fates of all the main characters of the novel are inextricably linked with the Council, both by the external outline of events and by the threads of internal thoughts and motivations. This is especially true of the inhabitants of the temple: Archdeacon Claude Frollo and the bell ringer Quasimodo. In the fifth chapter of book four we read: “... A strange fate befell the Cathedral of Our Lady in those days - the fate of being loved so reverently, but in completely different ways, by two such dissimilar creatures as Claude and Quasimodo. One of them is a semblance of a half-man, the wild one, submissive only to instinct, loved the cathedral for its beauty, for its harmony, for the harmony that this magnificent whole radiated. Another, gifted with an ardent imagination enriched with knowledge, loved its inner meaning, the meaning hidden in it, loved the legend associated with it, its symbolism hidden behind the sculptural decorations of the facade - in a word, I loved the mystery that Notre Dame Cathedral has remained for the human mind from time immemorial."

For Archdeacon Claude Frollo, the Cathedral is a place of residence, service and semi-scientific, semi-mystical research, a container for all his passions, vices, repentance, throwing, and, ultimately, death. The clergyman Claude Frollo, an ascetic and alchemical scientist, personifies the cold rationalistic mind that triumphs over all good human feelings, joys, affections. This mind, which takes precedence over the heart, inaccessible to pity and compassion, is an evil force for Hugo. Base passions, which flared up in Frollo’s cold soul, not only lead to the death of himself, but are the cause of the death of all the people who meant something in his life: the archdeacon’s younger brother Jehan dies at the hands of Quasimodo, the pure and beautiful Esmeralda, given out by Claude, dies on the gallows authorities, the pupil of the priest Quasimodo, first tamed by him and then, in fact, betrayed, voluntarily surrenders himself to death. The cathedral, being, as it were, an integral part of the life of Claude Frollo, even here acts as a full participant in the action of the novel: from its galleries the archdeacon watches Esmeralda dancing in the square; in the cell of the cathedral, equipped by him for practicing alchemy, he spends hours and days in studies and scientific research, here he begs Esmeralda to take pity and give him love. The cathedral ultimately becomes the site of his terrible death, described by Hugo with stunning power and psychological authenticity.

In that scene, the Cathedral also seems almost an animated being: only two lines are devoted to how Quasimodo pushes his mentor from the balustrade, the next two pages describe Claude Frollo’s “confrontation” with the Cathedral: “The bell-ringer retreated a few steps behind the archdeacon and suddenly, rushing at him in a fit of rage, he pushed him into the abyss over which Claude was leaning... The priest fell down... The drainpipe over which he stood stopped his fall. In despair, he clung to it with both hands... It gaped beneath him. an abyss... In this terrible situation, the archdeacon did not utter a word, did not utter a single groan. He only wriggled, making inhuman efforts to climb the gutter to the balustrade, but his hands slid along the granite, his legs, scratching the blackened wall, searched in vain for support. ...The archdeacon was exhausted. Sweat rolled down his bald forehead, blood oozed from under his nails onto the stones, his knees were bruised. He heard how with every effort he made, his cassock, caught on the gutter, cracked and tore. To top off the misfortune, the gutter ended in a lead pipe that bent under the weight of his body... The soil gradually disappeared from under him, his fingers slid along the gutter, his arms weakened, his body became heavier... He looked at the impassive sculptures of the tower, hanging like him , over the abyss, but without fear for himself, without regret for him. Everything around was stone: right in front of him were the open mouths of monsters, below him in the depths of the square was the pavement, above his head was a crying Quasimodo.”
A man with a cold soul and a heart of stone in the last minutes of his life found himself alone with a cold stone - and did not expect any pity, compassion, or mercy from him, because he himself did not give anyone compassion, pity, or mercy.

The connection with the Cathedral of Quasimodo - this ugly hunchback with the soul of an embittered child - is even more mysterious and incomprehensible. Here is what Hugo writes about this: “Over time, strong ties connected the bell-ringer with the cathedral. Forever cut off from the world by the double misfortune that weighed on him - his dark origin and physical deformity, closed since childhood in this double irresistible circle, the poor fellow got used to not noticing anything that lay on the other side of the sacred walls, sheltering him under their shadow. While he grew and developed, the Cathedral of Our Lady served for him as an egg, then a nest, then a home, then a homeland, then, finally, the universe.

There was undoubtedly some kind of mysterious predestined harmony between this creature and the building. When, still quite a baby, Quasimodo, with painful efforts, made his way at a galloping pace under the gloomy arches, he, with his human head and animal body, seemed like a reptile, naturally arising among the damp and gloomy slabs...

Thus, developing under the shadow of the cathedral, living and sleeping in it, almost never leaving it and constantly experiencing its mysterious influence, Quasimodo eventually became like him; it seemed to have grown into the building, turned into one of its constituent parts... It is almost without exaggeration to say that it took the form of a cathedral, just as snails take the form of a shell. This was his home, his lair, his shell. Between him and the ancient temple there was a deep instinctive attachment, a physical affinity..."

Reading the novel, we see that for Quasimodo the cathedral was everything - a refuge, a home, a friend, it protected him from the cold, from human malice and cruelty, it satisfied the need of a freak rejected by people for communication: “Only with extreme reluctance did he turn his gaze to people. A cathedral populated by marble statues of kings, saints, bishops, who at least did not laugh in his face and looked at him with a calm and benevolent gaze, was enough for him. The statues of monsters and demons also did not hate him - he was too similar. on them... The saints were his friends and protected him; the monsters were also his friends and protected him. He poured out his soul to them for a long time, sitting on his haunches in front of some statue, he talked with her for hours. “Whenever he entered the temple, Quasimodo ran away, like a lover caught in a serenade.”

