As in dramas, Hugo turns to history in Notre Dame; late French Middle Ages, Paris at the end of the 15th century. Romantic interest in the Middle Ages largely arose as a reaction to the classicist focus on antiquity. The desire to overcome the scornful attitude towards the Middle Ages, which spread thanks to the writers of the Enlightenment of the 18th century, for whom this time was a kingdom of darkness and ignorance, played a role here, useless in the history of the progressive development of mankind. Here one could meet, romantics believed, with solid, great characters, strong passions, exploits and martyrdom in the name of convictions. All this was still perceived in an aura of some mystery associated with the insufficient study of the Middle Ages, which was replenished by an appeal to folk traditions and legends, which had special significance for romantic writers. The Middle Ages appears in Hugo's novel in the form of a legend-history against the backdrop of a masterfully recreated historical flavor.

The basis, the core of this legend is, in general, unchanged for everything creative way mature Hugo's view of the historical process as an eternal confrontation between two world principles - good and evil, mercy and cruelty, compassion and intolerance, feelings and reason.

The novel is built according to the dramatic principle y: three men seek the love of one woman; the gypsy Esmeralda is loved by the archdeacon of Notre Dame Cathedral Claude Frollo, the bell ringer of the cathedral the hunchback Quasimodo and the poet Pierre Gringoire, although the main rivalry arises between Frollo and Quasimodo. At the same time, the gypsy gives her feelings to the handsome but empty nobleman Phoebe de Chateauper.

Hugo's novel-drama can be divided into five acts. In the first act, Quasimodo and Esmeralda, not yet seeing each other, appear on the same stage. This scene is the Place de Greve. Here Esmeralda dances and sings, here a procession passes, with comic solemnity carrying the pope of jesters Quasimodo on a stretcher. The general merriment is confused by the grim menace of the bald man: “Blasphemy! Blasphemy!” Esmeralda's bewitching voice is interrupted by the terrible cry of the recluse of Roland's tower: “Will you get out of here, Egyptian locust?” The game of antitheses closes on Esmeralda, all plot threads are drawn to her. And it is no coincidence that the festive fire, illuminating her beautiful face, illuminates the gallows at the same time. This is not just a spectacular contrast - this is the plot of a tragedy. The action of the tragedy, which began with the dance of Esmeralda on the Greve Square, will end here - with her execution.

Every word uttered on this stage is full of tragic irony. In the first act, voices are of particular importance, and in the second - gestures, then in the third - looks. The point of intersection of views becomes the dancing Esmeralda. The poet Gringoire, who is next to her in the square, looks at the girl with sympathy: she recently saved his life. The captain of the royal shooters, Phoebe de Chateauper, with whom Esmeralda fell in love at the first meeting, looks at her from the balcony of a Gothic house - this is a look of voluptuousness. At the same time, from above, from the north tower of the cathedral, Claude Frollo looks at the gypsy - this is a look of gloomy, despotic passion. And even higher, on the bell tower of the cathedral, Quasimodo froze, looking at the girl with great love.

Romantic pathos appeared in Hugo already in the very organization of the plot. The history of the gypsy Esmeralda, the archdeacon of Notre Dame Cathedral Claude Frollo, the bell ringer Quasimodo, the captain of the royal shooters Phoebus de Chateauper and other characters associated with them is full of secrets, unexpected turns of action, fatal coincidences and accidents. The fates of the characters are bizarrely crossed. Quasimodo tries to steal Esmeralda on the orders of Claude Frollo, but the girl is accidentally rescued by a guard led by Phoebus. For the attempt on Esmeralda, Quasimodo is punished. But it is she who gives the unfortunate hunchback a sip of water when he stands at the pillory, and with her good deed transforms him.

There is a purely romantic, instant breakdown of character: Quasimodo turns from a rude animal into a man and, having fallen in love with Esmeralda, objectively finds himself in a confrontation with Frollo, who plays a fatal role in the girl's life.

“Notre Dame Cathedral” is a romantic work in style and method. In it you can find everything that was characteristic of Hugo's dramaturgy. It contains both exaggerations and a game of contrasts, and poetization of the grotesque, and an abundance of exceptional situations in the plot. The essence of the image is revealed in Hugo not so much on the basis of character development, but in opposition to another image.

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 line up in clearly marked contrasting pairs: the freak Quasimodo and the beautiful Esmeralda, also Quasimodo and the outwardly irresistible Phoebus; an ignorant ringer - a learned monk who knew 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 opposed by the blond Fleur-de-Lys, the bride of Phoebe, a rich, educated girl and belonging to the high society. The relationship between Esmeralda and Phoebus is also based on the contrast: the depth of love, tenderness and subtlety of feeling in Esmeralda - and the insignificance, vulgarity of the foppish nobleman Phoebus.

The internal logic of Hugo's romantic art leads to the fact that the relationship between sharply contrasting characters acquires an exceptional, exaggerated character. Thus, the novel is built as a system of polar oppositions. These contrasts are not just an artistic device for the author, but a reflection of his ideological positions, the concept of life.

According to Hugo, the formula for the drama and literature of modern times is "everything is in antithesis." It is not for nothing that the author of The Council praises Shakespeare because “he stretches from one pole to the other”, because in his “comedy bursts into tears, laughter is born from sobs”. The principles of Hugo the novelist are the same - a contrasting mixture of styles, a combination of “the image of the grotesque and the image of the sublime”, “terrible and buffoonish, tragedy and comedy”.

Victor Hugo managed not only to give the flavor of the era, but also to expose social contradictions that time. In the novel, a huge mass of disenfranchised people opposes the dominant handful of nobility, clergy and royal officials. Characteristic is the scene in which Louis XI stingily calculates the cost of building a prison cell, ignoring the plea of ​​a prisoner languishing in it.

