“Notre Dame de Paris” is a novel by V. Hugo. The novel was conceived in 1828, when historical themes were prevalent in French literature. On November 15, 1828, Hugo signed an agreement with the publisher Goslin for a two-volume novel, which was to be completed on April 15, 1829. Already on November 19, 1828, in the “Journal de Debs,” Goslin announced the publication of “Cathedral.” But at this time, Hugo was keen on creating other works and, in order not to pay a penalty for unfulfilled obligations, he had to ask for a delay until December 1, 1830. Hugo began writing the novel on July 25, 1830 and even wrote several pages, but the events of the July Revolution again distracted him writer from work. A new delay - until February 1, 1831, there was no hope for further. By mid-September, Hugo, in his words, was “up to his neck in the Cathedral.” The novel was completed on January 15, and on March 16, 1831, the book went on sale. But even after this, the work continued: the second edition, published in October 1832, was replenished with three new chapters - “Abbas beat! Martini”, “This Will Kill That” (in the fifth book) and “Dislike of the People” (in the fourth).
Long before the text itself appeared, the novel was titled after an architectural monument, and this is no coincidence. Having read mountains of books, thoroughly studied medieval France, old Paris, its heart - Notre Dame Cathedral, Hugo created his own philosophy of medieval art, calling the cathedral in the novel “the great book of humanity”, which preserves the people's memory and its traditions (the construction of the cathedral lasted three centuries from the XII to the XV centuries). Hugo’s discussions about architecture are filled with philosophical and historical ideas in the spirit of his time, explaining what the stone chronicle of the cathedral tells: “Every civilization begins with theocracy and ends with democracy. This law, according to which freedom replaces unity, is written in architecture.” Thus, the idea of historical progress, the continuous movement of humanity from slavery to freedom, from aristocracy to democracy, widespread in the theories of the 1820s, received artistic expression.
Notre Dame Cathedral turned out to be the symbol and core of the novel: it personifies the spiritual life of the people, but also embodies all the dark forces arising from feudal oppression, religious superstitions and prejudices. In an effort to reveal the dependence of the man of the Middle Ages on religion, the power of dogmas that enslaved his consciousness, Hugo makes the cathedral a symbol of this power. The temple, as it were, directs the fate of the heroes of the novel. That is why the chapters dedicated to him are so significant (books three, five, chapter four from book ten). Stained glass windows of “flaming Gothic” decorated the cathedral in the 15th century, and a new spirit penetrated inside the temple, which spoke of the birth of a new time. It was not by chance that Hugo turned to the 15th century, to the end of the Middle Ages: he needed to show the historical mission of this century for the further development of the history of France. Depicting the most important process of the era - during the struggle against the feudal lords, the royal power was forced to seek support for its actions in the strength of the people - Hugo sharpened historical conflict, gave it a modern political sound.
Louis XI is glad that he can undermine the power of the feudal lords with the help of his “good people,” but is frightened when he learns that the rebellion is directed against him, the king. The Parisian mob will be exterminated by the king's close associate Tristan, and the meaning of the rebellion will be explained to him by Dutch envoys who have experience in how uprisings are carried out. So in the king’s bedchamber, in the Bastille, the stronghold of feudalism, Hugo brought together different social forces, different views on the rebellion of the plebs. The storming of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris is a prediction of the future storming of the Bastille. With the help of the fictitious siege of the cathedral, Hugo introduces a rebellious people into the novel, which he presents as a declassed mob: these are vagabonds, thieves, homeless people from the “Court of Miracles,” a kingdom within a kingdom, with its king Trulf, its laws and justice. The Parisian goal is rude, cruel, ignorant, but in its own way humane in an inhuman world where witches were burned and free-thinking was punished (therefore, the symbolic role of the Place de Greve in the novel is great - the place of executions and festivities). There are no representatives of the middle class among the “people” - they are immersed in their trade affairs and willingly compromise with the authorities.
The crowd also plays an important role in the novel because it ties the action together. With the crowd, the reader enters the Palace of Justice for the performance of a mystery on a festive January day in 1482 (the marriage of Margaret of Flanders with the French Dauphin), with a procession of fools he enters the exotic streets of Paris, admires them from a “bird's eye view”, marveling at the picturesqueness and musicality of this “city” orchestra”, visits the hermit’s kennel, houses, shacks - everything that connects various events and many characters into one knot. It is these descriptions that should help the reader believe in the writer’s fiction and penetrate the spirit of the era.
The strength of Hugo's novel Notre Dame de Paris lies not in its historical authenticity, but in the free imagination of the romantic artist. Hugo the narrator constantly reminds himself. By commenting on the events or actions of a character, he explains the oddities of that era, which is so distant from us, thereby creating a special method of historical depiction. History seems to be relegated to the background, and the novel arises from the passions and feelings possessing fictional characters: Esmeralda, a street dancer, Claude Frollo, the archdeacon of the cathedral, his slave Quasimodo, the poet Gringoire, the hermit Gudula. Their destinies collide by chance, a dramatic conflict ensues, the intrigue of which sometimes resembles adventure novel. And yet the characters in Notre-Dame de Paris think, act, love, hate in the spirit of the time in which they live.
Claude Frollo, a monk who lost his faith and became a villain, was prompted by living reality. Hugo sees in him not only a criminal who destroyed an innocent soul, he shows the tragedy of a man who gave his strength and life to the comprehension of the truth. Freed from the shackling dogmatic shackles and left alone with himself and the diverse world, his restless consciousness, in conflict with old concepts, could not accept simple life, understand Esmeralda’s simple love. Having turned good into evil, freedom into dependence, Frollo fights against nature itself, which defeats him. He is a victim and an instrument of fate. Phoebus de Chateaupert, a frivolous handsome man, turns out to be happier in love. But both Chateaupert and Frollo find themselves on the same moral level in relation to love. Another thing is Quasimodo, a freak opposed to the handsome Phoebus, a simpleton opposed to the smart Claude; thanks to his love for a gypsy, he turns from a slave into a person. Esmeralda stands outside of society, she is a gypsy (interest in these “free” people occupied the minds of writers in the first third of the 19th century), which means that only she has the highest morality. But since the world in which the heroes of Notre-Dame de Paris lived was in the grip of blind and cruel fate, therefore the bright beginning was doomed to death: all the main characters perish, perish old world. “Phoebus de Chateaupert also ended tragically,” the author ironically notes. - He got married".
In the 1830s, despite the fact that the fashion for the historical novel had passed, Hugo's Notre-Dame de Paris was a great success. Hugo's ingenuity amazed readers. Indeed, he managed to animate his “archaeological” novel: “local color” helped him carefully describe Frollo’s dark cloak and Esmeralda’s exotic outfit, Chateaupert’s shiny jacket and Gudula’s pitiful rags; The brilliantly developed language of the novel reflected the speech of all strata of society in the 11th century. (art terminology, Latin, argot). Metaphors, comparisons, antitheses, techniques of grotesque, contrast, painting method - all this gave the novel that degree of “ideal and sublime” that the writer so strived for. Hugo's work has always attracted attention in Russia. “Notre Dame Cathedral” was translated into Russian in 1866, in 1847 by A.S. Dargomyzhsky wrote the opera Esmeralda.
Municipal educational institution "Davydovskaya secondary school"N2"
ABSTRACT
ON THE LITERATURE ON THE TOPIC
"THE NOVEL OF VICTOR HUGO
"THE CATHEDRAL OF NOTRY DADY OF PARIS"
AND ITS MODERN REFLECTION IN THE MUSICAL
"NOTRE-DAME DE PARIS".
10a grade students
Belova Yana.
and literature
1. Introduction.
3. Novel “Notre Dame Cathedral”. Choice of era: 15th century.
4. Organization of the plot.
5. Reflection of social conflict in the novel.
6. Contrasts of the novel. Quasimodo, Frollo and Phoebus, everyone's love for Esmeralda.
7. Claude Frollo. Man cannot be placed outside the laws of nature.
8. Portrayal of the people in the novel.
9. The main problems of the novel.
10. Musical “Notre - Dame de Paris”.
History of creation.
Reasons for success.
11. Conclusion.
Why the musical “Notre-Dame de Paris” and Hugo’s novel are interesting and relevant in
our days?
12. List of references.
1.Introduction.
Notre-Dame de Paris Cathedral was built over almost two centuries (from 1163 to 1330) Eiffel Tower it was he who was considered the symbol of France. A huge building 120 meters high, with many secret passages, whose servants have always been particularly ascetic and reserved, has always aroused keen interest among the townspeople. The cathedral, covered in a veil of mystery, forced the people who inhabited the city to create legends about themselves. The most popular of them is the story of the noble hunchback Quasimodo and the “little merchant of illusions” (as Archdeacon Claude Frollo calls her in the original version of the musical), the beautiful gypsy Esmeralda. Or rather, this is not even a legend, but a true story that has come down to us with some changes, thanks to the famous French writer Victor Hugo.
2.Victor Hugo. Short biography.
Reflection of his life positions in his work.
Victor Hugo's life spans almost the entire 19th century. He was born in 1802 and died in 1885. During this time, France experienced many turbulent events. This is the rise and fall of Napoleon, the restoration of Bourbon power and its collapse, the revolutions of 1830 and 1848, the Paris Commune. Young Hugo was formed as a personality under the influence of contradictory trends already within the family. The father of the future writer was the son of a carpenter, who later became a military man. He took part in the campaigns of Napoleonic army and received the rank of brigadier general. Hugo's mother came from a shipowner's family and sympathized royal family, which lost power as a result of the revolution of 1789-1794. But General Lagori, a Republican by conviction, was also a family friend at one time. He participated in a conspiracy against Napoleon, because he could not reconcile with the empire. He had to hide from the police in one of the monasteries in France, where Hugo’s family also settled for a while. Lagori spent a lot of time with children; under his guidance, young Hugo read the works of ancient Roman writers. And it was from this man, as the novelist himself recalled, that he first heard the words “freedom” and “right”. A few years later, Lagori, along with other conspirators who opposed Napoleon and the Empire, was shot. Hugo learned about this from the newspapers.
At an early age, the future writer became acquainted with the works of French enlighteners - Voltaire, Diderot, Rousseau. This determined his democratic sympathies, sympathy for the poor, humiliated, oppressed people. And although Hugo’s political views and his relations with the authorities were often complex and contradictory, even sometimes marked by conservatism (for example, under the influence of his mother, he was at one time a royalist), the writer was always concerned about the problem of social inequality, he felt hatred for tyranny, tyranny and lawlessness.
3. Novel “Notre Dame Cathedral”.
Choice of era: 15th century.
In the novel “Notre Dame Cathedral,” which was published in 1831, the historical theme is deeply and circumstantially developed. The novel was created in the atmosphere of the revolution of 1830, which finally overthrew the power of the Bourbons in France. This determined the democratic pathos, the emotional intensity of the narrative, and the broad depiction of crowd scenes.
The very choice of the era to which the writer addresses is not accidental:
The Great Age of Genius Discoveries
The age of disasters
The age of killer and creator...
(Julius Kim).
The 15th century was a period of significant changes in the history of Europe and, in particular, France, in whose life the features of a new time were already emerging and the ideals of the Renaissance were taking shape. But this age of “cathedrals” was cruel and merciless. At the beginning of the 15th century, the church tried to destroy the germs of all knowledge based on experience, and preached the most absurd fabrications of Catholic theologians regarding living nature. The development based on the experience of knowledge in the Middle Ages and the achievement of well-known successes in the fields of medicine and mathematics, physics and astronomy occurred despite the immediate and strongest resistance from the church. By this time, the church, unable to suppress the non-church schools that had appeared in the cities of France and prevent the emergence of universities, tried to seize the leadership educational institutions into your own hands. She expelled from them all opponents of the “new order”. So, killing the living and perpetuating the dead, the church used all its forces to hinder the true cultural development. It brutally persecuted and destroyed the spiritual culture of the working masses both in the countryside and in the city, and suppressed the slightest glimmer of scientific thought. But everything comes to an end. At the end of the 15th century, printing presses appeared in France, the production of bricks for buildings took on a large scale, metallurgy developed significantly, and the production of cast iron into iron began... The Church, as far as it was in its power, continued to hinder the development of culture that was not put at the service of the church interests. She turned the University of Paris into a center of deadening ecclesiastical scholasticism and the guardian of Catholic orthodoxy. However, the needs of the developing feudal society steadily led to the fact that through the thickness of scholastic wisdom, sprouts of knowledge based on experience more and more often broke through.