Only a new, stronger, hitherto unfamiliar feeling could shake this inextricable, incredible connection between a person and a building. This happened when a miracle, embodied in an innocent and beautiful image, entered the life of an outcast. The name of the miracle is Esmeralda. Hugo endows this heroine with all the best traits inherent in representatives of the people: beauty, tenderness, kindness, mercy, simplicity and naivety, incorruptibility and loyalty. Alas, in cruel times, among cruel people, all these qualities were more disadvantages than advantages: kindness, naivety and simplicity do not help to survive in a world of anger and self-interest. Esmeralda died, slandered by her lover, Claude, betrayed by her loved ones, Phoebus, and not saved by Quasimodo, who worshiped and idolized her.

Quasimodo, who managed, as it were, to turn the Cathedral into the “murderer” of the archdeacon, earlier, with the help of the same cathedral - his integral “part” - tries to save the gypsy by stealing her from the place of execution and using the cell of the Cathedral as a refuge, i.e. a place, where criminals persecuted by law and authority were inaccessible to their pursuers, behind the sacred walls of the refuge the condemned were inviolable. However, the evil will of people turned out to be stronger, and the stones of the Cathedral of Our Lady did not save Esmeralda’s life.

At the beginning of the novel, Hugo tells the reader that “several years ago, while examining the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris, or, more precisely, examining it, the author of this book discovered in a dark corner of one of the towers the following word inscribed on the wall: ANKГH These Greek letters, darkened by time and quite deeply carved into the stone, certain signs characteristic of Gothic writing, imprinted in the shape and arrangement of the letters, as if indicating that they were inscribed by the hand of a man of the Middle Ages, and especially the gloomy and fatal meaning, contained in them, deeply struck the author.

He asked himself, he tried to comprehend whose suffering soul did not want to leave this world without leaving this stigma of crime or misfortune on the forehead of the ancient church. This word gave birth to this book."

This word means "Rock" in Greek. The destinies of the characters in "Cathedral" are directed by fate, which is announced at the very beginning of the work. Rock here is symbolized and personified in the image of the Cathedral, to which all the threads of action somehow converge. It can be considered that the Council symbolizes the role of the church more broadly: the dogmatic worldview - in the Middle Ages; this worldview subjugates a person just as the Council absorbs the destinies of individual characters. Thus, Hugo conveys one of the characteristic features the era in which the novel takes place.
It should be noted that if the romantics of the older generation saw in the Gothic temple an expression of the mystical ideals of the Middle Ages and associated with it their desire to escape from everyday suffering into the bosom of religion and otherworldly dreams, then for Hugo medieval Gothic is a wonderful folk art, and the Cathedral is an arena not of mystical, but of the most everyday passions.

Hugo's contemporaries reproached him for not being Catholic enough in his novel. Lamartine, who called Hugo “the Shakespeare of the novel” and his “Cathedral” “a colossal work,” wrote that in his temple “there is everything you want, but there is not a bit of religion in it.” Using the example of the fate of Claude Frollo, Hugo strives to show the failure of church dogmatism and asceticism, their inevitable collapse on the eve of the Renaissance, which was the end of the 15th century for France, depicted in the novel.

Conclusion
Architecture - "the first book of humanity"

There is such a scene in the novel. Before the archdeacon of the cathedral, the stern and learned guardian of the shrine, lies one of the first printed books to come out of Gutenberg's printing press. It happens in Claude Frollo's cell at night. Outside the window rises the gloomy bulk of the cathedral.

“For some time the archdeacon silently contemplated the huge building, then with a sigh he extended his right hand to the open printed book lying on the table, and his left hand to the Cathedral of Our Lady and, turning his sad gaze to the cathedral, said:
- Alas! This will kill that."
The thought attributed by Hugo to the medieval monk is the thought of Hugo himself. She gets his rationale. He continues: “...So a sparrow would have been alarmed at the sight of the angel of the Legion, spreading his six million wings before him... It was the fear of a warrior watching the copper ram and announcing: “The tower will collapse.”

The poet-historian found a reason for broad generalizations. He traces the history of architecture, treating it as “the first book of humanity,” the first attempt to consolidate the collective memory of generations in visible and meaningful images. Hugo unfolds before the reader a grandiose procession of centuries - from primitive society to antiquity, from antiquity to the Middle Ages, dwells on the Renaissance and talks about the ideological and social revolution of the 15th-16th centuries, which was so helped by printing. Here Hugo's eloquence reaches its apogee. He composes a hymn to the Seal:
“This is some kind of anthill of minds. This is a hive where the golden bees of the imagination bring their honey.

This building has thousands of floors... Everything here is full of harmony. From Shakespeare's Cathedral to Byron's Mosque...

However, the wonderful building still remains unfinished.... The human race is all on scaffolding. Every mind is a mason."

Using Victor Hugo's metaphor, we can say that he built one of the most beautiful and majestic buildings to be admired. his contemporaries, and more and more new generations never tire of admiring him.

At the very beginning of the novel, you can read the following lines: “And now nothing remained either of the mysterious word carved into the wall of the gloomy tower of the cathedral, or of that unknown fate that this word so sadly denoted - nothing except the fragile memory that the author of this dedicates books to them. Several centuries ago, the person who wrote this word on the wall disappeared from the wall of the cathedral; perhaps the cathedral itself will soon disappear from the face of the earth.” We know that Hugo’s sad prophecy about the future of the cathedral has not yet come true, and we would like to believe that it will not come true. Humanity is gradually learning to treat the works of its own hands more carefully. It seems that the writer and humanist Victor Hugo contributed to the understanding that time is cruel, but it is human duty to resist its destructive onslaught and protect the soul of the creator people embodied in stone, in metal, in words and sentences from destruction.