It is not for nothing that the image of the cathedral occupies a central place in the novel. The Christian Church played an important role in the system of serfdom.

ROMANTIC PRINCIPLES IN V. HUGO'S NOVEL

"Cathedral of Notre Dame of Paris"

INTRODUCTION

Victor Hugo's novel Notre Dame de Paris remains a true example of the first period in the development of romanticism, a textbook example of it.

In his work, Victor Hugo created unique romantic images: Esmeralda is the embodiment of humanity and spiritual beauty, Quasimodo, in whose ugly body a sympathetic heart is found.

Unlike the heroes Literature XVII XVIII centuries, the heroes of Hugo combine contradictory qualities. Making extensive use of the romantic technique of contrasting images, sometimes deliberately exaggerating, turning to the grotesque, the writer creates complex ambiguous characters. He is attracted by gigantic passions, heroic deeds. He extols the strength of his character as a hero, rebellious, rebellious spirit, ability to deal with circumstances. In the characters, conflicts, plot, landscape of the "Notre Dame Cathedral" triumphed romantic principle reflections of life exceptional characters in extraordinary circumstances. World of unbridled passions romantic characters, surprises and accidents, the image of a brave person who does not shy away from any dangers, this is what Hugo sings in these works.

Hugo claims that there is a constant struggle between good and evil in the world. In the novel, even more clearly than in Hugo's poetry, the search for new moral values ​​was outlined, which the writer finds, as a rule, not in the camp of the rich and those in power, but in the camp of the destitute and despised poor. All the best feelings, kindness, sincerity, selfless devotion are given to the foundling Quasimodo and the gypsy Esmeralda, who are the true heroes of the novel, while the antipodes, standing at the helm of secular or spiritual power, like King Louis XI or the same archdeacon Frollo, are distinguished by cruelty, savagery indifference to human suffering.

It is significant that it was precisely this moral idea of ​​Hugo's first novel that F. M. Dostoevsky highly appreciated. Offering Notre Dame Cathedral for translation into Russian, he wrote in a preface published in 1862 in the journal Vremya that the idea of ​​this work is “the restoration of a dead person crushed by unjust oppression of circumstances ... This idea is the justification of the humiliated and all outcast pariahs of society. “Who does not come to mind,” Dostoevsky wrote further, that Quasimodo is the personification of the oppressed and despised medieval people ... in which love and a thirst for justice finally wake up, and with them the consciousness of their truth and their still untouched infinite forces.

Chapter 1.

ROMANTICISM AS A LITERARY TREND

1.1 Cause

Romanticism as an ideological and artistic trend in culture appeared at the end of the 18th century. Then the French word romantique meant "strange", "fantastic", "picturesque".

In the 19th century, the word "Romanticism" becomes a term for a new literary direction opposite to Classicism.

IN modern understanding the term “Romanticism” is also given a different, expanded meaning. They designate the type artistic creativity opposing Realism, in which the decisive role is played not by the perception of reality, but by its re-creation, the embodiment of the ideal of the artist. This type of creativity is characterized by demonstrative conventionality of form, fantasy, grotesque images, and symbolism.

The event that served as an impetus for realizing the inconsistency of the ideas of the 18th century and for changing the worldview of people in general was the Great French Bourgeois Revolution of 1789. Instead of the expected result of "Freedom, Equality and Fraternity", it brought only hunger and devastation, and with them disappointment in the ideas of the enlighteners. Disappointment in the revolution as a way of changing social life caused a sharp reorientation of social psychology itself, a turn of interest from the external life of a person and his activities in society to the problems of the spiritual, emotional life of the individual.

In this atmosphere of doubt, changes in views, assessments, judgments, surprises, at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries, a new phenomenon of spiritual life, romanticism, arose.

Romantic art is characterized by: disgust for bourgeois reality, a resolute rejection of the rationalistic principles of bourgeois education and classicism, distrust of the cult of reason, which was characteristic of the enlighteners and writers of the new classicism.

The moral and aesthetic pathos of romanticism is associated primarily with the affirmation of dignity human personality, self-values ​​of her spiritual and creative life. This found expression in the images of the heroes of romantic art, which is characterized by the image of extraordinary characters and strong passions, aspiration for unlimited freedom. The revolution proclaimed the freedom of the individual, but the same revolution gave rise to the spirit of acquisitiveness and selfishness. These two sides of personality (the pathos of freedom and individualism) manifested themselves in a very complex way in the romantic conception of the world and man.

1.2. Main distinguishing features

Disappointment in the power of the mind and in society gradually grew to “cosmic pessimism”, it was accompanied by moods of hopelessness, despair, “world sorrow”. The inner theme of the “terrible world”, with its blind power of material relations, the longing for the eternal monotony of everyday reality, has passed through the entire history of romantic literature.

Romantics were sure that “here and now” is an ideal, i.e. a more meaningful, rich, fulfilling life is impossible, but they did not doubt its existence, this so-called romantic duality. It was the search for the ideal, the pursuit of it, the thirst for renewal and perfection that filled their lives with meaning.

The Romantics resolutely rejected the new social order. They put forward their "romantic hero" an exceptional, spiritually rich personality who felt lonely and restless in the emerging bourgeois world, mercantile and hostile to man. Romantic heroes sometimes turned away from reality in despair, sometimes rebelled against it, painfully feeling the gap between the ideal and reality, powerless to change the life around them, but preferring to perish than to reconcile with it. The life of bourgeois society seemed so vulgar and prosaic to the romantics that they sometimes refused to portray it at all and colored the world with their imagination. Romantics often depicted their heroes as being in hostile relations with the surrounding reality, dissatisfied with the present and striving for another world that is in their dreams.