These processes confirmed the young Hugo's optimistic view of history as the progressive movement of humanity from ignorance to knowledge, from animal aspirations to spirituality, the light of reason.
Being a romantic, the writer views historical development as a struggle between evil and good, savagery and growing enlightenment
4. Organization of the plot.
Romantic pathos appeared in Hugo already in the very organization of the plot. The story of the gypsy Esmeralda, the archdeacon of Notre Dame Cathedral Claude Frollo, the bell ringer Quasimodo, the captain of the royal riflemen Phoebus de Chateaupert and other characters associated with them is full of secrets, unexpected turns of action, fatal coincidences and accidents. The fates of the heroes intricately intersect. Quasimodo tries to steal Esmeralda on the orders of Claude Frollo, but the girl is accidentally saved by guards led by Phoebus. Quasimodo is punished for the assassination attempt on Esmeralda, but it is she who gives the unfortunate hunchback a sip of water when he stands in the pillory, and with her a good deed transforms him. There is a purely romantic, instantaneous change in character: Quasimodo turns from a brute animal into a man and, having fallen in love with Esmeralda, objectively finds himself in confrontation with Frollo, who plays a fatal role in the girl’s life.
The destinies of Quasimodo and Esmeralda turn out to be closely intertwined in the distant past. Esmeralda was kidnapped by gypsies as a child and among them received her exotic name (Esmeralda in Spanish means “emerald”), and they left an ugly baby in Paris, who was then taken in by Claude Frollo, calling him in Latin (Qusimodo translated as “unfinished”), but also in France Quasimodo is the name of the Red Hill holiday, on which Frollo picked up the baby.
Hugo brings the emotional intensity of the action to the limit, depicting Esmeralda’s unexpected meeting with her mother, the recluse of Roland’s Tower Gudula, who always hates the girl, considering her a gypsy. This meeting takes place literally a few minutes before the execution of Esmeralda, whom the mother is trying in vain to save. But what is fatal at this moment is the appearance of Phoebus, whom the girl loves dearly and whom, in her blindness, she trusts in vain. It is impossible not to notice, therefore, that the reason for the tense development of events in the novel is not only chance, an unexpected combination of circumstances, but also the spiritual impulses of the characters, human passions: passion forces Frollo to pursue Esmeralda, which becomes the impetus for the development of the central intrigue of the novel; love and compassion for the unfortunate girl determine the actions of Quasimodo, who temporarily manages to steal her from the hands of the executioners, and a sudden insight, indignation at the cruelty of Frollo, who greeted Esmeralda’s execution with hysterical laughter, turns the ugly bell-ringer into an instrument of just retribution: Quasimodo, suddenly rebelling against his teacher and master, throws him off the wall of the cathedral.
The fates of the central characters are organically integrated into the colorful life of Paris in the 15th century. The novel is densely populated. In it, an image of French society of that time appears: from courtiers to beggars, from a learned monk to a half-mad recluse, from a brilliant knight to a homeless poet. In an effort to convey the historical flavor of the era, the writer seems to resurrect before us the morals, customs, rituals and prejudices of people of the distant past. The urban landscape plays a big role in this. Hugo seems to be restoring Paris of the 15th century, telling the history of each monument, explaining the topography, names of streets and buildings. Notre Dame itself is depicted in more detail, acting as a kind of character in the novel.
In the third book of the novel, entirely dedicated to the cathedral, the author literally sings a hymn to this wonderful creation of human genius. For Hugo, the cathedral is “like a huge stone symphony, a colossal creation of man and people... a wonderful result of the union of all the forces of the era, where from each stone splashes the imagination of a worker, taking hundreds of forms, disciplined by the genius of the artist... This creation of human hands is powerful and abundant, like a creation God, from whom it seemed to borrow a dual character: diversity and eternity ... "
The cathedral became the main scene of action; the fates of Archdeacon Claude, Frollo, Quasimodo, and Esmeralda are connected with it. The stone sculptures of the cathedral bear witness to human suffering, nobility and betrayal, and just retribution. By telling the history of the cathedral (or any other building), allowing us to imagine what it looked like in the distant 15th century, the author achieves a special effect. The reality of the stone structures that can be observed in Paris to this day confirms in the eyes of the reader the reality of the characters, their destinies, and the reality of human tragedies. This is also facilitated by the vivid characteristics that the author gives to the appearance of his characters even at their first appearance. Being a romantic, he uses bright colors, contrasting tones, emotionally rich epithets, and unexpected exaggerations. Here, for example, is a portrait of Esmeralda: “She was short in stature, but she seemed tall - that’s how slender her figure was. She was dark-skinned, but it was not difficult to guess that during the day her skin had that wonderful golden hue that is characteristic of Andalusian and Roman women. The girl danced, fluttered, twirled... and every time her shining face flashed, the gaze of her black eyes blinded you like lightning... Thin, fragile, with bare shoulders and occasionally slender legs flashing from under her skirt, black-haired, fast, like a wasp “, in a golden bodice that fits tightly to the waist, in a colorful billowing dress, with shining eyes, she truly seemed like an unearthly creature.” Esmeralda lives carefree, earning her living by singing and dancing in the streets.
Depicting Quasimodo, the author does not spare colors to describe his ugliness, but even in this frightening figure there is a certain attractiveness. If Esmeralda is the embodiment of lightness and grace, then Quasimodo is the embodiment of monumentality, commanding respect for power: “there was some formidable expression of strength, agility and courage in his entire figure - an extraordinary exception to the general rule that requires that strength, like beauty , flowed from harmony... It seemed that it was a broken and unsuccessfully welded giant.” Quasimodo became so accustomed to the walls of the cathedral in which he lived that he began to resemble the chimeras decorating the building: “The protruding corners of his body seemed to be created in order to be embedded ... in the concave corners of the building, and he seemed not only an inhabitant of the cathedral, but also a necessary part of it. One can, almost without exaggerating, say that he took the form of a cathedral... The cathedral became his home, his lair, his shell... Quasimodo grew to the cathedral like a turtle to its shield. The rough shell of his building became his shell.”
The comparison of Quasimodo with the cathedral, a peculiar likening of their people, runs through the entire novel. And this is no coincidence. Quasimodo's connection with the cathedral is not only external, but also deeply internal. And it is based on the fact that both the character and the temple building embody the national principle. The cathedral, created over almost two centuries, embodied the great spiritual forces of the people, and the bell ringer Quasimodo, under whose hand the bells came to life and began to sing, became its soul. If Quasimodo embodies the spiritual potential of the people, hidden under external rudeness and animality, but ready to awaken under the ray of goodness, then Esmeralda is a symbol of people's cheerfulness, naturalness, and harmony.
5. Reflection of social conflict in the novel.
Criticism has repeatedly noted that both characters, Esmeralda and Quasimodo, are persecuted in the novel, powerless victims of an unfair trial and cruel laws: Esmeralda is tortured and sentenced to death, Quasimodo is easily sent to the pillory. In society he is an outcast, an outcast. But barely outlining the motive social assessment In reality (as, by the way, in the depiction of the king and the people), the romantic Hugo focuses his attention on something else. He is interested in the clash of moral principles, eternal polar forces: good and evil, selflessness and selfishness, the beautiful and the ugly.
The robber Clopin Truilfou, the King of Altyn from the Court of Miracles, who takes care of Esmeralda and became her second father, is also a very important character. In his novel, Hugo does not pay enough attention to him, but in the musical “Notre-Dame de Paris” his role is very significant. First of all, it consists in the transmission of social conflict:
We are nobody, we are nothing -
Nobody needs
But then, but then,
We always owe everyone.
Our life is an eternal battle,
Our life is a wolf howl!
…………………………………
He who is not his own is also an enemy,
Here's our answer...
(Yuliy Kim)
Since he is a leader among the vagabonds, it was important to reflect not only aggression, but above all the fact that he is a thinker, like most leaders... This character is very bright and dramatic. The musical shows well the contrasting traits of his character: aggressiveness, willingness to take even the most extreme measures and the ability to enjoy life; his fatherly feelings towards Esmeralda are revealed:
Esmeralda, understand,
After all, you have become different,
What was she like at eight years old?
When I was left an orphan...
(Yuliy Kim)
6. Contrasts of the novel.
Quasimodo, Frollo and Phoebus. Everyone's love for Esmeralda.
The system of images in the novel is based on the theory of the grotesque developed by Hugo and the principle of contrast. The characters are arranged in clearly defined contrasting pairs: the freak Quasimodo and the beautiful Esmeralda, also Quasimodo and the outwardly irresistible Phoebus; the ignorant bell-ringer is a learned monk who has learned all the medieval sciences; Claude Frollo also opposes Phoebus: one is an ascetic, the other is immersed in the pursuit of entertainment and pleasure. The gypsy Esmeralda is contrasted with the blond Fleur-de-Lys, Phoebe’s bride, a rich, educated girl who belongs to high society.
Quasimodo, Frollo and Phoebus all three love Esmeralda, but in their love each appears as the antagonist of the other (this is well shown by Luc Plamondon in the original version of the world famous song "Belle").
Phoebus needs a love affair for a while, Frollo burns with passion, hating Esmeralda for this as the object of his desires. Quasimodo loves the girl selflessly and unselfishly; he confronts Phoebus and Frollo as a man devoid of even a drop of selfishness in his feelings and, thereby, rises above them. This is how it arises new plan contrast: the external appearance and internal content of the character: Phoebus is beautiful, but internally dull, mentally poor; Quasimodo is ugly in appearance, but beautiful in soul.
Thus, the novel is constructed as a system of polar oppositions. These contrasts are not just an artistic device for the author, but a reflection of his ideological positions and concept of life. The confrontation between polar principles seems to Hugo’s romance to be eternal in life, but at the same time, as already mentioned, he wants to show the movement of history. According to the researcher of French literature Boris Revizov, Hugo views the change of eras - the transition from the early Middle Ages to the late, that is, to the Renaissance period - as a gradual accumulation of goodness, spirituality, a new attitude towards the world and towards ourselves. The symbolic embodiment of this movement is the Notre Dame Cathedral itself: begun in the 12th century and completed in the 14th, it embodies the entire crisis of the Middle Ages and the transition to modern times.
7. Claude Frollo.
Man cannot be placed outside the laws of nature
But such a transition develops painfully. Characteristic in this regard is the image of the Archdeacon of Josas, Claude Frollo. He, as already mentioned, played a terrible role in the fate of Esmeralda: he tried to kill Phoebus, seeing him as his rival; and allowed the accusation to be brought against Esmeralda. When the girl rejected his love, he handed her over to the executioners. Frollo is a criminal, but also a victim. A victim not only of his own egoism, his own delusions, but also a kind of victim of historical development: in his person an entire era, an entire civilization perishes.
He is a monk who devoted his entire life to serving God, scholastic science, subordinating himself to ascetic dogma - the killing of the flesh. A kind of curse hangs over Frollo - the ananke of dogma. He is a dogmatist in his religious ideas and in his scientific research. But his life turns out to be meaningless, science - fruitless and powerless.
This idea is already revealed in the description of Frollo’s office: “... compasses and retors lay on the table. Animal skeletons hung from the ceiling. Human and horse skulls lay on the manuscripts... on the floor, without any pity for the fragility of their parchment pages, piles of huge open tomes were thrown, in a word, all the rubbish of science was collected here. And on all this chaos there is dust and cobwebs.”
Even before meeting Esmeralda, Claude Frollo experiences deep dissatisfaction with himself, his lifestyle as a hermit monk, and his academic studies, which led him to a spiritual dead end. A meeting with a young, beautiful girl, the embodiment of natural harmony, changes his soul. A living person awakens in him, thirsting for love. But Frollo’s feeling has to break through the barrier of religious prohibitions, unnatural moral dogmas, and it takes on the character of a painful, destructive selfish passion that does not take into account the feelings and desires of the very object of this passion. Frollo perceives his passion for Esmeralda as the influence of witchcraft, as a cruel fate, as a curse. But in fact, this is a manifestation of the inevitable course of history, destroying the old medieval worldview, ascetic morality, which tried to place man outside the laws of nature.