Bibliography
1. Hugo V. Collected works in 15 volumes / Introductory article by V. Nikolaev. - M., 1953-1956.
2. Hugo V. Collected works in 6 volumes / Introductory article by M.V. Tolmacheva. - M., 1988.
3. Hugo V. Collected works in 6 volumes / Final article by P. Antokolsky. - M., 1988.
4. Hugo V. Ninety-third year; Ernani; Poems./ Introductory article by E. Evnina. - M., 1973 (Library of World Literature).
5. Brahman S. “Les Miserables” by Victor Hugo. - M., 1968.
6. Evnina E. Victor Hugo. - M., 1976.
7. Lunacharsky A. Victor Hugo: The creative path of a writer. - Collected Works, 1965, vol. 6, p. 73-118.
8. Minina T.N. Novel "The Ninety-Third Year": The Problem of Revolution in the Works of Victor Hugo. -L., 1978.
9. Maurois A. Olympio, or the Life of Victor Hugo. - M.: Raduga, 1983.
10. Muravyova A. Hugo. - M.: Young Guard, 1961 (Life of wonderful people).
11. Reizov B.G. French historical novel in the era of romanticism. - L., 1958.
12. Treskunov M. Victor Hugo. - L., 1969.

Composition

The novel “Notre Dame de Paris”, which we are considering in this work, provides convincing evidence that all the aesthetic principles set forth by Hugo are not just a theorist’s manifesto, but the fundamentals of creativity deeply thought out and felt by the writer.

The basis, the core of this legendary novel is the view of the historical process, unchanged throughout the entire creative career of the mature Hugo, as an eternal confrontation between two world principles - good and evil, mercy and cruelty, compassion and intolerance, feelings and reason. The field of this battle in different eras attracts Hugo to an immeasurably greater extent than the analysis of a specific historical situation. Hence the well-known supra-historicism, the symbolism of the heroes, the timeless nature of psychologism. Hugo himself frankly admitted that history as such did not interest him in the novel: “The book has no claims to history, except perhaps to describe with a certain knowledge and a certain care, but only briefly and in fits and starts, the state of morals, beliefs, laws , arts, finally, civilization in the fifteenth century. However, this is not the main thing in the book. If it has one virtue, it is that it is a work of imagination, whim, and fancy.” However, it is reliably known that to describe the cathedral and Paris in the 15th century, depicting the morals of the era, Hugo studied considerable historical material. Researchers of the Middle Ages meticulously checked Hugo’s “documentation” and could not find any serious errors in it, despite the fact that the writer did not always draw his information from primary sources.

The main characters of the novel are fictitious by the author: the gypsy Esmeralda, the archdeacon of Notre Dame Cathedral Claude Frollo, the cathedral bell ringer the hunchback Quasimodo (who has long since become a literary type). But there is a “character” in the novel who unites all the characters around him and wraps almost all the main plot lines of the novel into one ball. The name of this character is included in the title of Hugo's work. This name is Notre Dame Cathedral.

The author's idea to organize the action of the novel around Notre Dame Cathedral is not accidental: it reflected Hugo's passion for ancient architecture and his activities in defense of medieval monuments. Hugo visited the cathedral especially often in 1828 while walking through old Paris with his friends - the writer Nodier, the sculptor David d'Angers, and the artist Delacroix. He met the first vicar of the cathedral, Abbot Egge, the author of mystical works that were later recognized as heretical by the official church, and he helped him understand the architectural symbolism of the building. Without a doubt, the colorful figure of Abbot Egge served as the writer’s prototype for Claude Frollo. At the same time, Hugo studied historical works, made numerous extracts from books such as “History and Study of the Antiquities of the City of Paris” by Sauval (1654), “Review of the Antiquities of Paris” by Du Brel (1612), etc. The preparatory work on the novel was such in a thorough and scrupulous manner; none of the names of the minor characters, including Pierre Gringoire, were invented by Hugo; they were all taken from ancient sources.

Hugo's concern about the fate of architectural monuments of the past, which we mentioned above, is more than clearly visible throughout almost the entire novel.

The first chapter of book three is called “The Cathedral of Our Lady.” In it, Hugo talks in poetic form about the history of the creation of the Cathedral, very professionally and in detail characterizes the building’s belonging to a certain stage in the history of architecture, describes its greatness and beauty in a high style: “First of all - to limit ourselves to the most striking examples - it should be pointed out that it is unlikely in the history of architecture there is a more beautiful page than the facade of this cathedral... It is like a huge stone symphony; a colossal creation of both man and people, united and complex, like the Iliad and the Romancero, to which it is related; a wonderful result of the combination of all the forces of an entire era, where from every stone splashes the imagination of the worker, taking hundreds of forms, guided by the genius of the artist; in a word, this creation of human hands is powerful and abundant, like the creation of God, from whom it seems to have borrowed its dual character: diversity and eternity.”

Along with admiration for the human genius who created the majestic monument to the history of mankind, which Hugo sees as the Cathedral, the author expresses anger and sorrow that such a beautiful building is not preserved and protected by people. He writes: “Notre Dame Cathedral is still a noble and majestic building. But no matter how beautiful the cathedral remains, decrepit, one cannot help but grieve and be indignant at the sight of the countless destruction and damage that both years and people have inflicted on the venerable monument of antiquity... On the forehead of this patriarch of our cathedrals, next to the wrinkle, you invariably see a scar... .