Romantics denied the necessity and possibility of an objective reflection of reality. Therefore, they proclaimed the subjective arbitrariness of creative imagination as the basis of art. Exceptional events and the extraordinary environment in which the characters acted were chosen as plots for romantic works.

Romantics were attracted by everything unusual (the ideal may be there): fantasy, the mystical world of otherworldly forces, the future, distant exotic countries, the originality of the peoples inhabiting them, the past historical eras. The demand for a faithful recreation of place and time is one of the most important achievements of the era of romanticism. It was during this period that the genre of the historical novel was created.

But the characters themselves were exceptional. They were interested in all-consuming passions, strong feelings, secret movements of the soul, they spoke about the depth and inner infinity of the personality and about the tragic loneliness of a real person in the world around him.

Romantics were indeed lonely among people who did not want to notice the vulgarity, prosaic and lack of spirituality of their lives. Rebels and seekers they despised these people. They preferred to be not accepted and misunderstood than, like most of those around them, wallow in the mediocrity, dullness and routine of a colorless and prosaic world. Loneliness another trait of a romantic hero.

Along with increased attention to the individual feature romanticism was a sense of the movement of history and human involvement in it. Feeling of instability-variability of the world, complexity and inconsistency human soul determined the dramatic, sometimes tragic perception of life by romantics.

In the field of form, romanticism opposed the classical “imitation of nature” creative freedom artist who creates special world, more beautiful, and therefore more real than the surrounding reality.

Chapter 2

VICTOR HUGO AND HIS WORK

  1. Romantic principles of Victor Hugo

Victor Hugo (1802-1885) entered the history of literature as the head and theorist of French democratic romanticism. In the preface to the drama "Cromwell" he gave a vivid exposition of the principles of romanticism as a new literary movement, thus declaring war on classicism, which still had strong influence from all French literature. This preface was called the "Manifesto" of the Romantics.

Hugo demands absolute freedom for drama and poetry in general. “Down with all rules and patterns! he exclaims in the Manifesto. The poet's advisers, he says, must be nature, truth, and his own inspiration; besides them, the only laws obligatory for the poet are those that in each work follow from his plot.

In the Preface to Cromwell, Hugo defines main topic all modern literature image social conflicts society, the image of the intense struggle of various social forces that rebelled against each other

The main principle of his romantic poeticsdepicting life in its contrasts Hugo tried to substantiate even before the "Preface" in his article on the novel


Romanticism in foreign literature
V. Hugo (1802-1885)
"Notre Dame Cathedral" (1831)
                "A tribune and a poet, he thundered over the world like a hurricane, rousing in life everything that is beautiful in the human soul."
M. Gorky