8. Portrayal of the people in the novel.
The course of history leads to the awakening of the masses. One of the central scenes of the novel is the scene depicting the storming of the cathedral by a crowd of angry inhabitants of the Court of Miracles, trying to free Esmeralda. And King Louis 11 at this time, fearing the rebellious people, hides in the Bastille. An astute reader of that time could see a parallel between Louis 11 and Charles 10, removed from power after the revolution of 1830.
Depicting the people, Hugo shows their strength, power, but also the spontaneous nature of their actions, changeability of moods and even their blindness. This is manifested in the attitude of the Parisians towards Quasimodo, today they elect him as the King of the Jesters, and tomorrow they humiliate him in the pillory.
In the scene of the storming of the cathedral, Quasimodo and the people turn out to be opponents; but both the bell ringer protecting the cathedral and the people trying to break into it act in the name of Esmeralda’s interests, but do not understand each other.
9. The main problems of the novel.
Thus, the author’s position in assessing the people appears complex. It is again due to the fact that Hugo, being a romantic, focuses the reader’s attention on the role of chance in the fate of the characters, on the role of emotions, passionate impulses, be it an individual person or a crowd of people. In the writer’s depiction, life appears simultaneously full of tragedy and comic absurdities, sublime and base, beautiful and ugly, cruel and cheerful, good and evil. This approach to reality corresponds to Hugo’s aesthetic concept, and reminds the modern reader of the eternity of many universal human values: kindness, nobility, selfless love. The novel also reminds us of the need for compassion and empathy for lonely people, rejected by society, and humiliated. In the preface to the Russian translation of Notre-Dame de Paris, he noted that Hugo’s idea of “restoring a lost man” is “the main idea of art of the entire 19th century.”
10. Musical "Notre-Dame de Paris".
History of creation. Reasons for success.
Hugo's work is widely reflected in musical art. The Italian composer Giuseppe Verdi created an opera of the same name based on the plot of the drama “Ernani”, and the opera “Rigoletto” based on the plot of the drama “The King Amuses himself”. In the 20th century, the musical “Les Miserables” was staged.
Based on the novel Notre-Dame de Paris, Hugo wrote the opera libretto Esmeralda, the plot of which inspired many composers, including his opera Esmeralda, which was staged in 1847. Italian composer Cesare Pugni wrote the ballet Esmeralda. In the 60s of the 20th century, the composer M. Jarre created the ballet “Notre-Dame de Paris”.
But the most popular and interesting production of this novel was the now fashionable musical “Notre-Dame de Paris”, which became an event in theatrical life. It broke all box office records, captivating audiences whose total number exceeded three million. At the same time, the total number of audio recordings sold exceeded the seven million mark.
What was the path to such incredible success?
In 1993, Luc Plamondon, a popular songwriter in France, Canada and a number of other countries, began searching for French theme for a new musical.
“I began to look through the dictionary of literary heroes,” he recalls, “but my gaze did not linger for a moment near the name Esmeralda, as well as near other names. Finally I reached the letter “Q”, read: “Qasimodo”, and then it dawned on me - well, of course, “Notre Dame Cathedral”, because the plot of this work is well known to everyone, it cannot be confused with anything, and no one will have to explain what we are talking about. And that's why there have been at least a dozen film adaptations of Hugo's novel, from the first silent films to Walt Disney's recent animated version.
Re-reading the six-hundred-page novel, Plamondon, in the heat of inspiration, made rough sketches of lyrics for three dozen songs and went with them to his old colleague, Richard Cocciente.
Plamondon, who worked on the musical with Cocciente for three years, recalls this meeting with delight:
He then played me several very successful melodies, which later turned into the arias “Belle”, “Le Temps des Cathedrales” and “Danse Mon Esmeralda”. It seemed to me that they were in no way inferior to the melodies of the best opera arias, and their unique originality should have ensured our success with the modern audience.
The composer’s rather original musical taste was formed in childhood, when he became seriously interested in opera and at the same time avidly listened to The Beatles, which largely influenced his further work: indeed, in all of Cocciente’s music, in every song of his, there is both classic and modern.
In 1996, avant-garde director Gilles Mahut became interested in the musical. Back in the eighties, he staged a twenty-minute ballet about Esmeralda and three men in love with her.
All that remained was to find a producer. The outstanding French producer and entrepreneur Charles Talard decided to support the project, uttering a historical phrase:
If people like Plamondon, Cocciente and Victor Hugo are involved in the matter, consider that I am also involved in it!
The very next day, the producers rented the Parisian Palais des Congrès, whose hall seats five thousand spectators, and invested three million pounds sterling in the production of the play, which premiered in September 1998.
Participated in the creation of the visuals of the performance: the best professionals– lighting director Alan Lortie, lighting designer for concerts of many rock stars; artist Christian Ratz (set designs), known for his work on opera stage; costume designer, famous in the world of Parisian fashion, Fred Satal; the eternal director of modern ballet performances Martino Müller from the Netherlands Dance Theater. The arrangements of the tunes were performed under the general direction of Richard Cocciente by the best French performer of jazz improvisations Yannick Top (bass) as well as Serge Peratone (keyboards), with the direct participation of Claude Salmieri (drums), Claude Engel (guitar) and Marc Chantreau (other percussion instruments) ). Eight months before the premiere of the play, in January 1998, an album of hits from the musical was released.
“Notre-Dame de Paris” entered the Guinness Book of Records as the most commercially successful musical in its first year. This musical has received more than twenty international awards, including prizes for best director and best show at the Gala of the ADISO in 1999 in Montreal and for the best musical performance at a festival in Paris.
The musical was initially doomed to success. Stunning music, as already mentioned, combining classicism and modernity, attracts the attention of both young people and representatives of older generations.
The music is a mixture of different styles, carefully selected from each other: for example, the first aria of the poet Gringoire resembles the song of a medieval troubadour singer; rock, gypsy romance, church singing, flamenco rhythms, simply lyrical ballads - all of these, at first glance, different styles They combine perfectly with each other and together form a single whole.
“Notre-Dame de Paris” played a key role in the history of the European musical, becoming a turning point that changed the laws of the genre created in America (although few people know the canons of the American musical in Russia), the texts of the musical’s libretto are striking in their boldness and philosophy.
In the musical, unlike the novel, there are no supporting roles (except for the ballet). There are only seven main characters, and each of them performs its own function.
The poet Pierre Gringoire is not so much a participant as a witness and narrator of everything that happens. He tells viewers about the era of that time, about events and heroes. He strongly empathizes with the characters and expresses his dissatisfaction with the cruelty of the world:
For centuries there has been a war between people and people,
And there is no place in the world for patience and love.
And the pain is getting stronger, and the scream is getting stronger -
When, my God, will you stop them?!
(Yuliy Kim)
Fleur-de-Lys is the bride of Phoebe de Chateaupert. If in Hugo's novel she is the same naive girl as Esmeralda, blindly trusting her beloved Phoebus, then in the musical everything is not so simple. It is very interesting to watch the development of character: if at the beginning of the play we see the same character as Hugo:
The sun of life is bright Phoebus!
You are my knight, my hero...
(Yuliy Kim),
then at the end the complete opposite appears:
My darling, you are not an angel,
I'm not a sheep either.
Dreams, hopes, vows, -
Alas, nothing lasts forever...
I will be a faithful wife
But swear on my head
That this witch will be strung up...
(Yuliy Kim)
11.Conclusion.
Why the musical Notre- Dame de Paris" and Hugo's novel
interesting and relevant today?
All the characters in Notre-Dame de Paris are attractive primarily because they are all ordinary people: they are also characterized by resentment, jealousy, compassion and the desire to live the way each of them dreams of living.
Why do the public still care about Hugo's characters? Yes, because the story of the beautiful Gypsy Esmeralda and the noble hunchback Quasimodo is reminiscent of the fairy tale about Beauty and the Beast and in some ways anticipates The Phantom of the Opera. Even in a consumer society with its consumer passions, this story remains a powerful, soul-stirring myth. Some of the themes touched upon in Hugo's novel and preserved in Plamondon's libretto are becoming more relevant today than ever: about refugees seeking shelter, about racism, about the role of religion, about fear of the unknown, about man's place in an ever-changing world:
This is a new flood of dubious words,
In which everything will collapse - the temple, God, and the cross.
The world is changing for unprecedented things,
We will reach the stars - and this is not the limit.
And in my pride, forgetting about God,
Let's destroy the old temple and create a new myth.
Everything will have its time...
(Yuliy Kim)
But main theme both the novel and the musical is, of course, love.
Victor Hugo believed that love is the beginning and end of all things, and without love itself people and objects cannot exist. A person of the highest spiritual essence clearly understands that when he comprehends the mysteries high love, he becomes one of the happiest people in the world.
Love is not a sentimental feeling that anyone can experience, regardless of the level of maturity they have achieved. Love cannot exist without true humanity, selflessness, courage and faith.
Love is not for egocentrics. “The meaning of happy love is to give. A person in love cannot give, he only takes and thereby inevitably poisons all the best in love” ().
Love cannot exist without beauty, beauty not only external, but also internal.
While Esmeralda was in the cathedral, one day she heard Quasimodo singing. The verses of this song were without rhyme, the melody was also not distinguished by beauty, but the whole soul of the unfortunate bell-ringer was invested in it:
Don't look at your face, girl
And look into the heart.
The heart of a beautiful youth is often ugly.
There are hearts where love does not live.
Girl, the pine tree is not beautiful,
And not as good as poplar,
But the pine tree turns green even in winter.
Alas! Why would you sing about this?
That which is ugly, let it perish;
Beauty is only attracted to beauty,
And April doesn't look at January.
Beauty is perfect
Beauty is almighty
Only beauty lives life to the fullest...
After the execution of Esmeralda, Quasimodo disappeared from the cathedral, and only two years later, in the crypt where the dead body of the Gypsy was placed, two skeletons of a man and a woman were found, one tightly hugging the other. Judging by the curved spine, it was the skeleton of Quasimodo, when they tried to separate them, it crumbled...
Years have passed, followed by centuries, man has entered the third millennium, and the story of the hunchbacked bell-ringer and the beautiful gypsy is not forgotten. It will be told and retold as long as the bells ring on earth...
13. References:
Foreign literature: From Aeschylus to Flaubert:
Book for teachers.
(Voronezh: “Native Speech”, 1994 – 172 p.)
The World History. Volume 3.
Development of French culture in the 14th-15th centuries.
(Moscow: State Publishing House of Political Literature.
1957 – 894 pp.).
3. Pierre Perrone.
"History of success".
Sections: Literature
Goals:
Educational:
- Introduce students to the work of Victor Hugo.
- Teach interpretation of literary text.
Educational:
- To develop the ability to analyze an epic work.
- Develop students' independent judgment.
Educational:
- Develop students' coherent speech.
- Expand your horizons.
- 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 an 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 called this 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 Andalusians and Romans. 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.
- Hugo V. Notre-Dame de Paris: A Novel. - M., 2004.
- Evnina E.M. V.Hugo. – M., 1976.
- Notes on foreign literature: Materials for the exam / Comp. L.B. Ginzburg, A.Ya. Reznik. - M., 2002.
The death of heroes serves as a moral judgment against evil in the novel Notre Dame (1831). Evil in “The Cathedral” is the “old order” with which Hugo fought during the years of the creation of the novel, during the era of the revolution of 1830, the “old order” and its foundations, namely (according to the writer) the king, justice and the church. The action in the novel takes place in Paris in 1482. The writer often talks about the “era” as the subject of his depiction. And in fact, Hugo appears fully armed with knowledge. Romantic historicism is clearly demonstrated by the abundance of descriptions and discussions, sketches about the morals of the era, its “color”.