On its ruins one can distinguish three types of more or less deep destruction: first of all, those that are inflicted by the hand of time, inconspicuously gouging and covering the surface of buildings with rust, are striking; then hordes of political and religious unrest, blind and furious in nature, rushed at them randomly; completed the destruction of fashion, more and more pretentious and absurd, replacing one another with the inevitable decline of architecture...

This is exactly what they have been doing for two hundred years with the wonderful churches of the Middle Ages. They will be mutilated in any way - both inside and outside. The priest repaints them, the architect scrapes them; then the people come and destroy them”

The image of Notre Dame Cathedral and its inextricable connection with the images of the main characters of the novel

We have already mentioned that the fates of all the main characters of the novel are inextricably linked with the Council, both by the external outline of events and by the threads of internal thoughts and motivations. This is especially true of the inhabitants of the temple: Archdeacon Claude Frollo and the bell ringer Quasimodo. In the fifth chapter of book four we read: “...A strange fate befell the Cathedral of Our Lady in those days - the fate of being loved so reverently, but in completely different ways, by two such dissimilar creatures as Claude and Quasimodo. One of them - a semblance of a half-man, wild, submissive only to instinct, loved the cathedral for its beauty, for its harmony, for the harmony that this magnificent whole radiated. Another, gifted with an ardent imagination enriched with knowledge, loved its inner meaning, the meaning hidden in it, loved the legend associated with it, its symbolism hidden behind the sculptural decorations of the facade - in a word, loved the mystery that has remained for the human mind from time immemorial Notre Dame Cathedral."

For Archdeacon Claude Frollo, the Cathedral is a place of residence, service and semi-scientific, semi-mystical research, a container for all his passions, vices, repentance, throwing, and, ultimately, death. The clergyman Claude Frollo, an ascetic and alchemical scientist personifies a cold rationalistic mind, triumphing over all good human feelings, joys, and affections. This mind, which takes precedence over the heart, inaccessible to pity and compassion, is an evil force for Hugo. The base passions that flared up in Frollo’s cold soul not only lead to his own death, but are the cause of the death of all the people who meant something in his life: the archdeacon’s younger brother Jehan dies at the hands of Quasimodo, the pure and beautiful Esmeralda dies on the gallows, handed over by Claude to the authorities, the pupil of the priest Quasimodo, first tamed by him and then, in fact, betrayed, voluntarily commits himself to death. The cathedral, being, as it were, an integral part of the life of Claude Frollo, even here acts as a full participant in the action of the novel: from its galleries the archdeacon watches Esmeralda dancing in the square; in the cell of the cathedral, equipped by him for practicing alchemy, he spends hours and days in studies and scientific research, here he begs Esmeralda to take pity and give him love. The cathedral ultimately becomes the site of his terrible death, described by Hugo with stunning power and psychological authenticity.

In that scene, the Cathedral also seems almost an animated being: only two lines are devoted to how Quasimodo pushes his mentor from the balustrade, the next two pages describe Claude Frollo’s “confrontation” with the Cathedral: “The bell-ringer retreated a few steps behind the archdeacon and suddenly, rushing at him in a fit of rage, he pushed him into the abyss, over which Claude bent... The priest fell down... The drainpipe over which he stood stopped his fall. In despair, he clung to it with both hands... An abyss yawned beneath him... In this terrible situation, the archdeacon did not utter a word, did not utter a single groan. He just wriggled, making superhuman efforts to climb up the chute to the balustrade. But his hands slid along the granite, his legs, scratching the blackened wall, searched in vain for support... The Archdeacon was exhausted. Sweat rolled down his bald forehead, blood oozed from under his nails onto the stones, and his knees were bruised. He heard how with every effort he made, his cassock, caught on the gutter, cracked and tore. To top off the misfortune, the gutter ended in a lead pipe that bent under the weight of his body... The soil gradually disappeared from under him, his fingers slid along the gutter, his arms weakened, his body became heavier... He looked at the impassive sculptures of the tower, hanging like him , over the abyss, but without fear for himself, without regret for him. Everything around was stone: right in front of him were the open mouths of monsters, below him, in the depths of the square, was the pavement, above his head was a crying Quasimodo.”

A man with a cold soul and a heart of stone in the last minutes of his life found himself alone with a cold stone - and did not expect any pity, compassion, or mercy from him, because he himself did not give anyone compassion, pity, or mercy.

The connection with the Cathedral of Quasimodo - this ugly hunchback with the soul of an embittered child - is even more mysterious and incomprehensible. Here is what Hugo writes about this: “Over time, strong ties connected the bell-ringer with the cathedral. Forever cut off from the world by the double misfortune that weighed on him - his dark origin and physical deformity, closed since childhood in this double insurmountable circle, the poor fellow was accustomed to not noticing anything that lay on the other side of the sacred walls that sheltered him under their canopy. While he grew and developed, the Cathedral of Our Lady served for him as an egg, then a nest, then a home, then a homeland, then, finally, the universe.

There was undoubtedly some kind of mysterious predestined harmony between this creature and the building. When, still quite a baby, Quasimodo, with painful efforts, made his way at a galloping pace under the gloomy arches, he, with his human head and animal body, seemed like a reptile, naturally arising among the damp and gloomy slabs...

Thus, developing under the shadow of the cathedral, living and sleeping in it, almost never leaving it and constantly experiencing its mysterious influence, Quasimodo eventually became like him; it seemed to have grown into the building, turned into one of its constituent parts... It is almost without exaggeration to say that it took the form of a cathedral, just as snails take the form of a shell. This was his home, his lair, his shell. Between him and the ancient temple there was a deep instinctive attachment, a physical affinity...”