In 1952, by decision of the World Peace Council, all progressive mankind celebrated the 150th anniversary of the birth of the great French poet, writer and playwright, public figure V. Hugo. The wounds of World War II were still bleeding. In the heart of Paris stood the pedestal of the monument to Hugo, broken by the Nazis - the bronze statue of the writer was destroyed by the Nazis - but the voice of Hugo, which did not stop during the years of the occupation of France, called with a new layer of compatriots, all people of good will to fight for peace, for the destruction of wars of conquest.
“We want peace, we want it passionately. But what kind of world do we want? Peace at any cost? Not! We do not want a world in which the hunched would not dare to raise their foreheads, our goal is freedom! Freedom will bring peace." Hugo will say these words in 1869, speaking in Lausanne at the "Congress of the Friends of the World", of which he will be elected chairman. he will devote his whole life, his work, to the struggle for the liberation of the oppressed.
Hugo was born in 1802 in Besançon. His father, Joseph Hugo, the son of a craftsman, the grandson and great-grandson of the cultivators, at the age of fifteen, together with his brothers, left to fight for the revolution. He participated in the suppression of the rebellion in Wanda, was wounded many times. Under Napoleon he became a brigadier general. Until the end of his days, he was mistaken in assessing Napoleon, considering him the defender of the revolution.
Hugo's mother was from the Vendée, hated Napoleon, idolized the Bourbon monarchy. Only in his youth did Victor free himself from the influence of his mother, with whom he lived after his parents separated. When his mother died, - Victor - he was 19 years old - like Marius from Les Misérables, he settles in an attic, lives in poverty, but writes poetry, his first novels, tries to understand the true alignment of forces in the country, draws closer to the Republicans.
Hugo was a participant in the revolution of 1848. From the rostrum of the Constituent Assembly, he delivered a fiery speech in defense of the republic. December 2, 1851, having learned about the coup d'etat committed by the big bourgeoisie, who decided to restore the monarchy again, now led by Emperor Louis - Napoleon III. Hugo, along with his comrades, organized a resistance committee. He called for a fight, issued proclamations, led the construction of barricades, every minute risking being captured and shot ... A reward of 25 thousand francs was appointed for Hugo's head. His sons were in prison. But only when the defeat of the Republicans became obvious, Hugo, under a false name, crossed the French border. The 19-year period of exile of the great poet and writer began. But even in exile, he continued to fight. V. Hugo's pamphlet "Napoleon the Small" and the cycle of poems "Retribution" thundered throughout Europe and for all time nailed Louis-Napoleon III to the pillory.
Living on the rocky island of Guernsey, located in the English Channel, Hugo is at the center of all significant events. He corresponded with Kossuth and Giuseppe Mazzini, organized fundraising for the armament of Garibaldi's detachments, Herzen invited him to collaborate in the Bell. In 1859, the writer speaks with open letter to the US government, protesting the death penalty of John Brown ...
E. Zola wrote later that for his 20-year-old peers, Hugo seemed to be "a supernatural being, chained with an ear, who continued to sing his songs in the midst of storm and bad weather." V. Hugo was the head of the French romantics. He was considered their ideological leader not only by writers, but also by artists, musicians, and theater workers.
In the 1920s, in those distant times, when romanticism was affirmed in art, in Hugo's small modest apartment in Paris on Rue Notre Dame de Champs, young people gathered on certain days, many of whom were destined to become outstanding figures of world culture. There were Alfred de Musset, Prosper Merimee, A. Dumas, E. Delacroix, G. Berlioz. After the revolutionary events of the 1930s, one could see A. Mickiewicz and G. Heine at Hugo's meetings. Members of the Hugo circle rebelled against the reaction of the nobility, which during the period of restoration and popular uprisings established itself in many European countries, and at the same time challenged the spirit of money-grubbing, the cult of money, which was spreading more and more in France and finally won under the king-banker Louis Philippe.
On the eve of the revolution of 1830, Hugo began writing the novel Notre Dame Cathedral. This book became the artistic manifesto of the Romantics.
__________________________ _______________
After a short pause, music begins to sound in the classroom - the beginning of Beethoven's 5th symphony. In the mighty sound of the entire orchestra, a short, clearly rhythmic motive will sound - the motive of fate. It will repeat itself twice. The theme of the main party grows out of it, the theme of the struggle, impetuous, dramatically intense. It is opposed by another theme - a broad, naive, but also energetic and courageous, full of confidence in its strength.
When the music stops, the teacher reads the beginning of the first part of the first chapter of Hugo's novel Notre Dame Cathedral: Three hundred and forty-eight years, 6 months and 19 days ago, the Parisians woke up to the sound of all the bells ... It was not easy to get into that day in a large hall, considered in at that time the largest room in the world ... ".
Let's try to do it and get into it together with the heroes of the novel.
And now “we are stunned and blinded. Above our heads is a double lancet vault, finished with wooden carvings, painted with golden lilies on an azure field: under our feet is a floor paved with white and black marble slabs.
The palace shone with all its splendor. To consider it in detail, however, we fail: the crowd, which keeps coming, interferes. We are drawn into the whirlpool of its movement, we are squeezed, squeezed, we are suffocating, curses and lamentations are heard from all sides against the Flemings ... Cardinal of Bourgon, the chief judge ..., guards with whips, cold, heat ... "
(“Notre Dame Cathedral”, book 1 ch. 1, pp. 3-7)
And all this is to the unspeakable amusement of schoolchildren and servants, who incite the crowd with their jokes, mockery, and sometimes even blasphemy.
So, slowly, begins the story of V. Hugo. Time passes slowly, the wait is still long, because the mystery begins only at noon and the writer here, in the Palace of Justice, will introduce us to many characters who will play their role in the novel.
Now the Palace is festive, filled to overflowing with people, but very little time will pass, and a wrong court will be repaired here, beautiful young Esmeralda will be tortured, accused of witchcraft and murder and sentenced to the gallows. All this will come later...
And now we hear the roar of the crowd. He sometimes falls silent when the eyes of all turn now to the handsome cardinal in the box in a magnificent purple robe, then to the king of the beggars in picturesque tatters, Ito to the Flemish ambassadors, especially to that broad-shouldered one whose leather jacket and felt hat unusually stands out among the silk surrounding him and velvet. But the roar of the crowd becomes formidable when it forces the actors to begin the mystery without waiting for the arrival of the late cardinal, or explodes with brief approval of the arrogant antics of the Flemish ambassador, the hosiery Jacques Coppenol, who rebuffed the cardinal and declared in a thunderous voice that he was not some kind of secretary council of foremen, as the cardinal presented him, but a simple hosiery. “No more, no less than a hosiery! Why is it bad?
In response, there was an explosion of laughter and applause: after all, Koppenol was a commoner, like those who greeted him ...
But attention! We are waiting for a meeting with the main characters. Let's call them. Thus begins the conversation about the novel. Quasimodo, Esmeralda, Claude Frollo and Phoebe de Chateauper.
When Quasimodo first appeared during the competition of freaks claiming to be the pope of jesters, his appearance shocked everyone: “It is difficult to describe this four-sided nose ... and despite this ugliness, there was some formidable expression of strength, agility and courage in his whole figure!”
We will also hear the name of Esmeralda for the first time in the Palace of Justice. One of the young mischievous people, perched on the windowsill, suddenly shouted: Esmeralda! This name had a magical effect. Everyone who remained in the hall of the palace rushed to the windows in order to see better, climbed the walls, poured out into the street. Esmeralda was dancing in the square by the big fire. "She was small in stature ... she truly seemed to be a perfect being." The eyes of the entire crowd were riveted to her, all mouths gaped. But "among the thousands of faces sparkled an extraordinary youthful ardor, a thirst for life and an undertaking passion." So we met with another main character of the novel - Archdeacon Kolod Frollo.
Captain Phoebe de Chateaupe first appears at the moment when Esmeralda will cry for help, fighting off two men who tried to cover her mouth. This will happen late at night on one of the dark streets of Paris, along which the young dancer will return home. One of the people who attacked her was Quasimodo.
And suddenly a rider appears from around the corner of the house, it was Captain Phoebus de Chateauper, armed from head to toe, the head of the royal shooters.
Hugo does not give us a portrait of the captain - here it was impossible, the action unfolds rapidly.
But Hugo will still choose the time and try to give us a portrait of Phoebus. He will talk about him in the scene at Fleur de Lis, the captain's bride. The society will be stiff, boring, and the writer will give us his impressions of the bored groom: “He was a young man, ... and success was easy. However, notes Hugo, he combined all this with enormous pretensions to elegance, panache and good looks. Let the reader figure it out for himself. I'm just a historian."
So Phoebus rode in time: Quasimodo and Claude Frollo almost kidnapped Esmeralda. This scene is one of the most important in the composition of the novel. Here for the first time four of our heroes meet, here their destinies are connected, their paths cross.
Phoebe de Chateaupe. What role will he play in the novel?
Esmeralda, freed by Phoebus, will love him. And handsome Phoebus? He was not able to not only love, but also protect the girl at a critical moment. “There are hearts in which love does not grow,” says Quasimodo Hugo. Phoebus sold Esmeralda. But was there a person among the heroes who could love Esmeralda as deeply and selflessly as she knew how to love. Students will name Quasimodo and talk about his selfless love, how Quasimodo saved Esmeralda from inevitable death, sheltered her in the Cathedral, how he gently nursed the exhausted girl.
And guessing that Esmeralda loves Phoebe, despite the fact that he himself passionately loves her, he selflessly stood all day at the door of the Fleur de Lis mansion to bring Phoebe to Esmeralda and thereby make her happy, and they will tell about the death of Quasimodo.
The essence of a person is tested by his deeds and his attitude towards other people. But most of all, the spiritual value of a person is manifested in his ability to selflessly and selflessly love.
Love, the ability to love, is a precious gift that not all people possess. Only the generous of heart are worthy of this gift. True love that visited this person makes him beautiful.
And so V. Hugo's novel ends. The last two chapters are titled: Bra Phoebe and The Marriage of Quasimodo. In the chapter specially dedicated to Phoebus, there is only one line about him: “Phoebus de Chateauper also ended tragically: he got married.” In the chapter dedicated to Quasimodo, the writer said that after the execution of Esmeralda, Quasimodo disappeared. It's been about 1.5 or 2 years. Once in the crypt of Montfaucon, a terrible place where the corpses of the executed were dumped, without giving them to the ground, people appeared. And here is Monfaucone ... among the corpses ... he crumbled to dust. (Book XI, ch. IV, p. 413)
This concludes our first journey with the characters through the pages of Hugo's novel. But before we leave, let's get back to the music, to the sounds of which we started our journey. Did you recognize the author? Can you name the work? And most importantly, think about why exactly this music was taken as an epigraph to our meeting with Hugo's novel. The introduction from Beethoven's Fifth Symphony sounds again.