In accordance with the tradition of the romantic historical novel, Hugo creates an epic, even grandiose canvas, preferring the depiction of large, open spaces rather than interiors, crowd scenes, colorful sights. The novel is perceived as a theatrical performance, as a drama in the spirit of Shakespeare, when life itself, powerful and multicolored, enters the stage, breaking all sorts of “rules.” The scene is all of Paris, painted with amazing clarity, with amazing knowledge of the city, its history, its architecture, like a painter’s canvas, like the creation of an architect. Hugo seems to be composing his novel from gigantic boulders, from powerful building parts - just as Notre Dame Cathedral was built in Paris. Hugo's novels are generally similar to the Cathedral - they are majestic, ponderous, harmonious more in spirit than in form. The writer does not so much develop the plot as lay stone by stone, chapter by chapter.
Cathedral— without embellishment, Dickens composed it at the age of 26. He didn’t have to strain his imagination much: novel, which corresponds to the descriptive and picturesque nature of romanticism, the nature of the writing style of Hugo - an architect - through the style of considering the features of the era. The cathedral is also a symbol of the Middle Ages, the enduring beauty of its monuments and the ugliness of religion. The main characters of the novel - the bell ringer Quasimodo and the archdeacon Claude Frollo - are not only inhabitants, but creatures of the Cathedral. If in Quasimodo the Cathedral completes his ugly appearance, then in Claude it creates spiritual ugliness.
Quasimodo- another embodiment of Hugo’s democratic and humanistic idea. In the “old order” with which Hugo fought, everything was determined by appearance, class, and costume - the soul of Quasimodo appears in the shell of an ugly bell-ringer, an outcast, an outcast. This is the lowest link in the social hierarchy, crowned by the king. But the highest is in the hierarchy of moral values established by the writer. Quasimodo's selfless, selfless love transforms his essence and turns into a way of evaluating all the other heroes of the novel - Claude, whose feelings are disfigured by religion, the simpleton Esmeralda, who idolizes the magnificent uniform of an officer, this officer himself, an insignificant veil in a beautiful uniform.
In the characters, conflicts, and plot of the novel, what became a sign of romanticism was established—exceptional characters in extraordinary circumstances. Each of the main characters is the fruit of romantic symbolization, the extreme embodiment of one or another quality. There is relatively little action in the novel, not only due to its ponderous descriptiveness, but also due to the romantic nature of the characters: emotional connections are established between them; instantly, with one touch, with one glance from Quasimodo, Claude, Esmeralda, currents of extraordinary power arise, and they outstrip the action . The aesthetics of hyperbole and contrasts enhance emotional tension, bringing it to the limit. Hugo puts his heroes in the most extraordinary, exceptional situations, which are generated both by the logic of exceptional romantic characters and by the power of chance. So, Esmeralda dies as a result of the actions of many people who love her or wish her well - an entire army of vagabonds attacking the Cathedral, Quasimodo defending the Cathedral, Pierre Gringoire leading Esmeralda out of the Cathedral, her own mother, who detained her daughter until the soldiers appeared.
These are romantic emergencies. Hugo calls them "rock". Rock- is not the result of the writer’s willfulness, he, in turn, formalizes romantic symbolization as a way of unique knowledge of reality. Behind the capricious randomness of the fate that destroyed the heroes, one sees the pattern of typical circumstances of that era, which doomed to death any manifestation of free thought, any attempt by a person to defend his right. The chain of accidents that kill heroes is unnatural, but the “old order”, the king, justice, religion, and all methods of suppression are unnatural. human personality, which Victor Hugo declared war on. The revolutionary pathos of the novel concretized the romantic conflict between high and low. The low appeared in the concrete historical guise of feudalism, royal despotism, the high - in the guise of commoners, in the writer’s now favorite theme of the outcasts. Quasimodo remained not just the embodiment of the romantic aesthetics of the grotesque - the hero who snatches Esmeralda from the clutches of “justice” and kills the archdeacon became a symbol of rebellion. Not only the truth of life, but the truth of the revolution was revealed in the romantic poetics of Hugo.
Educational institution
Mogilev State University named after A.A. Kuleshova.
Faculty of Slavic Philology
Department of Russian and foreign literature
Compositional role Notre Dame Cathedral in the novel of the same name by V. Hugo
Female students
4 courses of group "B"
Russian branch
1. Introduction
2. Pages of history
Conclusion
List of sources used
1. Introduction
Victor Marie Hugo is a great French poet. He lived long life and, thanks to his unprecedented talent, he left a legacy of a huge number of works: lyrical, satirical, epic poetry, drama in verse and prose, literary - critical articles, a huge number of letters. His work spans three quarters of the 19th century. His influence on the development of French literature is colossal. Some critics compare him with A.S. Pushkin in Russian literature. V. Hugo is the founder and leader of French revolutionary romanticism. He was a romantic from the beginning of his literary career and remained so until the end of his life.
“Notre Dame de Paris” written by V. Hugo in 1831 became the best example of a historical novel, incorporating a picturesquely recreated diverse picture of medieval French life.
W. Scott's critical assessment, caused by the French writer's disagreement with the creative method of the “father of the historical novel,” indicated that Hugo sought to create a special type of historical novel and sought to open a new sphere of the fashionable genre.
In this novel I hoped that everything would be historically clear: the setting, the people, the language, and this is not what is important in the book. If there is merit in it, it is only because it is a figment of the imagination.
Hugo's worldview could not but be influenced by the events that took place around him. From this side, as a bold ideological and artistic innovation, and the novel “Notre Dame Cathedral, which was a response to Hugo’s contemporary political events, is interesting, although in his work he refers to the Middle Ages, to the end of the 15th century.”
“Notre Dame Cathedral” itself is an important connecting link for all the characters, all the events of the novel, being an expression of the soul of the people and the philosophy of the era.
Abbot Lamennais, although he praised Hugo for his wealth of imagination, reproached him for his lack of Catholicism.
Hugo is not afraid of extremely bright, blinding colors, condensation, or exaggeration. But Hugo’s novel rises immeasurably above the muddy stream of “horror novels.” Everything in the novel has a real, completely “earthly” explanation. The author's goal is to awaken in the reader a sense of beauty, a sense of humanity, to awaken a protest against the nightmares of the past that still weigh on our time.
The novel won the hearts of readers not only in France, but throughout the world.
2. Pages of history
V.G. Belinsky wrote: “Alas! Immediately after the July incidents, these poor people inadvertently saw that their situation had not improved at all, but had worsened significantly. Meanwhile, this whole historical comedy was invented in the name of the people and for the good of the people!”
The July Revolution had a serious impact on French writers and helped them determine their political and creative principles.
The desire to comprehend the past era has forced many writers to turn to the historical past. Outlining the appearance of Paris in the 15th century, Hugo depicts the social conflicts of the past, popular enmity towards royal power, feudal lords, and the Catholic clergy. This helped the writer to understand the present more deeply, to see its connection with the past, to find those wonderful traditions in which the undying folk genius was embodied.
Belinsky called the 19th century “primarily historical,” meaning the broad interest in history that arose after the French bourgeois revolution and its reflection in fiction. The validity of this definition is confirmed, in particular, by French literature, where many historical dramas and historical novels were created in the first decades of the 19th century.
Interest in national history was generated in France by the political struggle caused by the bourgeois revolution of the 18th century. A passion for history was characteristic at this time of both representatives of the liberal bourgeoisie and the ideologists of the reactionary nobility. However, trying to comprehend the course of national history, representatives of different classes came to profoundly different conclusions. The nobility, hoping for a return to former privileges, extracted from the past - as well as from the irreconcilable conflicts of the present - arguments against the revolution; The bourgeoisie, peering into the lessons of history, argued for the need to expand its privileges.
The emerging romantic literature began to depict the historical past of France, interest in which was supported not by the simple curiosity of readers, but by the social transformations that were generated by the bourgeois revolution.
Progressive writers, as opposed to neoclassicists, who drew their plots from ancient history and mythology, turned to past times in the life of their people. At the same time, writers are greatly influenced, on the one hand, by Walter Scott, and on the other hand, by French bourgeois historians of the restoration period, who tried to reveal the essence of events in their sequential development and put forward the problem of historical patterns.
The development of bourgeois historiography in France in the 20s of the 19th century was marked by the appearance of a number of works in which the idea of progress in the forward movement of human society was reflected. Augustin Thierry, characterizing his principles of historical research, noted: “Each of us, people XIX centuries, knows much more than Veli and Mably, even more than Voltaire himself, about various uprisings and victories, about the collapse of the monarchy, about the decline and rise of dynasties, about democratic revolutions, about progressive movements and reactions.”
The idea of a pattern of historical development, put forward by learned historians of the 20s, was fully consistent with the interests of the bourgeois class at a time when its positions had not yet been completely conquered and strengthened. This created fertile ground for the objective embodiment of the idea of social development in the French historical novel, created by progressive writers. The new concept, based on the lessons of the past, was supposed to substantiate the legitimacy of the rule of the bourgeois class. At the same time, the romantics of the reactionary camp write a number of works full of gloomy pessimism in assessing historical events related, one way or another, to democratic movements.
Interest in historical theme appears in Hugo already in the early period of his creativity, when he wrote the first version of the story “Byug-Zhargal”. Historical figures and events appear in his odes, in the novel “Gunn the Icelander,” in the drama “Cromwell” and other works.
In the second half of the 1920s, several dozen historical novels and dramas were published in France. The vast majority of these works soon turned out to be forgotten, but the best of them were destined to play their role in literature. These best examples of the historical genre include famous novel Balzac's "Chouans, or Brittany in 1799" (1829). Turning to the events of the recent past, Balzac created a realistic picture of the struggle of the republican troops against the monarchical uprising of the Brittany peasants, led by the nobles.
Romantic criticism paid great attention to works of the historical genre; it argued that the plots of historical novels can be drawn from different centuries.
In addition to Balzac’s “Chouans,” in the late 20s and early 30s, novels, stories, and memoirs appeared that depicted the events of the French bourgeois revolution of the 18th century, still memorable to people of that time. This era was of particular interest to progressive romantics. As noted, in the 20s, French writers and critics of various directions paid exceptional attention to the historical novels of W. Scott. Although many of Walter Scott’s artistic techniques were reflected in the creative practice of novelists of the 20s, one should not exaggerate the degree of his influence on French writers and confuse historical works created by the “Scottish bard” with historical novels that grew on French national soil.
In an article devoted to a critical analysis of the novel “Quentin Dorward” (1823), Hugo highly appreciates the work of the Scottish novelist. He believes that V. Scott created a novel of a new type, in which he combined together a psychological and adventure novel, a historical and everyday descriptive novel, the philosophy of history, Gothic, dramatic action and lyrical landscape, that is, all types artistic creativity. At the same time, giving an enthusiastic assessment of Quentin Dorward, Hugo emphasizes that the possibilities of the historical novel are by no means exhausted by the works of W. Scott. He considered the historical novel, represented by the examples of W. Scott, as a transitional form “from modern literature to grandiose novels, to majestic epics in verse and prose, which our poetic era promises and will give us.”
Believing that the French historical novel would be significantly different from the novels of W. Scott, Hugo wrote: “After the picturesque but prosaic novel of W. Scott, it remains to create another novel, in our opinion, even more beautiful and grandiose. This novel is at once drama and epic, picturesque and at the same time poetic, real and at the same time ideal, truthful and monumental, and it will lead from Walter Scott back to Homer.”
Hugo was convinced that the writers of his era would create original works that would reflect the “moral philosophy of history.” It is easy to notice that while praising W. Scott for his picturesque novels, the French writer argued with him, contrasting his own romantic method with the method of the Scottish novelist.
Hugo also touches on issues that are important for the formation of his aesthetic principles and his own creative practice in this article. So he talks about the place of the writer in society and puts forward problems that the novelist must solve historical material. “What should be the task of a novelist? Express a useful truth in an interesting plot.” Thus connecting the writer’s activities with social life, Hugo believed that it would be detrimental for a writer to isolate his personal life from the life of society. As a result, the choice of plot historical work and its interpretation should contain instructions for modern times. And Hugo appreciated W. Scott, first of all, for the fact that he was not a “chronicler,” but a novelist, whose accurate description of the customs and details of Bath was combined with important philosophical and moral ideas: “None of the novelists hid greater teaching under greater charm, greater truth behind the cover of fiction.” Speaking about the portrayal of Louis XI in Quentin Dorward and his meeting with Charles the Bold, Hugo reveals his attitude to the problem of historical truth in literature: “History tells something about this; but here I prefer to believe the novel rather than history, because I put moral truth above historical truth.”