Reading the novel, we see that for Quasimodo the cathedral was everything - a refuge, a home, a friend, it protected him from the cold, from human malice and cruelty, it satisfied the need of a freak rejected by people for communication: “Only with extreme reluctance did he turn his gaze to of people. A cathedral populated by marble statues of kings, saints, bishops, who at least did not laugh in his face and looked at him with a calm and benevolent gaze, was quite enough for him. The statues of monsters and demons also did not hate him - he was too similar to them... The saints were his friends and protected him; the monsters were also his friends and protected him. He poured out his soul to them for a long time. Squatting in front of a statue, he talked with it for hours. If at this time anyone entered the temple, Quasimodo would run away, like a lover caught in a serenade.”

Only a new, stronger, hitherto unfamiliar feeling could shake this inextricable, incredible connection between a person and a building. This happened when a miracle, embodied in an innocent and beautiful image, entered the life of an outcast. The name of the miracle is Esmeralda. Hugo endows this heroine with all the best traits inherent in representatives of the people: beauty, tenderness, kindness, mercy, simplicity and naivety, incorruptibility and loyalty. Alas, in cruel times, among cruel people, all these qualities were more disadvantages than advantages: kindness, naivety and simplicity do not help to survive in a world of anger and self-interest. Esmeralda died, slandered by her lover, Claude, betrayed by her loved ones, Phoebus, and not saved by Quasimodo, who worshiped and idolized her.

Quasimodo, who managed, as it were, to turn the Cathedral into the “killer” of the archdeacon, earlier, with the help of the same cathedral - his integral “part” - tries to save the gypsy by stealing her from the place of execution and using the cell of the Cathedral as a refuge, i.e. a place, where criminals persecuted by law and authority were inaccessible to their pursuers, behind the sacred walls of the refuge the condemned were inviolable. However, the evil will of people turned out to be stronger, and the stones of the Cathedral of Our Lady did not save Esmeralda’s life.

At the beginning of the novel, Hugo tells the reader that “several years ago, while examining the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris, or, more precisely, examining it, the author of this book discovered in a dark corner of one of the towers the following word inscribed on the wall:

These Greek letters, darkened with time and quite deeply carved into the stone, are some features characteristic of Gothic writing, imprinted in the shape and arrangement of the letters, as if indicating that they were inscribed by the hand of a medieval man, and especially the gloomy and fatal meaning in them concluded, deeply struck the author.

He asked himself, he tried to comprehend whose suffering soul did not want to leave this world without leaving this stigma of crime or misfortune on the forehead of the ancient church. This word gave birth to this book.”

This word means "Rock" in Greek. The destinies of the characters in “Cathedral” are directed by fate, which is announced at the very beginning of the work. Rock here is symbolized and personified in the image of the Cathedral, to which all the threads of action somehow converge. It can be considered that the Council symbolizes the role of the church more broadly: the dogmatic worldview - in the Middle Ages; this worldview subjugates a person just as the Council absorbs the destinies of individual characters. Thus, Hugo conveys one of the characteristic features of the era in which the novel takes place.

It should be noted that if the romantics of the older generation saw in the Gothic temple an expression of the mystical ideals of the Middle Ages and associated with it their desire to escape from everyday suffering into the bosom of the religion of otherworldly dreams, then for Hugo medieval Gothic is a wonderful folk art, and the Cathedral is an arena of non-mystical, but the most everyday passions. and otherworldly dreams, then for Hugo medieval Gothic is a wonderful folk art, and the Cathedral is an arena not of mystical, but of the most everyday passions.

Hugo's contemporaries reproached him for not being Catholic enough in his novel. Lamartine, who called Hugo “the Shakespeare of the novel” and his “Cathedral” “a colossal work,” wrote that in his temple “there is everything you want, but there is not a bit of religion in it.” Using the example of the fate of Claude Frollo, Hugo strives to show the failure of church dogmatism and asceticism, their inevitable collapse on the eve of the Renaissance, which was the end of the 15th century for France, depicted in the novel.

There is such a scene in the novel. Before the archdeacon of the cathedral, the stern and learned guardian of the shrine, lies one of the first printed books to come out of Gutenberg's printing press. It happens in Claude Frollo's cell at night. Outside the window rises the gloomy bulk of the cathedral.

“For some time the archdeacon silently contemplated the huge building, then with a sigh he extended his right hand to the open printed book lying on the table, and his left hand to the Cathedral of Our Lady and, turning his sad gaze to the cathedral, said:

Alas! This will kill that.”

The thought attributed by Hugo to the medieval monk is the thought of Hugo himself. She gets his rationale. He continues: “...So a sparrow would have been alarmed at the sight of the angel of the Legion, spreading his six million wings before him... That was the fear of a warrior watching the copper ram and announcing: “The tower will collapse.”

The poet-historian found a reason for broad generalizations. He traces the history of architecture, treating it as “the first book of humanity,” the first attempt to consolidate the collective memory of generations in visible and meaningful images. Hugo unfolds before the reader a grandiose procession of centuries - from primitive society to ancient society, from ancient society to the Middle Ages, stops at the Renaissance and talks about the ideological and social revolution of the 15th-16th centuries, which was so helped by printing. Here Hugo's eloquence reaches its apogee. He composes a hymn to the Seal:

“This is some kind of anthill of minds. This is the hive where the golden bees of the imagination bring their honey.

This building has thousands of floors... Everything here is full of harmony. From Shakespeare's Cathedral to Byron's Mosque...