Lesson 2

VICTOR HUGO
"Cathedral of Notre Dame of Paris"
“Here time is the architect and the people are the bricklayer”
V.Hugo

The second lesson is preceded by that epigraph. When the music stops, the teacher (or student) reads an excerpt from the chapter "Paris from a bird's eye view"
“Paris of the 15th century was a city - a giant ... .. - this is his breath; And now the people are singing
Surprisingly picturesque from the pages of the book presents us with a visible and sounding image of medieval Paris. We admired its dazzling beauty from a bird's eye view. But down there, on its streets and squares, in the terrible dungeon of the prison, and in the royal cell in one of the towers of the Bastille, events were unfolding that steadily led to a tragic denouement.
In the last lesson, traveling with the main characters through the pages of the book, we traced the fate of some of them.
Have we named all the heroes?
The protagonist of the work is the people who act in the novel as an active force and, according to Hugo, ultimately determine the course of history.
etc.................

The novel "Notre Dame Cathedral", created on the verge of sentimentalism and romanticism, combines the features of a historical epic, a romantic drama and a deeply psychological novel.

History of the creation of the novel

"Notre Dame Cathedral" - the first historical novel in French (the action, according to the author's intention, takes place about 400 years ago, at the end of the 15th century). Victor Hugo began nurturing his idea as early as the 1820s, and published it in March 1831. The prerequisites for the creation of the novel were the rising interest in historical literature and in particular to the Middle Ages.

In the literature of France of that time, romanticism began to take shape, and with it romantic tendencies in cultural life in general. Thus, Victor Hugo personally defended the need to preserve ancient architectural monuments which many wanted to either demolish or rebuild.

There is an opinion that it was after the novel "Notre Dame Cathedral" that the supporters of the demolition of the cathedral retreated, and an incredible interest in cultural monuments and a wave of civic consciousness arose in society in the desire to protect ancient architecture.

Characteristics of the main characters

It is this reaction of society to the book that gives the right to say that the cathedral is a genuine main character novel, along with people. This is the main place of events, a silent witness to dramas, love, life and death of the main characters; a place that against the backdrop of transience human lives remains the same immovable and unshakable.

The main characters in human form are the gypsy Esmeralda, the hunchback Quasimodo, the priest Claude Frollo, the military Phoebe de Chateauper, the poet Pierre Gringoire.

Esmeralda unites the rest of the main characters around herself: all of the listed men are in love with her, but some are selflessly, like Quasimodo, others are furious, like Frollo, Phoebus and Gringoire, experiencing carnal attraction; the gypsy herself loves Phoebe. In addition, all the characters are connected by the Cathedral: Frollo serves here, Quasimodo works as a bell ringer, Gringoire becomes a priest's apprentice. Esmeralda usually performs in front of the Cathedral Square, and Phoebus looks out the windows of his future wife, Fleur-de-Lys, who lives near the Cathedral.

Esmeralda is a serene child of the streets, unaware of her attractiveness. She dances and performs in front of the Cathedral with her goat, and everyone around from the priest to street thieves give her their hearts, revering her like a deity. With the same childish spontaneity with which a child reaches for shiny objects, Esmeralda gives her preference to Phoebus, a noble, brilliant chevalier.

The external beauty of Phoebus (coincides with the name of Apollo) is the only positive trait internally ugly military man. A deceitful and dirty seducer, a coward, a lover of booze and foul language, only in front of the weak is he a hero, only in front of the ladies is he a cavalier.