So in this article, Hugo approached one of the most important principles of romantic aesthetics, which places the artist’s creative imagination above “petty” historical facts, allowing the artist to rearrange specific historical facts in accordance with its own historical concept.
This idea was also developed in one of the articles of the Globe magazine (1828), to which the author argued that: “... a novel is only a means of re-writing history using the imagination. Its purpose is not to accurately convey the external details of events, to reveal the secret mysterious incidents, but to illuminate the moral side of history, to replenish the forgetfulness or ignorance of the chroniclers, recreating, in a kind of induction in which criticism participates less than imagination, or the totality of general phenomena that determine the state of society, represented by fictional persons, or the character real persons, dramatically interpreted and placed in everyday home life.
As for the historical events of the novel, the writer completely abandoned their depiction in order to remove all obstacles to the free depiction of history. There is only one thing stated in the novel historical event(the arrival of ambassadors for the marriage of the Dauphin and Margaret of Flanders in January 1482) and historical characters (King Louis XIII, the Cardinal of Bourbon) are relegated to the background by numerous fictional characters. True, none of the names of the minor characters, including Pierre Gringoire, were invented by Hugo; they were all taken from ancient sources, which indicates the writer’s careful preparation of the novel.
3. “Notre Dame Cathedral”
"Notre-Dame de Paris" - the first great novel Hugo, who was closely associated with the historical narratives of the era.
The concept of the novel dates back to 1828; It was this year that the plan of the work was dated, in which the images of the gypsy Esmeralda, the poet Gringoire and Abbot Claude Frollo, who were in love with her, were already outlined. According to this initial plan, Gringoire saves Esmeralda, thrown into an iron cage by order of the king, and goes instead to the gallows, while Frollo, having found Esmeralda in a gypsy camp, hands her over to the executioners. Later, Hugo somewhat expanded the plan of the novel. At the beginning of 1830, an entry appears in the notes in the margins of the plan - the name of Captain Phoebus de Chateaupert.
Hugo began direct work on the book at the end of July 1830, but the July Revolution interrupted his work, which he was able to resume only in September. V. Hugo began work on the novel under an agreement with the publisher Goslin. The publisher threatened to collect from the author a thousand francs for each overdue week. Every day counted, and then in the hassle of an unexpected move to a new apartment, all the notes and sketches were lost, all the prepared work was lost, and not a single line had yet been written.
Although in the early 30s the author of Notre Dame was still a supporter of the constitutional monarchy, he already had a negative attitude towards royal absolutism and the noble class, which occupied a dominant position in France in the 15th century, to which the events described in the novel relate. At the end of the restoration period, along with anti-noble ideas, Hugo also found vivid expression of his new anti-clerical beliefs. Thanks to this, the novel about the distant historical past sounded very relevant in the conditions of the time, when the fight against noble and church reaction was on the agenda in France.
The novel was finished two weeks ahead of schedule. On January 14, 1831, the last line was added. Hugo looks at the mountain of scribbled sheets of paper. This is what a bottle of ink can contain!
The first reader of the manuscript was the publisher's wife. This enlightened lady, who translated from English, found the novel extremely boring. Goslin was quick to publicize his wife’s response: “I will no longer rely on famous names“You’re about to suffer losses because of these celebrities.” However, the printing of the book was not delayed. Notre Dame was published on February 13, 1831.
“Notre Dame de Paris” is a work that reflects the past through the prism of the views of a 19th-century humanist writer who sought to illuminate the “moral side of history” and emphasize those features of past events that are instructive for the present.
Hugo wrote his novel during the period of the rise and victory of the democratic movement, which marked the final fall of the Bourbon dynasty. It is no coincidence that the author attached exceptional importance to the figure of the artisan Jacques Copenol, representing the interests of the free city of Ghent.
The actual romantic features of the novel were manifested in the pronounced contrast of “The Cathedral”, the sharp contrast of positive and negative characters, and the unexpected discrepancy between the external and internal content of human natures. However, this is a “medieval”, “archaeological” novel, where the author describes with special care the darkness of Frollo and the exotic outfit of Esmeralda. The same purpose is served by a meticulously developed vocabulary that reflects the language spoken by all layers of society, here you can also find terminology from the field of architecture, Latin, archaisms, argotisms of the crowd of the Court of Miracles, a mixture of Spanish, Italian and Latin. Hugo uses extensive comparisons, antitheses, and shows amazing ingenuity in the use of verbs. Amazing characters in extreme circumstances are also a sign of romanticism. The main characters - Esmeralda, Quasimodo and Claude Frollo - are the embodiment of one or another quality. The street dancer Esmeralda symbolizes the moral beauty of the common man, the handsome Phoebus - secular society, outwardly brilliant, internally empty, selfish and, as a result, heartless; the focus of dark forces is Claude Frollo, a representative of the Catholic Church. Quasimodo embodied Hugo's democratic idea: ugly and outcast by social status, the cathedral bell-ringer turns out to be the most highly moral being. This cannot be said about people occupying a high position in the social hierarchy (Louis XI himself, knights, gendarmes, riflemen - the “chain dogs” of the king. These are the moral values established by the writer in the novel and reflected in the romantic conflict of high or low, where low is king , justice, religion, i.e. everything that belongs to the “old system”, and the high - in the guise of commoners. And in Esmeralda, and in Quasimodo, and in the outcasts of the Court, the author sees full of folk heroes of the novel. moral strength and full of humanism. The people, in the author’s understanding, are not just an empty mass, they are a formidable force, the blind activity of which is the problem of the idea of justice. The idea of storming the Cathedral by the masses contains Hugo’s allusion to the impending storming of the Bastille in 1789, to the “hour of the people,” to the revolution.
It is very important to know the context of the creation of this novel, which began on the eve of the 1830 revolution. Hugo’s wife, who left her memories of him, wrote the following: “Great political events cannot but leave a deep mark on the sensitive soul of the poet. Hugo, who had just risen in rebellion and erected barricades in the theater, now understood more clearly than ever that all manifestations of progress are closely interconnected and that, while remaining consistent, he must accept in politics what he achieved in literature.” The heroism shown by the people during the “three glorious days,” as the days of the barricade battles that decided the fate of the Bourbons were then called, so captivated Hugo that he had to interrupt the work he had begun on the “Cathedral...”. “It is impossible to barricade yourself from the impressions of the outside world,” he wrote to Lamartine. “At such a moment there is no longer art, no theater, no poetry... Politics becomes your breath.” However, Hugo soon resumed work on the novel, locking himself at home with a bottle of ink and even locking his clothes so as not to go outside. Five months later, in January 1831, as promised to the publisher, he put the finished manuscript on the table. It is no wonder that this novel, created on the crest of the revolution, captures the author’s admiration for the heroism and creative genius of the French people, the desire to find in distant history the beginnings of its future great deeds.
The day of January 6, 1482, chosen by Hugo for the initial chapters of his historical novel, gave him the opportunity to immediately immerse the reader in the atmosphere of colorful and dynamic medieval life as the romantics saw it, the reception of Flemish ambassadors on the occasion of the marriage of the French Dauphin with Margaret of Flanders, folk festivals, staged in Paris, the amusing lights on the Place de Greve, the maypole planting ceremony at the Braque Chapel, the performance of the mystery play of the medieval poet Gringoire, the clownish procession led by the Pope of Freaks, the thieves' den of the Court of Miracles, located in the remote corners of the French capital...
It was not without reason that Hugo’s contemporaries reproached him for the fact that in his “Cathedral...” there was not enough Catholicism. This is what Abbé Lamennais said, for example, although he praised Hugo for his wealth of imagination; Lamartine, who called Hugo “the Shakespeare of the novel”, and his “Cathedral ...” - “a colossal work”, “an epic of the Middle Ages”, wrote to him with some surprise that in his temple “there is everything you want, only there is not a bit of religion."
Hugo admires the cathedral not as a stronghold of faith, but as a “huge stone symphony”, as a “colossal creation of man and people”; for him, this is a wonderful result of the combination of all the forces of the era, where in every stone one can see “the imagination of the worker, taking hundreds of forms, guided by the genius of the artist.” Great works of art, according to Hugo, emerge from the depths of the people's genius: "... The largest monuments of the past are not so much the creations of an individual, but of an entire society; this is most likely a consequence of the creative efforts of the people than a brilliant flash of genius... The artist, the individual, the person disappear in these huge masses, without leaving behind the name of the creator; the human mind in them has its expression and its overall result. Here time is the architect, and the people are the mason.”
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 the desire to escape from everyday suffering into the bosom of religion and otherworldly dreams, then for Hugo medieval Gothic is, first of all, a wonderful folk art, an expression of talented people's soul with all the aspirations, fears and beliefs of his time. That is why the cathedral in the novel is not the arena of mystical, but of the most everyday passions. That is why the unfortunate foundling, the bell-ringer Quasimodo, is so inseparable from the cathedral. He, and not the gloomy clergyman Claude Frollo, is his true soul. He understands the music of its bells better than anyone else, and the fantastic sculptures of its portals seem akin to him. It was he - Quasimodo - who “poured life into this immense building,” says the author.
The main ideological and compositional core of the novel “Notre Dame Cathedral” is the love of two heroes for the gypsy Esmeralda: the cathedral archdeacon Claude Frollo and the cathedral bell ringer Quasimodo. The main characters of the novel emerge from the very thick of the crowd, which plays a decisive role in the entire concept of the novel - the street dancer Esmeralda and the hunchbacked bell-ringer Quasimodo. We meet them during a public festival in the square in front of the cathedral, where Esmeralda dances and performs magic tricks with the help of her goat, and Quasimodo leads the clownish procession as the king of freaks. Both of them are so closely connected with the picturesque crowd that surrounds them that it seems as if the artist only temporarily removed them from it in order to push them onto the stage and make them the main characters of his work.
Esmeralda and Quasimodo seem to represent two different faces of this polyphonic crowd.
a. Esmeralda
The beautiful Esmeralda personifies everything good, talented, natural and beautiful that the great soul of the people carries within itself, and the opposite of the gloomy medieval asceticism forcibly instilled in the people by church fanatics. It’s not for nothing that she is so cheerful and musical, she loves songs, dance and life itself so much, this little street dancer. It is not for nothing that she is so chaste and at the same time so natural and straightforward in her love, so carefree and kind with everyone, even with Quasimodo, although he inspires her with insurmountable fear with his ugliness. Esmeralda is a true child of the people, her dancing gives joy ordinary people, she is idolized by the poor, schoolchildren, beggars and ragamuffins from the Court of Miracles. Esmeralda is all joy and harmony, her image just begs to be staged, and it is no coincidence that Hugo reworked his novel for the ballet “Esmeralda,” which still does not leave the European stage.
“...Whether this young girl was a human being, a fairy or an angel, this Gringoire, this skeptical philosopher, this ironic poet, could not immediately determine, he was so fascinated by the dazzling vision.
She was short in stature, but seemed tall - her slim frame was so slender. She was dark-skinned, but it was not difficult to guess that during the day 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 - she walked so lightly in her narrow, 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.
The eyes of the entire crowd were glued to her, all mouths agape. She danced to the rumble of a tambourine, which her round, virgin hands raised high above her head. Thin, fragile, with bare shoulders and slender legs occasionally flashing 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...”
b. Quasimodo
Another democratic hero of the novel, the foundling Quasimodo, rather personifies the terrible force hidden in the people, still dark, shackled by slavery and prejudice, but great and selfless in their selfless feeling, formidable and powerful in their rage. Which sometimes rises like the wrath of a rebel titan throwing off centuries-old chains.
Claude Frollo “baptized his adopted son and named him “Quasimodo” - either in memory of the day when he found him (for Catholics the first Sunday after Easter, Thomas Sunday; and in Latin it means “as if”, “almost.”), then or wanting to express with this name how imperfect the unfortunate little creature is, how rough it is. Indeed, Quasimodo, one-eyed, hunchbacked, was only almost a man.”