However, the wonderful building still remains unfinished.... The human race is all on scaffolding. Every mind is a mason.”

Using Victor Hugo's metaphor, we can say that he built one of the most beautiful and majestic buildings to be admired. his contemporaries, and more and more new generations never tire of admiring him.

At the very beginning of the novel, you can read the following lines: “And now nothing remained either of the mysterious word carved into the wall of the gloomy tower of the cathedral, or of that unknown fate that this word so sadly denoted - nothing except the fragile memory that the author of this dedicates books to them. Several centuries ago, the person who wrote this word on the wall disappeared from the living; the word itself disappeared from the cathedral wall; perhaps the cathedral itself will soon disappear from the face of the earth.” We know that Hugo’s sad prophecy about the future of the cathedral has not yet come true, and we would like to believe that it will not come true. Humanity is gradually learning to treat the works of its own hands more carefully. It seems that the writer and humanist Victor Hugo contributed to the understanding that time is cruel, but it is human duty to resist its destructive onslaught and protect the soul of the creator people embodied in stone, in metal, in words and sentences from destruction.

Sections: Literature

Goals:

Educational:

1. Introduce students to the work of Victor Hugo.
2. Teach interpretation of literary text.

Educational:

1. To develop the ability to analyze an epic work.
2. Develop students' independent judgment.

Educational:

1. Develop students' coherent speech.
2. Expand your horizons.
3. Cultivate a love of art.

Equipment: board, chalk, multimedia projector.

During the classes

I. introduction teachers.

Hello guys! Today we continue to study the work of V. Hugo. In this lesson we will study the novel “Notre Dame Cathedral” - a work that reflects the past through the prism of the views of a writer - a humanist of the 19th century, who sought to emphasize those features of the past that are instructive for the present. But before that, let’s review the material we studied.

II. Repetition of what has been learned.

1. What are the years of V. Hugo’s life (Appendix 1).

2. Name the stages of V. Hugo's creativity.

I. (1820-1850)

II. Years of exile (1851-1870)

III. After returning to France (1870-1885)

3. Where was V. Hugo buried? Adele Foucher

4. Name the main features of V. Hugo's work.

• The main principle for Hugo’s romantic poetics is the depiction of life in its contrasts. He believed that the determining factor in development is the struggle between good and evil, that is, the eternal struggle of the good or divine principle with the evil, demonic principle.
• The evil principle is those in power, kings, despots, tyrants, high dignitaries of the church or unrighteous state law.
• A good beginning is those who bring goodness and mercy.
• Perception of the world in many dimensions (not only in the present time, but also in the distant past).
• Striving for a truthful and multifaceted portrayal of life.
• Contrast, grotesque, and hyperbole are Hugo's main artistic techniques.

What is grotesque? Grotesque is a style, a genre of artistic imagery, based on a contrasting combination of verisimilitude and caricature, tragedy and comedy, beauty and ugliness. For example, the image of Quasimodo (ugly) and Esmeralda (beautiful.)

What is a hyperbole? Hyperbole is an exaggeration of certain properties of an object to create artistic image. Let's look at the example of Quasimodo's image:

“ The poor baby had a wart on his left eye, his head sunk deep into his shoulders, his spine curved, his chest protruding, his legs twisted; but he seemed tenacious, and although it was difficult to understand what language he was babbling in... Quasimodo, one-eyed, hunchbacked, bow-legged, was only “almost” a man”.

III. Checking homework.(Appendix 3)

Now let’s listen to a short message on the topic: “The history of the creation of the novel”:

“The beginning of work on “Notre Dame Cathedral” dates back to 1828. Hugo's appeal to the distant past was caused by 3 factors in the cultural life of his time: the widespread use of historical themes in literature, a passion for the romantically interpreted Middle Ages, and the struggle for the protection of historical and architectural monuments.

Hugo conceived his work at the time of the heyday of the historical novel in French literature.

The idea to organize the action around Notre Dame Cathedral was entirely his; it reflected his passion for ancient architecture and his activities in defense of medieval monuments. Hugo visited the cathedral especially often in 1828 while walking through old Paris with his friends - the writer NODIER*, the sculptor DAVID D ANGE, the artist DELACROIX*.

He met the first vicar of the cathedral, Abbot EGZHE, the author of mystical works that were later recognized as heretical by the official church, and he helped him understand the architectural symbolism of the building. Without a doubt, the colorful figure of Abbot EGGE served the writer as a prototype for Claude Frollo.

The preparatory work on the novel was careful and scrupulous; none of the names of the minor characters, including Pierre Gringoire, were invented by Hugo; they were all taken from ancient sources.

In the first manuscript of 1828, Phoebus de Chateaupert is missing; the central link of the novel is the love of two persons for Esmeralda - Claude Frollo and Quasimodo. Esmeralda is accused only of witchcraft.

* Charles Nodier (1780-1844) - French writer.
* EUGENE DELACROIX (1798-1863) – French painter, distinguished by his love of nature, sense of reality “Dante and Virgil”...

IV. Work on the analysis of the epic text.

Now let's turn directly to the analysis of the novel.

In this novel, V. Hugo addresses the events of the 15th century. The 15th century in the history of France is the era of transition from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance.

Only one historical event is indicated in the novel (the arrival of ambassadors for the marriage of the Dauphin* and Margarita Flanders in January 1482), and historical characters (King Louis XIII, Cardinal of Bourbon) are relegated to the background by numerous fictional characters.

HISTORICAL REFERENCE.

* since 1140, the title of the rulers of the county of Dauphine (old province of France, mountainous area).
* Louis XIII - King of France in 1610 - 1643. Son of Henry IV and Marie de Medici.