Pierre Gringoire, a local poet forced by circumstances to plunge into the thick of French street life, is a bit like Phoebus in that his feelings for Esmeralda are a physical attraction. True, he is not capable of meanness, and loves both a friend and a person in a gypsy, setting aside her feminine charm.

The most sincere love for Esmeralda is nourished by the most terrible creature - Quasimodo, the bell ringer in the Cathedral, who was once picked up by the archdeacon of the temple, Claude Frollo. For Esmeralda, Quasimodo is ready for anything, even to love her quietly and secretly from everyone, even to give the girl to an opponent.

Claude Frollo has the most complex feelings for the gypsy. Love for a gypsy is a special tragedy for him, because it is a forbidden passion for him as a clergyman. Passion does not find a way out, so he either appeals to her love, then repels, then pounces on her, then saves her from death, and finally, he himself hands the gypsy to the executioner. The tragedy of Frollo is caused not only by the collapse of his love. He turns out to be a representative of the passing time and feels that he is becoming obsolete along with the era: a person receives more and more knowledge, moves away from religion, builds a new one, destroys the old. Frollo holds the first printed book in his hands and understands how he disappears without a trace into the centuries along with handwritten folios.

Plot, composition, problematics of the work

The novel is set in the 1480s. All the actions of the novel take place around the Cathedral - in the "City", on the Cathedral and Greve squares, in the "Court of Miracles".

In front of the Cathedral they give a religious performance (the author of the mystery is Gringoire), but the crowd prefers to watch Esmeralda dance in the Place Greve. Looking at the gypsy, Gringoire, Quasimodo, and Father Frollo fall in love with her at the same time. Phoebus meets Esmeralda when she is invited to entertain a company of girls, including Phoebus' fiancee, Fleur de Lis. Phoebus makes an appointment with Esmeralda, but the priest also comes to the appointment. Out of jealousy, the priest wounds Phoebus, and Esmeralda is blamed for this. Under torture, the girl confesses to witchcraft, prostitution and the murder of Phoebus (who actually survived) and is sentenced to be hanged. Claude Frollo comes to her in prison and persuades her to run away with him. On the day of the execution, Phoebus watches the execution of the sentence along with his bride. But Quasimodo does not allow the execution to take place - he grabs the gypsy and runs to hide in the Cathedral.

The entire "Court of Miracles" - a haven of thieves and beggars - rushes to "liberate" their beloved Esmeralda. The king found out about the rebellion and ordered the gypsy to be executed at all costs. As she is being executed, Claude laughs a devilish laugh. Seeing this, the hunchback rushes at the priest, and he breaks, falling from the tower.

Compositionally, the novel is looped: at first, the reader sees the word “rock” inscribed on the wall of the Cathedral, and plunges into the past for 400 years, at the end, he sees two skeletons in a crypt outside the city, which are intertwined in an embrace. These are the heroes of the novel - a hunchback and a gypsy. Time has erased their history to dust, and the Cathedral still stands as an indifferent observer of human passions.

The novel depicts both private human passions (the problem of purity and meanness, mercy and cruelty) and people's (wealth and poverty, isolation of power from the people). For the first time in European literature, the personal drama of the characters develops against the backdrop of detailed historical events, and private life and the historical background are so interpenetrating.

Hugo's ballads such as "King John's Tournament", "The Burgrave's Hunt", "The Legend of the Nun", "The Fairy" and others are rich in signs of national and historical color. Already in the early period of his work, Hugo turns to one of the most acute problems of romanticism, what was the renewal of dramaturgy, the creation of a romantic drama. As an antithesis to the classic principle of “ennobled nature”, Hugo develops the theory of the grotesque: this is a means of presenting the funny, the ugly in a “concentrated” form. These and many other aesthetic attitudes concern not only drama, but, in essence, romantic art in general, so the preface to the drama "Cromwell" has become one of the most important romantic manifestos. The ideas of this manifesto are also realized in Hugo's dramas, which are all based on historical plots, and in the novel Notre Dame Cathedral.

The idea of ​​the novel arises in an atmosphere of passion historical genres, which began with the novels of Walter Scott. Hugo pays tribute to this passion both in dramaturgy and in the novel. At the end of the 1820s. Hugo plans to write a historical novel, and in 1828 he even concludes an agreement with the publisher Gosselin. However, the work is hampered by many circumstances, and the main of them is that modern life is increasingly attracting his attention.

Hugo started working on the novel only in 1830, just a few days before the July Revolution. His reflections on his time are closely intertwined with the general concept of the history of mankind and with ideas about the fifteenth century, about which he writes his novel. This novel is called "Notre Dame Cathedral" and appears in 1831. Literature, whether novel, poem or drama, depicts history, but not in the way it does historical science. Chronology, the exact sequence of events, battles, conquests and the collapse of kingdoms are only the outer side of history, Hugo argued. In the novel, attention is focused on what the historian forgets or ignores - on the "wrong side" of historical events, that is, on the inside of life.

Following these new ideas for his time, Hugo creates "Notre Dame Cathedral". The writer considers the expression of the spirit of the era the main criterion for the truthfulness of a historical novel. This piece of art fundamentally different from the chronicle, which sets out the facts of history. In the novel, the actual "canvas" should serve only as a general basis for the plot, in which fictional characters can act and events woven by the author's fantasy develop. The truth of the historical novel is not in the accuracy of the facts, but in fidelity to the spirit of the time. Hugo is convinced that one cannot find as much meaning in the pedantic retelling of historical chronicles as it is hidden in the behavior of a nameless crowd or “Argotines” (in his novel it is a kind of corporation of vagabonds, beggars, thieves and swindlers), in the feelings of the street dancer Esmeralda, or the ringer Quasimodo , or in a learned monk, in whose alchemical experiments the king also takes an interest.