The image of Quasimodo is the artistic embodiment of the theory of the romantic grotesque. The incredible and monstrous prevail here over the real. First of all, this refers to the exaggeration of ugliness and all sorts of misfortunes that befall one person.
“...It is difficult to describe this tetrahedral nose, horseshoe-shaped mouth, tiny left eye, almost covered by a bristly red eyebrow, while the right one completely disappeared under a huge wart, broken crooked teeth, reminiscent of the battlements of a fortress wall, this cracked lip, over which it hung, as if an elephant’s tusk, one of the teeth, that cleft chin... But it’s even more difficult to describe the mixture of anger, amazement, and sadness that was reflected on this man’s face. Now try to imagine it all together!
The approval was unanimous. The crowd rushed to the chapel. From there the venerable pope of jesters was brought out in triumph. But now the amazement and delight of the crowd reached its highest limit. The grimace was his real face.
Or rather, he was all a grimace. A huge head covered with red stubble; a huge hump between the shoulder blades and another, balancing it, on the chest; his hips were so dislocated that his legs could meet at the knees, strangely resembling two sickles in front with connected handles; wide feet, monstrous hands. And, despite this ugliness, in his whole figure there was some kind of formidable expression of strength, agility and courage - an extraordinary exception to that general rule which requires that strength, like beauty, stems from harmony ... "
Quasimodo is “all a grimace.” He was born “crooked, hunchbacked, lame”; Then the ringing of the bells burst his eardrums - and he became deaf. In addition, deafness made him seem mute (“When necessity forced him to speak, his tongue turned clumsily and heavily, like a door on rusty hinges”). The artist figuratively imagines his soul, chained in an ugly body, as “twisted and decayed” like the prisoners of Venetian prisons who lived to old age, “bent over three times in too narrow and too short stone boxes.”
At the same time, Quasimodo is the limit of not only ugliness, but also rejection: “From his very first steps among people, he felt, and then clearly realized himself, a being rejected, spat upon, branded. Human speech was either a mockery or a curse for him.” Thus, the humanistic theme of outcasts, guilty without guilt, damned by an unjust human court, is developed already in Hugo’s first significant novel.
Hugo's grotesque is a "standard of comparison" and a fruitful "means of contrast." This contrast can be external or internal or both. Quasimodo's ugliness, first of all, contrasts sharply with Esmeralda's beauty. Next to him, she seems especially touching and charming, which is most effectively revealed in the scene at the pillory, when Esmeralda approaches the terrible, embittered and tormented by an unbearable thirst Quasimodo to give him something to drink (“Who would not be touched by the sight of beauty, freshness, innocence, charm and fragility, which came in a fit of mercy to the aid of the embodiment of misfortune, ugliness and malice! At the pillory, this spectacle was majestic.”
Quasimodo's ugliness contrasts even more with his inner beauty, which is manifested in his selfless and devoted love for Esmeralda. The culminating moment in the revelation of the true greatness of his soul is the scene of the kidnapping of Esmeralda, who was sentenced to hanging - the same scene that delighted the crowd surrounding them both: “... in these moments Quasimodo was truly beautiful. He was beautiful, this orphan, a foundling , ... he felt majestic and strong, he looked into the face of this society, which had expelled him, but in whose affairs he had so imperiously interfered; , these bailiffs, judges and executioners, all this royal power, which he, insignificant, broke with the help of almighty God."
The moral greatness, devotion and spiritual beauty of Quasimodo will once again appear in all its strength at the very end of the novel, when, having failed to protect Esmeralda from her main enemy - Archdeacon Claude Frollo, who nevertheless achieved the execution of the unfortunate gypsy, Quasimodo comes to die near her corpse, finding his beloved only in death.
It is significant that the moral idea of the novel, associated mainly with Quasimodo, was perfectly understood and highly appreciated by F.M. Dostoevsky. Proposing to translate “Notre Dame Cathedral” into Russian, he wrote in 1862 in the magazine “Time” that the idea of this work is “the restoration of a lost person, crushed unfairly by the oppression of circumstances... This idea is the justification of the humiliated and rejected pariahs of society... To whom It wouldn’t even occur to you,” Dostoevsky further wrote, “that Quasimodo is the personification of the oppressed and despised medieval French people, deaf and disfigured, gifted only with terrible physical strength, but in which love and the thirst for justice finally awakens, and with them the consciousness of one’s truth and one’s still untouched infinite powers... Victor Hugo is almost the main herald of this idea of “restoration” in the literature of our century. At least he was the first to express this idea with such artistic force in art.”
Thus, Dostoevsky also emphasizes that the image of Quasimodo is a symbol associated with Hugo’s democratic pathos, with his assessment of the people as bearers of high moral principles.
V. Claude Frollo
But if it is precisely these humiliated and rejected pariahs of society, such as Quasimodo or Esmeralda, that Hugo endows with the best feelings: kindness, sincerity, selfless devotion and love, then their antipodes, standing at the helm of spiritual and temporal power, like the archdeacon of Notre Dame Cathedral Claude Frollo or King Louis XI, on the contrary, he paints as cruel, self-centered, complete indifference to the suffering of other people.
Archdeacon Claude Frollo, like Quasimodo, is a grotesque character in the novel. If Quasimodo frightens with his external ugliness, then Claude Frollo causes horror with the secret passions that overwhelm his soul. “Why did his broad forehead become bald, why was his head always lowered?.. What secret thought twisted his mouth with a bitter smile, while his frowning eyebrows met like two bulls ready to rush into battle?.. What kind of secret flame flared up at times in his gaze?...” - the artist introduces him with such terrible and mysterious words from the very beginning.
In the person of one of the main characters of the novel, the learned scholastic Claude Frollo, he shows the collapse of dogmatism and asceticism. Claude's thought is fruitless, his science does not have the creative power of Faust, it does not create anything. The imprint of death and desolation is felt in his cell, where he conducts his work: “... compasses and retorts lay on the table. Animal skeletons hung from the ceiling... Human and horse skulls lay on manuscripts... On the floor, without any pity for the fragility of their parchment pages, piles of huge open volumes were piled up. In a word, all the rubbish of science was collected here, and in all this chaos there was dust and cobwebs.”
A Catholic priest, bound by a vow of chastity and hating women, but consumed by carnal lust for a beautiful gypsy, a learned theologian who preferred witchcraft and a passionate search for the secret of gold mining to true faith and mercy - this is how the gloomy image of the Parisian archdeacon is revealed, playing an extremely important role in the ideological and artistic concept of the novel.
Claude Frollo is a true romantic villain, gripped by an all-consuming and destructive passion. This evil, perverted and, in the full sense of the word, demonic passion is capable only of terrible hatred and frenzied lust. The priest's passion destroys not only the innocent Esmeralda, but also his own gloomy and confused soul.
The author deliberately endows the learned archdeacon, who is the most intellectual hero of the novel, with the ability for introspection and critical assessment of his actions. In contrast to the tongue-tied Quasimodo, he is capable of pathetic speeches, and internal monologues reveal the outbursts of feelings and sinful thoughts that overwhelm him. Seized by a vicious passion, he comes to the point of denying church institutions and God himself: “He saw his soul and shuddered... He thought about the madness of eternal vows, about the futility of science, faith, virtue, about the uselessness of God”; then he discovers that love, which in the soul of a normal person generates only goodness, turns into “something monstrous” in the soul of a priest, and the priest himself “becomes a demon”
(this is how Hugo encroaches on the holy of holies of Catholicism, denying the moral meaning of the ascetic suppression of human natural inclinations). “Scientist - I outraged science; nobleman - I disgraced my name; clergyman - I turned the breviary into a pillow for lustful dreams; I spat in the face of my god! Everything is for you, enchantress! - Claude Frollo shouts to Esmeralda in a frenzy. And when the girl pushes him away with horror and disgust, he sends her to her death.
Claude Frollo is one of the most evil and tragic characters in Notre Dame, and it is not for nothing that he is destined for such a terrible and tragic end. The author not only kills him with the hand of the enraged Quasimodo, who, realizing that it was the archdeacon who was the cause of Esmeralda’s death, throws him from the roof of the cathedral, but also forces him to die in cruel torment. The visibility of suffering that Hugo achieves in the scene of the death of the archdeacon, hanging over the abyss with his eyelids closed and his hair standing on end, is amazing!
The image of Claude Frollo was generated by the turbulent political situation in which Hugo's novel was created. Clericalism, which was the main support of the Bourbons and the Restoration regime, aroused fierce hatred on the eve and in the first years after the July Revolution among the broadest layers of France. Finishing his book in 1831, Hugo could observe how an angry crowd destroyed the monastery of Saint-Germain-L-Auxerrois and the archbishop's palace in Paris and how peasants knocked down crosses from chapels on big roads. The image of the archdeacon opens up a whole gallery of fanatics, executioners and fanatics of the Catholic Church, whom Hugo will expose throughout his work.
Mr. Louis XI
"...Holding a long scroll in his hands, he stood with his head uncovered behind a chair in which, clumsily bent, legs crossed and leaning on the table, sat a very shabbily dressed figure. Imagine in this magnificent chair upholstered in Cordovan leather the angular knees, skinny thighs in a worn tights made of black wool, a body dressed in a flannel caftan trimmed with shabby fur, and as a headdress - an old greasy hat made of the worst cloth, with lead figures attached around the entire crown. Add to this a dirty skullcap, which almost hid it. hair - that’s all that could be seen in this sitting figure. The head of this man was bowed so low on his chest that his face was drowned in shadow and only the tip of his long nose was visible, on which a ray of light fell across his withered, wrinkled hands. guess that he was an old man. It was Louis XI."
He, no less cruel an executioner than the Parisian archdeacon, decides the fate of the poor gypsy in the novel. Having shown in a broad and varied way the entire background of medieval social life, Hugo would not have said everything he should have if he had not introduced into the work this significant figure for the French Middle Ages - Louis XI.
However, he approached the depiction of the really existing Louis XI, whom Hugo introduced into his “work of imagination, caprice and fantasy,” differently from the depiction of the fictional characters of the novel. The monstrous grotesqueness of Quasimodo, the poetry of Esmeralda, the demonism of Claude Frollo give way to precision and restraint when, by the end of the novel, the writer approaches the reconstruction of the complex politics, palace environment and inner circle of King Louis.
The crown bearer in flannel pants, with a toothless mouth and the wary gaze of a fox, carefully counts every sou, checking the expense items. The price of the bars of an iron cage is more important to him than the life of the prisoner imprisoned in this cage. With cold cruelty, he orders his henchman to shoot at the rioting crowd and hang the gypsy Esmeralda on the gallows: “Grab them, Tristan! Grab these bastards! Run, my friend Tristan! Beat them!.. Crush the mob. Hang the witch."
It is noteworthy that no palace pomp and no romantic surroundings accompany the figure of the king in the novel. For Louis XI, who completed the unification of the French kingdom, is revealed here rather as an exponent of the bourgeois rather than the feudal spirit of the times. Relying on the bourgeoisie and the cities, this cunning and intelligent politician waged a persistent struggle to suppress feudal claims in order to strengthen his unlimited power.
In full accordance with history, Louis XI is shown in the novel as a cruel, hypocritical and calculating monarch who feels best in a small cell in one of the towers of the Bastille, wears a shabby doublet and old stockings, although, without sparing, he spends money on his favorite invention - cages for state criminals, aptly nicknamed by the people “the king’s daughters.”
With all the realism of this figure, the author of Notre Dame in Paris does not forget to emphasize the sharp contrast between the outward piety and the extreme cruelty and stinginess of the king. This is perfectly revealed in the characterization given to him by the poet Gringoire:
“Under the power of this pious quiet man, the gallows are bursting with thousands of hanged people, the scaffolds are bursting with spilled blood, the prisons are bursting like overflowing wombs! He robs with one hand and hangs with the other. This is the prosecutor of Mr. Tax and the Empress Gallows.”