Explain why the novel is called “Notre Dame Cathedral”?

The novel is so called because the central image is a cathedral.

Indeed, the image of Notre Dame Cathedral, created by the people over centuries, comes to the fore.

HISTORICAL REFERENCE (Appendix 2)

Construction of the cathedral, according to plans drawn up by Bishop Maurice de Sully, began in 1163, when the first foundation stone was laid by King Louis VII and Pope Alexander III, who specially came to Paris for the ceremony. The main altar of the cathedral was consecrated in May 1182, by 1196 the temple was almost finished, work continued only on the main facade. Towers were erected in the second quarter of the 13th century. But the construction was completely completed only in 1345, during which time the original construction plans were changed several times.

In this novel, for the first time, the writer raised a serious socio-cultural problem - the preservation of architectural monuments of antiquity.

Find a fragment in the novel that talks about the author’s attitude towards the cathedral as an architectural monument of antiquity.

“Later, this wall (I don’t even remember exactly which one) was either scraped or painted over, and the inscription disappeared. This is exactly what they have been doing for two hundred years with the wonderful churches of the Middle Ages. They will be mutilated in any way - both inside and outside. The priest repaints them, the architect scrapes them; then the people come and destroy them.”

Regretfully. “This was the attitude towards the marvelous works of art of the Middle Ages almost everywhere, especially in France.”

What are the three types of damage that the author talked about? (Example from text)

“ On its ruins one can distinguish three types of more or less deep damage:

1. “Dealt by the hand of time”.

2. “...then hordes of political and religious unrest rushed at them... which tore apart the luxurious sculptural and carved decoration of the cathedrals, knocked out rosettes, tore necklaces of arabesques * and figurines, and destroyed statues.”

3. “The destruction of fashion has been completed, more and more pretentious** and ridiculous.”

* arabesque is a complex patterned ornament of geometric shapes and stylized leaves.

** pretentious - overly intricate, complicated, intricate.

Do you agree with the opinion of V. Hugo?
- Name the main characters of the novel?

Esmeralda, Quasimodo, Claude Frollo.

It is important to note that the fates of all the main characters in the novel are inextricably linked with the Council, both by the external outline of events and by the threads of internal thoughts and motivations.

Let's take a closer look at the image of Claude Frollo and his connection with the cathedral.

Who is Claude Frollo? (TEXT)

Claude Frollo is a clergyman, ascetic and learned alchemist.

What do you know about Claude's life?

“ Indeed, Claude Frollo was an extraordinary person.

By origin, he belonged to one of those families of the middle circle, which in the irreverent language of the last century were called either eminent citizens or minor nobles.

Claude Frollo from infancy was destined by his parents for the clergy. He was taught to read Latin and instilled in him the habit of lowering his eyes and speaking in a low voice.

He was by nature a sad, sedate, serious child who studied diligently and quickly absorbed knowledge.

He studied Latin, Greek and Hebrew. Claude was obsessed with a real fever to acquire and accumulate scientific wealth.

The young man believed that there was only one goal in life: science.

...Parents died of the plague. The young man took his brother (baby) in his arms... imbued with compassion, he felt passionate and devoted love for the child, for his brother. Claude was more than a brother to the child: he became his mother.

At the age of twenty, with the special permission of the papal curia, he was appointed clergyman of Notre Dame Cathedral.

... Father Claude's fame extended far beyond the cathedral.

How do people feel about him?

He was not loved either by respectable people or by the small people who lived near the cathedral.

How did Quasimodo treat him?

He loved the archdeacon as much as no dog, no elephant, no horse had ever loved their master. Quasimodo's gratitude was deep, ardent, boundless.

How did Esmeralda feel about Claude Frollo?

She is afraid of the priest. “For how many months has he been poisoning me, threatening me, scaring me! Oh my God! How happy I was without him. It was he who plunged me into this abyss...”

Do you think Claude Frollo is a dual person? If yes, please explain? How is this duality expressed? (examples from the text).

Certainly. Claude Frollo is a dual person, because on the one hand, he is a kind, loving person, he has compassion for people (he raised his younger brother, put him on his feet, saved little Quasimodo from death, taking him into his upbringing); but on the other hand, he has a dark, evil force, cruelty (because of him Esmeralda was hanged). TEXT: “Suddenly, in the most terrible moment, satanic laughter, laughter in which there was nothing human, distorted the deathly pale face of the priest.”

Now let's trace Claude Frollo's connection with the cathedral.

Remember how Claude feels about the cathedral?

Claude Frollo loved the cathedral. “I loved the inner meaning of the cathedral, the meaning hidden in it, I loved its symbolism hidden behind the sculptural decorations of the facade.” In addition, the cathedral was the place where Claude worked, practiced alchemy, and simply lived.

What events in the life of Claude Frollo are connected with the cathedral?

Firstly, it was at the cathedral, in a manger for foundlings, that he found Quasimodo and took the foundling to himself.
Secondly, “from his galleries the archdeacon watched Esmeralda dancing in the square” and it was here that he “begged Esmeralda to take pity on him and give him love.”

Let us consider in detail the image of Quasimodo and his connection with the cathedral.

Tell us about the fate of Quasimodo?

From childhood, Quasimodo was deprived of parental love. He was raised by Claude Frollo. The priest taught him to speak, read, and write. Then, when Quasimodo grew up, Claude Frollo made him a bell ringer in the cathedral. Due to the strong ringing, Quasimodo lost his hearing.