The only immutable requirement for the author's fiction is to meet the spirit of the era: the characters, the psychology of the characters, their relationships, actions, the general course of events, the details of everyday life and Everyday life- all aspects of the depicted historical reality should be presented as they really could be. In order to have an idea of ​​a bygone era, one must find information not only about official realities, but also about the customs and way of everyday life of ordinary people, one must study all this and then recreate it in a novel. The legends, legends, and similar folklore sources that exist among the people can help the writer, and the writer can and must make up for the missing details in them with the power of his imagination, that is, resort to fiction, always remembering that he must correlate the fruits of his imagination with the spirit of the age.

The Romantics considered imagination to be the highest creativity, and fiction is an indispensable attribute literary work. Fiction, by means of which it is possible to recreate the real historical spirit of the time, according to their aesthetics, can be even more truthful than the fact itself.

Artistic truth is higher than the truth of fact. Following these principles of the historical novel of the era of romanticism, Hugo not only combines real events with fictional ones, and genuine historical characters with unknown ones, but clearly prefers the latter. All the main characters of the novel - Claude Frollo, Quasimodo, Esmeralda, Phoebus - are fictional by him. Only Pierre Gringoire is an exception: he has a real historical prototype - he lived in Paris in the 15th - early 16th centuries. poet and playwright. The novel also features King Louis XI and the Cardinal of Bourbon (the latter appears only sporadically). The plot of the novel is not based on any major historical event, and the real facts can only be attributed detailed descriptions Notre Dame Cathedral and medieval Paris.

Unlike the heroes of literature of the 17th and 18th centuries, Hugo's heroes combine contradictory qualities. Making extensive use of the romantic technique of contrasting images, sometimes deliberately exaggerating, turning to the grotesque, the writer creates complex ambiguous characters. He is attracted by gigantic passions, heroic deeds. He extols the strength of his character as a hero, rebellious, rebellious spirit, ability to deal with circumstances. In the characters, conflicts, plot, landscape of Notre Dame Cathedral, the romantic principle of reflecting life triumphed - exceptional characters in extraordinary circumstances. The world of unbridled passions, romantic characters, surprises and accidents, the image of a brave person who does not shy away from any dangers, this is what Hugo sings in these works.

Hugo claims that there is a constant struggle between good and evil in the world. In the novel, even more clearly than in Hugo's poetry, the search for new moral values ​​was outlined, which the writer finds, as a rule, not in the camp of the rich and those in power, but in the camp of the destitute and despised poor. All the best feelings - kindness, sincerity, selfless devotion - are given to the foundling Quasimodo and the gypsy Esmeralda, who are the true heroes of the novel, while the antipodes, standing at the helm of secular or spiritual power, like King Louis XI or the same archdeacon Frollo, are different cruelty, fanaticism, indifference to the suffering of people.

The main principle of his romantic poetics - the depiction of life in its contrasts - Hugo tried to substantiate even before the "Foreword" in his article on W. Scott's novel "Quentin Dorward". “Isn’t there,” wrote he is life a bizarre drama that mixes good and evil, beautiful and ugly, high and low - the law that operates in all creation?

The principle of contrasting oppositions in Hugo's poetics was based on his metaphysical ideas about life. modern society, in which the determining factor of development is allegedly the struggle of opposite moral principles - good and evil - existing from eternity.

Hugo devotes a significant place in the "Preface" to the definition of the aesthetic concept of the grotesque, considering it a distinctive element of medieval and modern romantic poetry. What does he mean by this term? “The grotesque, as opposed to the sublime, as a means of contrast, is, in our opinion, the richest source that nature opens up to art.”

Hugo contrasted the grotesque images of his works with the conditionally beautiful images of epigone classicism, believing that without the introduction of phenomena both sublime and base, both beautiful and ugly, it is impossible to convey the fullness and truth of life in literature. With all the metaphysical understanding of the category “grotesque” Hugo's substantiation of this element of art was, nevertheless, a step forward on the path of bringing art closer to the truth of life.

There is a “character” in the novel that unites everyone around him. actors and winds into one ball almost all the main storylines novel. The name of this character is placed in the title of the work Hugo Cathedral Notre Dame of Paris.

In the third book of the novel, completely 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 combination of all the forces of the era, where from each stone splashes the worker’s fantasy taking hundreds of forms, disciplined by the genius of the artist ... This creation of human hands is powerful and abundant, like creation God, from whom it seems to have borrowed a dual character: diversity and eternity ... "

The cathedral became the main scene of action, the fate of Archdeacon Claude is connected with it and Frollo, Quasimodo, Esmeralda. The stone statues of the cathedral become witnesses of human suffering, nobility and betrayal, just retribution. Telling the history of the cathedral, allowing us to imagine how they looked in the distant 15th century, the author achieves a special effect. The reality of stone structures, which can be observed in Paris to this day, confirms in the eyes of the reader the reality of the characters, their destinies, the reality of human tragedies.

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

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

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

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

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

There was undoubtedly some mysterious, predetermined harmony between this being and the building. When, still quite a baby, Quasimodo, with painful efforts, skipped through the gloomy vaults, he, with his human head and bestial body, seemed to be a reptile, naturally arising among the damp and gloomy slabs...

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

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

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

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

38. The meaning of the images of Claude Frollo, Quasimodo and Esmeralda in the novel by V. Hugo "Notre Dame Cathedral"

Gypsy Esmeralda with her art, with her whole appearance gives pleasure to the crowd. She is far from piety, does not refuse earthly pleasures. This image most clearly reflects the revival of human interest, which becomes main feature worldview in new era. Esmeralda is inextricably linked with the people. Hugo uses romantic contrast, emphasizing the beauty of the girl with images of the lower classes of society, in the image of which he uses the grotesque. Esmeralda is a gypsy (though only by upbringing) and a Frenchwoman (by origin).