Having introduced you to the royal cell, the author makes the reader a witness to how the king breaks out in angry abuse, looking through accounts for minor state needs, but willingly approves the item of expenditure that is required to carry out torture and executions. ("...You are ruining us! What do we need such a court staff for? Two chaplains, ten livres a month each, and a servant in the chapel, one hundred sous! A chamberlain, ninety livres a year! Four stewards, one hundred and twenty livres a year each! Overseer for the workers, a gardener, an assistant cook, a chief cook, a keeper of weapons, two scribes for keeping accounts, ten livres a month each! The groom and his two assistants, twenty-four livres a month, the senior blacksmith - one hundred and twenty livres! livres! No, this is madness! Keeping our servants is ruining France!
Henri Cousin, the chief executioner of the city of Paris, was given sixty Parisian sous for the purchase, according to the order, of a large broad sword for the beheading and execution of persons sentenced to this by justice for their offenses, as well as for the purchase of a scabbard and all accessories relying on it; and equally for the repair and renewal of the old sword, which was cracked and jagged during the execution of Messire Louis of Luxembourg, from which it clearly follows...
Enough,” the king interrupted him. - I am very happy to approve this amount. I don’t skimp on this kind of expense. “I never spared money on this,” he says.)
But the reaction of the French monarch to the uprising of the Parisian mob, who rose up to save a poor gypsy falsely accused of witchcraft and murder from royal and church “justice”, is especially eloquent.
Creating, as it were, an artistic encyclopedia of medieval life, it is not for nothing that Hugo introduces into the novel an entire army of Parisian hunger, which found refuge in the outlandish courtyard of miracles in the center of old Paris. Throughout the Middle Ages, beggars and vagabonds were the ferment of indignation and rebellion against the upper feudal classes. From the very beginning of its existence, royal power waged a struggle against this rebellious mass, which constantly eluded its sphere of influence. But despite decrees and numerous laws condemning those guilty of vagrancy and beggary to exile, torture on the wheel or burning, not one of the French kings was able to get rid of vagrants and beggars. United in corporations, with their own laws and regulations, the disobedient vagabonds sometimes formed something like a state within a state. Joining artisans or peasants who rebelled against their lords, this rebellious mass often attacked feudal castles, monasteries and abbeys. History has preserved many genuine and legendary names of the leaders of the armies of these ragamuffins. The most talented poet of the 15th century, François Villop, at one time belonged to one of these corporations, in whose poems the spirit of freedom and rebellion characteristic of this peculiar bohemia of the Middle Ages is very noticeable.
The storming of Notre Dame Cathedral by a crowd of thousands of Parisian bastards, depicted by Hugo in his novel, is symbolic in nature, as if foreshadowing the victorious storming of the Bastille on July 14, 1789.
The storming of the cathedral also reveals the cunning policy of the French king towards the different social classes of his kingdom. The rebellion of the Parisian mob, which he initially mistook for an uprising directed against a judge who enjoyed wide privileges and rights, is perceived by the king with barely contained joy: it seems to him that his “good people” are helping him fight his enemies. But as soon as the king finds out that the mob is not storming the court’s palace, but the cathedral, which is in his own possession, then “the fox turns into a hyena.” Although the historian of Louis XI, Philippe de Commines, called him “the king of the common people,” Hugo, by no means inclined to believe such descriptions, perfectly shows what the true aspirations of the king were. It is only important for the king to use the people for his own purposes; he can support the Parisian mob only insofar as it plays into his hands in his fight against feudalism, but deals harshly with it as soon as it gets in the way of his interests. At such moments, the king and feudal rulers find themselves together with the clergy on one side of the barricades, while the people remain on the other. The tragic ending of the novel leads to this historically correct conclusion: the defeat of the rebellious crowd by royal troops and the execution of the gypsy woman, as demanded by the church.
The finale of Notre Dame in Paris, in which all of him die a terrible death. romantic heroes- and Quasimodo, and Claude Frollo, and Esmeralda, and her numerous defenders from the Palace of Miracles - emphasizes the drama of the novel and reveals the author’s philosophical concept. The world is designed for joy, happiness, kindness and sunshine, as the little dancer Esmeralda understands it. But feudal society spoils this world with its unfair trials, church prohibitions, and royal tyranny. The upper classes are guilty of this before the people. This is why the author of Notre Dame justifies the revolution as a cleansing and renewal of the world.
Not only does the storming of the cathedral remind us of the storming of the Bastille in the novel, but also the prophetic words of Master Copenol predict a great revolution for King Louis XI. Copenol announces that the “hour of the people” in France “has not yet struck,” but it will strike “when the tower collapses with a hellish roar.” And the darkened king, placed by the artist in one of the towers of the Bastille so that this prophecy would be more visible, pats his hand on the thick wall of the tower and thoughtfully asks: “You will not fall so easily, my good Bastille.”
Hugo's philosophical concept of the 30s - a world created according to the antithesis of the beautiful, sunny, joyful and evil, ugly, inhuman, artificially imposed on him by secular and spiritual authorities - is noticeably reflected in romantic artistic means"Notre Dame Cathedral"
All kinds of horrors that fill the work, such as the “rat hole” where penitent sinners wall themselves up forever, or the torture chamber in which poor Esmeralda is tormented, or the terrible Moncofon, where the intertwined skeletons of Esmeralda and Quasimodo are discovered, alternate with a magnificent image folk art, the epitome of which is not only the cathedral, but the whole of medieval Paris, described as a “stone chronicle” in the unforgettable “Bird's Eye View of Paris”.
Hugo seems to be painting, either with a thin pencil or with paints, a picture of medieval Paris with that inherent sense of color, plasticity and dynamics that manifested itself in him starting with “Oriental Motifs.” The artist distinguishes and conveys to the reader not only general form city, but also the smallest details, all the characteristic details of Gothic architecture. Here are the palaces of Saint-Paul and the Tuiles (which no longer belongs to the king, but to the people, since “his brow is twice marked ... by the revolution”), and mansions and abbeys, and towers, and the streets of old Paris, captured in a bright and contrasting romantic manner (the airy and enchanting spectacle of the La Tournelle palace with its tall forest of arrows, turrets and bell towers and the monstrous Bastille with its cannons sticking out between the battlements like black beaks). The spectacle that Hugo shows us is both openwork (since the artist makes the reader look at Paris through a forest of spiers and towers) and colorful (so he draws his attention to the Seine in its green and yellow tints, to the blue horizon, to the play of shadows and light in a gloomy maze of buildings, on a black silhouette protruding in the copper sky of sunset), and plastically (for we always see the silhouettes of towers or the sharp outlines of spiers and ridges), and dynamically (this is how the reader is invited to “spill” a river across the vast city, “ tear it apart with wedges of islands, compress it with the arches of bridges, carve out the Gothic profile of old Paris on the horizon, and even make its contours sway in the winter fog clinging to countless chimneys). The writer, as it were, turns the created panorama before his eyes and completes it, appealing to the reader’s imagination; puts it from different angles, refers to different seasons or hours of the day, anticipating in this experiment the experience of impressionist artists.
The visual image of old Paris is complemented by its sound characteristics, when in the polyphonic choir of Parisian bells “a thick stream of sounding vibrations... floats, sways, bounces, spins over the city.”
"...The first blow of the copper tongue on the inner walls of the bell shook the beams on which it hung. Quasimodo seemed to vibrate along with the bell. “Come on!” - he cried, bursting into senseless laughter. The bell swayed faster and faster, and as the angle of its swing increased, Quasimodo’s eye, flaming and sparkling with a phosphorescent brilliance, opened wider and wider.
Finally, the big bell began, the whole tower trembled; the beam, the gutters, the stone slabs, everything from the foundation pile to the trefoils crowning the tower hummed at the same time. The unbridled, furious bell alternately opened its bronze mouth above one opening of the tower, then above another, from which the breath of a storm burst forth, spreading over four leagues around. It was the only speech accessible to Quasimodo's ear, the only sound that broke the silence of the universe. And he basked like a bird in the sun. Suddenly the fury of the bell was transmitted to him; his eye took on a strange expression; Quasimodo lay in wait for the bell, like a spider lies in wait for a fly, and when it approached, he rushed headlong at it. Hanging over the abyss, following the bell in its terrible scope, he grabbed the copper monster by the ears, squeezed it tightly with his knees, spurred it with the blows of his heels and with all his effort, with all the weight of his body, increased the frenzy of the ringing...”
Hugo not only singles out in the overall symphony the individual voices of different belfries, some of which rise upward, “light, winged, piercing,” others “fall heavily” down, he also creates a kind of roll call of sound and visual perceptions, likening some sounds “dazzling zigzags” of lightning; The rolling of the alarm bell of Notre Dame Cathedral sparkles in his description, “like sparks on an anvil under the blows of a hammer,” and the fast and sharp chime from the bell tower of the Church of the Annunciation, “scattering, sparkles like a diamond star beam.”
The romantic perception of the outside world, as is clear from this description, is unusually picturesque, sonorous and enchanting: “Is there anything in the whole world more magnificent, more joyful, more beautiful and more dazzling than this confusion of bells and belfries.”
This novel was a major victory for a great artist, a victory that even Hugo’s enemies could not deny; the artistic images of the novel were more undeniable and more convincing arguments of the innovative artist.
The novel amazes with its richness and dynamism of action. Hugo seems to transport the reader from one world to a completely different one: the echoing silence of the cathedral is suddenly replaced by the noise of the square, which is bustling with people, where there is so much life and movement, where the tragic and the funny, cruelty and fun are so strangely and whimsically combined. But now the reader is already under the gloomy arches of the Bastille, where the ominous silence is broken by the groans of victims languishing in stone bags.
However, with this wealth of action, the novel is striking in its extraordinary concentration; This is where the skill of its construction is demonstrated. The author imperceptibly but persistently pulls all the threads of action towards the cathedral, which becomes, as it were, one of the main characters, invisibly controlled by the fate of everyone, even minor character.
One of the main characters of all scenes is a motley and noisy crowd of Parisian commoners, including craftsmen, and schoolchildren, and homeless poets, and tramps, and thieves, and petty shopkeepers, and wealthier citizens, who together later made up a single third estate, Three centuries later, it determined the ideals of the bourgeois-democratic revolution of 1789. The “Third Estates” understanding of social struggle as the struggle of the entire people as a whole against the nobility and clergy, against kings and tyrants, put forward by the Great French Revolution, determined Hugo’s ideology for a long time.
“...This procession, which the reader observed when it left the Palace, established order along the way and absorbed all the swindlers, idlers and thieves, vagabonds of Paris. Thus, arriving at the Place de Greve, it presented a truly impressive spectacle.
The gypsies were moving ahead of everyone. At their head, directing and inspiring the procession, rode the gypsy duke on horseback, accompanied by his foot counts; behind them followed a disorderly crowd of gypsies and gypsy women, dragging howling children on their backs; and everyone - the duke, the counts and the mob - in rags and tinsel. Following the gypsies were the subjects of the Argo kingdom, that is, all the thieves of France, divided by rank into several detachments; the lowest in rank went first. So, four people in a row, with all sorts of insignia corresponding to their academic degree in the field of this strange science, followed a lot of cripples - sometimes lame, sometimes one-armed: pickpockets, pilgrims, epileptics, skufenniks, Christian walkers, cats, connecting rods, business guys, weaklings, fire victims, bankrupts, funnymen, window makers, mazuricks and burglars - listing them all would have tired Homer himself. In the center of the conclave of mazurics and burglars one could hardly distinguish King Argo, the great Caesar, squatting in a small cart pulled by two large dogs. Following the subjects of King Argo were the people of the kingdom of Galilee. In front of them ran buffoons fighting and dancing a pyrrhic dance, behind them stood Guillaume Rousseau, the king of Galilee, dressed in a purple robe drenched in wine, surrounded by his staff-bearers, minions and scribes. Chamber of Accounts. To the sounds of sabbath-worthy music, the procession was closed by a corporation of court scribes in black robes, carrying “May branches” decorated with flowers and large yellow wax candles. In the very center of this crowd, the highest members of the brotherhood of jesters carried on their shoulders a stretcher on which were placed more candles than the St. Genevieve during the plague... "
Residents of the “Court of Miracles” go in a large crowd to free Esmeralda from the cathedral, who hid there from persecution. But this is not about Esmeralda. The people are going to attack the cathedral, and the cathedral is a stronghold of the old world, a stronghold of tyranny and despotism. While the crowd marches, King Louis XI hides in the Bastille. A cruel king, a despot who knows no limits to his own power, feels that there is no force that would be able to withstand the people's anger.