How do people feel about Quasimodo?
- Is everything the same? (find a fragment from the text)

• ABOUT! Nasty monkey!
• As evil as she is ugly!
• The devil in the flesh.
• Oh, vile mug!
• O vile soul.
• A disgusting monster.

Why are people so cruel to Quasimodo?

Because he's not like them.

Do you think Quasimodo is a dual character or not?
- How is this expressed?

Certainly. On the one hand, Quasimodo is evil, cruel, bestial, his very appearance instills fear and horror in a person, does all sorts of nasty things to people, but on the other hand, he is kind, he has a vulnerable, gentle soul and everything he does is just a reaction to the evil that people do to him (Quasimodo saves Esmeralda, hides her, takes care of her).

Do you remember the events in the life of the hunchback that are associated with the cathedral?

Firstly, in the cathedral the hunchback hid Esmeralda from people who wanted to kill her.
Secondly, here he killed the brother of the priest Jehan and Claude Frollo himself.

What does the cathedral mean to Quasimodo?

“A refuge, friend, protects him from the cold, from man and his malice and cruelty... The cathedral served for him as an egg, a nest, a home, a homeland, and finally, the Universe.” “The cathedral replaced not only people for him, but also the entire universe, all of nature.”

Why does Quasimodo love the cathedral?

He loves it for its beauty, for its harmony, for the harmony that the building exuded, for the fact that Quasimodo felt free here. My favorite place was the bell tower. It was the bells that made him happy. “He loved them, caressed them, spoke to them, understood them, was gentle with everyone, from the smallest bells to the largest bell.”

Does the attitude of the people affect the character of Quasimodo?

Undoubtedly it has an impact. “His malice was not innate. From his very first steps among people, he felt and then clearly realized himself as a being rejected, spat upon, branded. Growing up, he encountered only hatred around him and became infected with it. Pursued by general anger, he himself picked up the weapon with which he was wounded.”

What role does Claude Frollo play in the life of the hunchback?

Claude picked him up, adopted him, fed him, raised him. As a child, Quasimodo was accustomed to take refuge at the feet of C. Frollo when he was being pursued.

What does Quasimodo mean to Claude?

The archdeacon had in him the most obedient slave. The most efficient servant.

Another main character in the novel is Esmeralda

Who is she?

Gypsy.

Find a description of Esmeralda in the text.
- What can you say about her?

“In the spacious, free space between the fire and the crowd, a young girl danced.

Was this young girl a human being, a fairy or an angel...

She was short in stature, but seemed tall - that was how slender her figure was. She was dark-skinned, but it was not difficult to guess that her skin had that wonderful golden hue that is characteristic of Andalusian and Roman women. The little foot was also the foot of an Andalusian woman - she walked so lightly in her graceful shoe. The girl danced, fluttered, twirled on an old Persian carpet carelessly thrown at her feet, and every time her radiant face appeared in front of you, the gaze of her large black eyes blinded you like lightning...

Thin, fragile, with bare shoulders and slender legs occasionally glimpsed from under her skirt, black-haired, quick as a wasp, in a golden bodice that tightly fitted her waist, in a colorful billowing dress, shining with her eyes, she truly seemed like an unearthly creature...”

Esmeralda is a very beautiful girl, cheerful and bright.

How do people feel about Esmeralda?

a) People (Argotines)?

The Argotinians and Argotine women quietly stood aside, making way for her, their brutal faces seemed to brighten at her mere glance.

b) Pierre Gringoire?

“Lovely woman!” “...I was fascinated by the dazzling vision.” “Really,” thought Gringoire, “this is a salamander, this is a nymph, this is a goddess.”

c) Claude Frollo?

“The only creature that did not arouse hatred in him.” “...To love her with all the fury, to feel that for the shadow of her smile you would give your blood, your soul, your good name, your earthly and afterlife for this...” "I love you! Your face is more beautiful than God’s face!..”

“I love you and have never loved anyone but you. The captain had repeated this phrase so many times under similar circumstances that he blurted it out in one breath, without forgetting a single word.”

So, the main characters of the novel are Esmeralda, Quasimodo, C. Frollo. They are the embodiment of one or another human quality.

Think about what qualities Esmeralda is endowed with?

Hugo endows his heroine with all the best qualities inherent in representatives of the people: beauty, tenderness.

Esmeralda is the moral beauty of the common man. She has simplicity, naivety, incorruptibility, and loyalty.

Indeed, but, alas, in a cruel time, among cruel people, all these qualities were rather shortcomings: kindness, naivety, simplicity do not help to survive in the world of anger and self-interest, so she dies.

What about Quasimodo?

Quasimodo is Hugo's humanistic idea: ugly in appearance, rejected by his social status, the cathedral bell ringer turns out to be a highly moral person.

What are the qualities that Quasimodo has?

Kindness, devotion, the ability to love strongly, selflessly.

Remember Phoebus de Chateaupere. What qualities does he have?

Phoebus is selfish, heartless, frivolous, cruel.

He is a bright representative of secular society.
- What qualities does Claude Frollo have?

Claude Frollo is kind and merciful at the beginning, but at the end he is a concentration of dark gloomy forces.

V. Summing up.

VI. Homework.

We looked at the main characters in the novel by V. Hugo

“Notre Dame Cathedral”.

Open your diaries and write down your homework:

Write a short essay - an argument on the topic: “Why did the author end the novel this way?”

LITERATURE.

1. Hugo V. Notre-Dame de Paris: A Novel. - M., 2004.
2. Evnina E.M. V.Hugo. – M., 1976.
3. Notes on foreign literature: Materials for the exam / Comp. L.B. Ginzburg, A.Ya. Reznik. - M., 2002.