Her unique beauty drove Frollo crazy, and he destroyed her, because he could not understand and could not appropriate. Esmeralda embodies Hugo's ideal. This is his subjective, romantic vision of freedom and beauty, which always go hand in hand. The beautiful dancer bears the features of the new Renaissance culture (nationality, the unity of the spiritual and the bodily, humanity), which is replacing medieval asceticism, and this cannot be changed (the first scene of the novel has a symbolic content, which shows the inevitable loss of the former authority by the church). The opposite image in the novel - the image of a cloudy scoundrel, archdeacon Claude Frollo (created after the cardinal executioner from Marion Delorme), reveals Hugo's many years of struggle against the church.

The royal power and its support - the Catholic Church - are depicted in the novel as forces hostile to the people. The judiciously cruel Louis XI is very close to the gallery of crowned criminals from Hugo's dramas. Claude Frollo's feelings are distorted: love, parental benevolence, thirst for knowledge are overlapped by selfishness and hatred. It also expresses one of the characteristics of the people of the Renaissance, but first of all it is a man of the Middle Ages, an ascetic who scorns all life's pleasures. He shielded himself from folk life the walls of the cathedral and his laboratory, and therefore his soul is in the grip of dark and evil passions. Claude Frollo would like to muffle in himself all earthly feelings, which he considers shameful, and devote himself to the study of the complete reduction of human knowledge.

But despite his objection to human feelings, he himself fell in love with Esmeralda. This love is destructive. Not having the strength to overcome it, Claude Frollo takes the path of crime, dooming Esmeralda to torment and death. Retribution comes to the archdeacon from his servant, the bell ringer of the cathedral, Quasimodo. To create this image, Hugo especially widely uses the grotesque. Quasimodo is an extraordinary freak. His face and figure are both funny and scary at the same time. Grotesque Quasimodo, ugly, mentally handicapped, incredibly strong physically, all his life he knew only resentment and cruelty.

And he responded with cruelty for cruelty. Even Frollo, who allegedly raised an orphan, cannot look at the unfortunate man with disgust. Quasimodo is similar to chimeras - fantastic animals, whose images adorn the cathedral. Quasimodo is the soul of the cathedral. The ugly monster also fell in love with the beautiful Esmeralda, but not for her beauty, but for her kindness. And his soul, which awakens from the sleep in which Claude Frollo plunged him, turns out to be beautiful. Beast in his own way appearance, Quasimodo is an angel at heart. Quasimodo's love for Esmeralda is a high love for the Renaissance Madonna. So Dante loved Beatrice, so Petrarch treated Laura. Before meeting Esmeralda, Quasimodo did not know that love, beauty and goodness exist in the world. The good deed of the girl from the Court of Miracles became a "sincere event" for Quasimodo, turned his life upside down. Quasimodo embodies the author's understanding of the nature and fate of the people, downtrodden and disenfranchised, unreasonable and slavishly submissive. But not always. Before meeting Esmeralda, Quasimodo's life passed as if in a state of sleep. He saw before him only the huge structure of the cathedral, served him and was part of it. Now he has seen something else, and for this something else he is ready to give his life.

Quasimodo's protest is an irresponsible, cruel, and even terrible protest. But it's hard to blame him, you can only sympathize with him. So Hugo, by means of romantic art, expresses his own attitude to revolutionary events, to a people that has woken up and can no longer be different. The image of Claude Frollo is complemented by a section that has the expressive name "Dislike of the people." From the outside, with brilliance, but in fact a heartless and devastated high society is embodied in the image of Captain Phoebus de Chateauper, who, like the archdeacon, is not capable of disinterested feelings.

Spiritual greatness, high humanism are inherent only to destitute people from the lower classes of society, it is they who are the real heroes of the novel. Street dancer Esmeralda symbolizes moral beauty common man, the deaf and ugly ringer Quasimodo - the eternity of the social fate of the oppressed. In the center of the novel is the Cathedral of Notre Dame, a symbol of the spiritual life of the French people. The cathedral was built by the hands of hundreds of nameless craftsmen; the description of the cathedral becomes the occasion for an inspirational prose poem about French national life. Cathedral provides shelter folk heroes novel, their fate is closely connected with it, around the cathedral there is a living people who do not stop fighting. The cathedral, eternal and immovable, is the main character of the novel. This is not just a huge building on the island of Cité, which unites university and bourgeois Paris, it is a living being that observes the life of Claude Frollo, Esmeralda, Quasimodo.

The cathedral embodies the eternal law, the eternal law of necessity, the death of one and the birth of another. At the same time, the cathedral is a symbol of the enslavement of the people, a symbol of feudal oppression, dark superstitions and prejudices that keep the souls of people captive. It is not for nothing that Quasimodo lives alone in the darkness of the cathedral, under its vault, merging with strange stone chimeras, deafened by the roar of ringing, “the soul of the cathedral”, whose grotesque image personifies the Middle Ages.

In contrast, the magical image of Esmeralda embodies the joy and beauty of earthly life, the harmony of body and soul, i.e. Renaissance ideals. Dancer Esmeralda lives among the Parisian crowd and gives the common people her art, fun and kindness. Victor Hugo did not idealize the Middle Ages, he truthfully showed the dark side of feudal society. At the same time, his work is deeply poetic, filled with an ardent patriotic love for France, for its history, for its art, in which, as Hugo believed, the freedom-loving spirit and talent of the French people live. The concentration of opposite features, the sharpening of passions create a powerful pictorial effect and make Hugo's work one of the brightest in the history of world literature.