The ideas of revolution clearly permeate the concept of the novel, as evidenced, first of all, by the colorful figure of one of the Flemish ambassadors, Jacques Copenol from the city of Ghent. Out of a sense of third-class pride, he does not allow himself to be reported differently, as a “stocking man,” in front of a high assembly of the Parisian nobility, thereby humiliating the court nobles and winning the frantic applause of the Parisian nobles.
The crowd in Hugo's novel not only fills the buildings, streets and squares of old Paris, it deafens us with its stomping and roar, it is constantly moving, making noise, exchanging humorous or abusive remarks, mocking someone, scolding and cursing someone. It was from such a noisy and active crowd that the once prankster and clever Panurge emerged, embodying the lively humor inherent in the French people. Following the glorious author of Gargantua and Pantagruel. Hugo also strives to depict mass action and dialogue, consisting of shouts, jokes and jokes, giving rise to a feeling of polyphonic street hubbub (such, for example, is the hail of ridicule with which schoolchildren, taking advantage of the privilege of a festive festivities, shower their university bosses - rectors, trustees, deans, professors , theologians, scribes, and among them the librarian Master Henri Munier. “Munier, we will burn your books... Munier, we will blow up your servant!.. We will squeeze your wife!.. Nice fat lady Oudarda!.. And so fresh and cheerful. , she’s definitely already a widow!”).
In essence, everything that happens before the reader in the first book of the novel - be it the appearance on stage of the actor playing Jupiter in Gringoire’s ill-fated mystery, which everyone soon got tired of, the appearance of the Cardinal of Bourbon with his retinue, or the master Jacques Copinol, who caused such excitement among the audience - everything is carried out by the author through the approving or contemptuous or indignant reaction of the crowd, everything is shown through its eyes. And not only on the day of the festival, but also the next day, when they bring the freak Quasimodo to the pillory and the beautiful Esmeralda gives him a drink from her flask - the crowd continues to accompany all these scenes, first with laughter, hooting, and then with wild delight. And later, when the same Quasimodo, with the speed of lightning, kidnaps Esmeralda from under the gallows erected for her and shouting “Refuge!” saves her from cruel “justice”, the crowd accompanies this heroic act with applause and shouts of approval (“Shelter! Shelter!” repeated the crowd, and the applause of ten thousand hands made Quasimodo’s only eye flash with happiness and pride). And, when he carefully and carefully carried the girl up the galleries of the cathedral, “the women laughed and cried, ... the crowd, always in love with courage, looked for him with their eyes under the gloomy arches of the church, regretting that the object of her admiration had disappeared so quickly ... he again appeared at the end of the gallery... The crowd again burst into applause."
Of course, for all its liveliness and dynamism of the sketches of the popular crowd, Hugo’s novel creates a purely romantic idea of it. The writer likes to wear his folk characters in exotic gypsy rags, he depicts all sorts of grimaces of poverty or riotous revelry, like the picturesque precessions of the nakedness from the Court of Miracles or the mass bacchanalia of the Feast of Fools (at this orgy, says the author, “every mouth screamed, every face made a grimace, every body writhed. All together howled and screamed").
This is where the general picturesqueness and sonority of the novel come from, which is similar in this regard to “Oriental Motifs” (“Notre Dame de Paris” was conceived by Hugo in the years when his work on this poetry collection was ending).
Hugo's whole medieval culture which he tells in his novel: life, morals, customs, beliefs, art, the very character of medieval architecture, embodied in the majestic image of Notre Dame Cathedral. “In Hugo’s novel, the cathedral is an expression of the soul of the people and the philosophy of the era in the broadest sense of the word”
The real hero of the novel is “the huge cathedral of Our Lady looming over starry sky the black silhouette of its two towers, stone sides and monstrous croup, like a two-headed sphinx dozing in the middle of the city...” Hugo knew how to show the natural in bright lighting in his descriptions and throw strange black silhouettes against a light background. “The era seemed to him to be a play of light on roofs and fortifications, rocks, plains, waters, in squares seething with crowds, on closed ranks of soldiers - a blinding ray, snatching out a white sail here, a garment here, a stained glass window there. Hugo was able to love or hate inanimate objects and endow a cathedral, a city, and even a gallows with amazing life. His book had a huge influence on French architecture».
"... There is hardly a page in the history of architecture more beautiful than the one that is the façade of this cathedral, where successively and collectively three lancet portals appear before us; above them is a jagged cornice, as if embroidered with twenty-eight royal niches, a huge central rose window with two other windows located on the sides, like a priest standing between a deacon and a subdeacon; a tall graceful arcade of a gallery with trefoil moldings, bearing a heavy platform on its thin columns, and, finally, two gloomy massive towers with slate canopies. All these are harmonious. parts of the magnificent whole, erected one above the other in five gigantic tiers, serenely unfold before the eyes in endless variety their countless sculpted, carved and chased details, powerfully and inseparably merging with the calm grandeur of the whole. It is like a huge stone symphony of both man and man; people; unified and complex; a wonderful result of the union of all the forces of an entire era, where from every stone the imagination of the worker, taking hundreds of forms, flows, 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. "
“Notre Dame” was neither an apology for Catholicism, nor for Christianity in general. Many were outraged by this story about a priest, devoured by passion, burning with love for a gypsy. Hugo was already moving away from his still recent immaculate faith. At the head of the novel, he wrote “Ananke”... Fate, not providence... “Fate hovers over the human race like a predatory hawk, doesn’t it?” Pursued by haters, having experienced the pain of disappointment in friends, the author was ready to answer: “Yes.” Brutal power reigns over the world. Rock is the tragedy of a fly caught by a spider, rock is the tragedy of Esmeralda, an innocent, pure girl caught in the web of church courts. And the highest degree of Ananke is rock, which controls the inner life of a person and is disastrous for his heart. Hugo is a resounding echo of his time; he embraced the anti-clericalism of his environment. “This will kill that. The press will kill the church... Every civilization begins with theocracy and ends with democracy...” Sayings characteristic of that time.
"Notre Dame" was Hugo's greatest achievement. According to Michelet: “Hugo built a poetic cathedral next to the old cathedral on such a solid foundation and with equally high towers.” Indeed, “Notre Dame Cathedral” is an important connecting link for all the characters, all the events of the novel; this image carries a different semantic and associative load. The cathedral, built by many hundreds of nameless masters, becomes the occasion for the creation of a poem about the talent of the French people, about national French architecture.
All the events described in the novel are connected with the Cathedral: either it is the riot of the crowd on the Place de Greve, or the bewitching dance of Esmeralda, or the frenzy of the bells at the hand of Quasimodo, or the admiration of the beauty of the cathedral by Claude Frollo.
"... Quasimodo was closely connected with the cathedral. Separated forever 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 walls that sheltered him under as his canopy, as he grew and developed, the Gathering of Our Lady consistently served for him not as an egg, then as a nest, then as a home, then as a homeland, then, finally, as the universe.
The cathedral replaced not only people for him, but also the entire universe, all of nature. He could not imagine any other flowering hedges other than never-fading stained glass windows; no other coolness than the shadow of the stone, bird-laden foliage blooming in the bushes of the Saxon capitals; other mountains than the gigantic towers of the cathedral; no ocean other than Paris, which seethed at its feet."
But the cathedral also seemed submissive to Quasimodo. It seemed that Quasimodo was pouring life into this immense building. He was omnipresent; as if multiplying, he was simultaneously present at every point of the temple.
Hugo wrote: “A strange fate befell the Cathedral of Notre Dame in those days - the fate of being loved so reverently, but in very different ways, by two such dissimilar creatures as Claude Frollo and Quasimodo. One of them loved the Cathedral for its harmony, for the harmony that this magnificent whole exuded. The other, gifted with an ardent imagination enriched with knowledge, loved the inner meaning in it, the meaning hidden in it, loved the legend associated with it, its symbolism hidden behind the sculptural decorations of the facade, like the primary writings of ancient parchment hiding under a later text - in a word , loved the mystery that Notre Dame Cathedral eternally remains for the human mind.”
Conclusion
Notre Dame was the greatest victory in prose achieved by the young leader of the French progressive romantics. The principles he proclaimed in the preface to Cromwell were successfully applied by Hugo in the novel. The reality of the picture of life in a medieval city is combined here with the free flight of imagination. Historical accuracy goes hand in hand with poetic fiction. The past resonates with the present.
Excursions into history help Hugo explain the liberation of his consciousness from the oppression of religious dogmas. This is specifically shown in the example of Quasimodo. The essence of this “almost” man (Quasimodo means “as if,” “almost”) was transformed by love, and he was unable not only to understand Esmeralda’s conflict with Claude Frollo, not only to snatch the lovely dancer from the hands of “justice,” but also to decide to kill her pursuer Frollo, her adoptive father. Thus, the theme of the historical process is embodied in the novel. This process leads to the awakening of a more humane morality, and in a general sense - to a change in the symbolic “stone book of the Middle Ages”. Enlightenment will defeat religious consciousness: it is this idea that is captured in one of the chapters of the novel, called “This will kill that.”
The style of the novel and the composition itself are contrasting: the ironic masculinity of the court hearings is replaced by the Rabelaisian humor of the crowd at the baptism festival and the festival of jesters; Esmeralda's romantic love for Quasimodo is contrasted with Claude Frollo's monstrous love for Esmeralda. The whole outline of the novel is contrasting, and in this main feature Hugo's romantic method. Here is a polyphonic crowd in which Beauty Esmeralda dances, personifying the good and bright, talented and natural, and the hunchbacked bell-ringer Quasimodo, ugly, but gifted with inner beauty that nourishes selfless selfless love, represent two different faces. Quasimodo frightens with his ugliness, and his teacher, Archdeacon Claude Frollo, frightens with his all-consuming passion, which destroys the confused soul of Quasimodo and Esmeralda; or another no less cruel king of France, for all his outward piety. There is also a lot of contradiction in the relationships between all the characters in the novel, created by Hugo in a close interweaving of the sublime and the base, the tragic and the comic. This passionate contrast of the novel, the sharp contrast of positive and negative characters, the unexpected discrepancies between the external and internal content of human natures can be understood as the writer’s desire to show the contradiction of contemporary reality using the material of 15th-century France.
Many newspapers and magazines greeted the magazine with hostility. Some accused the author of excessive pedantry: the book contains too many descriptions, details, historical information; others, on the contrary, reproached him for his ignorance, looking for minor errors and inaccuracies; still others condemned them for their attitude towards religion. Alfred Musset jokingly noted in the Le Tan newspaper that Hugo's novel went down with the archbishop's library on the day of the popular uprising.
But the book far from “sinking”, it won more and more readers in France and around the world.
Hugo is not afraid of extremely bright, blinding colors, condensation, or exaggeration. Something in the author’s palette is akin to a frantically romantic “black novel” with its intensification of passions, villainy and surprises. But Hugo’s novel rises immeasurably above the muddy stream of “horror novels.” Effects and nightmares are by no means his goal; Hostile mysticism and passion for the otherworldly are alien to him. Everything in the novel has a real, completely “earthly” explanation. The author's goal is to awaken in the reader a sense of beauty, a sense of humanity, to awaken a protest against the nightmares of the past that still weigh on our time.
Hugo's novel immediately began to be translated in all European countries. It received wide attention in Russia as well. Pushkin read it, Russian romantics were fond of it. Bestuzhev-Marlinsky wrote to Polevoy: “I prostrate myself before Hugo... This is no longer a gift, but a genius in full swing. Yes, Hugo carries all French literature on his shoulders..."
Belinsky's friend V.P. Botkin, among numerous other “pilgrims” from different countries climbed the towers of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris with a volume of Hugo in his hands.
“I am like a forest that has been felled several times: the young shoots are becoming stronger and more tenacious...,” the old writer wrote in his diary. “For half a century now I have been embodying my thoughts in poetry and prose, but I feel that I have not had time to express even a thousandth part of what is in me.”
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