Victor hugo notre dame de paris analysis. “The image of Notre Dame Cathedral in the light of Victor Hugo's aesthetic position. "Notre Dame Cathedral"

The death of the heroes serves as a moral judgment over evil in the novel Notre Dame Cathedral (1831). The evil in the "Cathedral" is the "old order" that Hugo fought during the years of the creation of the novel, in 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 speaks of 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 reasoning, sketches about the mores of the era, its "color".

In accordance with the tradition of the romantic historical novel, Hugo creates an epic, even grandiose canvas, preferring the image of large, open spaces, rather than interiors, crowd scenes, colorful spectacles. The novel is perceived as a theatrical performance, as a drama in the spirit of Shakespeare, when life itself, powerful and colorful, enters the stage, breaking all sorts of “rules”. The scene is the whole of Paris, painted with amazing clarity, with an amazing knowledge of the city, its history, its architecture, like a canvas of a painter, like a creation of an architect. His novel Hugo, as it were, is made of giant boulders, of powerful building parts - just as the Cathedral of Notre Dame was built. Hugo's novels are generally similar to the Cathedral - they are stately, heavy, more harmonious in spirit than in form. The writer does not so much develop the plot as he lays down stone by stone, chapter by chapter.

The cathedral— the main character the novel, which corresponds to the descriptiveness and picturesqueness of romanticism, the nature of the writing style of Hugo - the 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 the inhabitants, but also the creatures of the Cathedral. If in Quasimodo the Cathedral completes his ugly appearance, then in Claude he forms a mental deformity.

Quasimodo- another embodiment of the democratic and humanistic idea of Hugo. In the "old order", which Hugo fought, everything was determined by appearance, class, costume - Quasimodo's soul appears in the shell of an ugly bell ringer, an outcast, an outcast. This is the lowest link in the social hierarchy, crowned by a king. But the highest is in the hierarchy of moral values established by the writer. The unselfish, selfless love of Quasimodo transforms his essence and turns into a way of evaluating all the other heroes of the novel - Claude, whose feelings are mutilated by religion, the simpleton Esmeralda, idolizing the magnificent uniform of an officer, this officer himself, an insignificant veil in a beautiful form.

In the characters, conflicts, the plot of the novel, what became the hallmark of romanticism - exceptional characters in extraordinary circumstances - has become firmly established. Each of the main characters is the fruit of romantic symbolization, the extreme embodiment of one quality or another. There is relatively little action in the novel, not only due to its heavy descriptiveness, but also due to the romantic nature of the heroes: emotional connections are established between them, instantly, with one touch, with one glance of Quasimodo, Claude, Esmeralda, currents of extraordinary strength arise, and they are ahead of the action ... The aesthetics of hyperbole and contrasts increase emotional stress, pushing it to the limit. Hugo puts the heroes in the most extraordinary, in exceptional situations, which are generated both by the logic of exceptional romantic characters and by the power of chance. Thus, Esmeralda perishes as a result of the actions of many people who love her or want her well - a whole 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- not the result of writer's willfulness, he, in turn, forms romantic symbolization as a way of a kind of cognition of reality. Behind the capricious chance of fate that killed the heroes, one sees the pattern of typical circumstances of that era, which doomed to death any manifestation of free-thinking, any attempt by a person to defend his right. The chain of accidents killing heroes is unnatural, but the "old order", the king, justice, religion, all the methods of suppressing the human personality, which Victor Hugo declared war on, are unnatural. The novel's revolutionary pathos 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 theme of the outcast, beloved by the writer from now on. Quasimodo remained not just the embodiment of the romantic aesthetics of the grotesque - the hero who snatched Esmeralda from the clutches of "justice", killing the archdeacon, became a symbol of rebellion. Not only the truth of life - the truth of the revolution was revealed in the romantic poetics of Hugo.

Already in the early period of his work, Hugo addresses one of the most acute problems of romanticism, which was the renewal of drama, the creation of a romantic drama. In the preface to the drama "Cromwell" (1827), he declares that Shakespeare's dramas are not the model for modern drama, which the romantics considered hopelessly obsolete, and not the classicistic tragedy. Refusing to oppose the sublime genre (tragedy) and the funny (comedy), Hugo demands from the modern romantic drama the expression of the contradictions of life in all their diversity. As an antithesis to the classicistic principle of "ennobled nature", Hugo develops the theory of the grotesque: it is a means of presenting the funny, the ugly in a "concentrated" form. These and many other aesthetic attitudes relate not only to drama, but, in essence, to 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 realized both 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 fascination with historical genres, which began with the novels of Walter Scott.

At the end of the 1820s. Hugo plans to write a historical novel, and in 1828 he even concludes an agreement with the publisher Gosslen. However, his work is hampered by many circumstances, and the main one is that his attention is increasingly attracted by modern life. For work on the novel, Hugo was accepted only in 1830, just a few days before the July Revolution, and in the midst of its events he was forced to stay at his desk to satisfy the publisher, who demanded the fulfillment of the contract. This novel is called Notre Dame Cathedral and comes out in 1831.

The writer considers the expression of the spirit of the era to be the main criterion for the veracity of a historical novel. In this, the work of fiction is 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 can develop. The truth of the historical novel is not in the accuracy of facts, but in fidelity to the spirit of the times. The only immutable requirement for the author's fiction is to meet the spirit of the era: characters, psychology of characters, their relationships, actions, the general course of events, details of everyday life and everyday life - all aspects of the depicted historical reality should be presented as they really could be.

All the main characters in the novel - Claude Frollo, Quasimodo, Esmeralda, Phoebus - are fictionalized 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 Cardinal of Bourbon (the latter appears only sporadically). The plot of the novel is not based on any major historical event, and only detailed descriptions of Notre Dame Cathedral and medieval Paris can be attributed to real facts.

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

He considers Notre Dame Cathedral to be the symbol of the era when the first sprouts of free thought appear, it is no coincidence that all the main events of the novel take place in the cathedral or in the square next to it, the cathedral itself becomes the object of detailed descriptions, and its architecture is the subject of deep author's reflections and comments. clarifying the meaning of the novel as a whole. The cathedral was built over the centuries - from XI to XV. During this time, the Romanesque style, which dominated at the beginning in medieval architecture, gave way to Gothic. Hugo perceives the Romanesque church as petrified dogma, the embodiment of the omnipotence of the church. In contrast to the Romanesque style, he calls Gothic with its diversity, abundance and splendor of ornaments, "folk architecture", considering it the beginning of free art. The architecture of the cathedral combines elements of both styles, which means that the transition from one era to another is reflected: from the constraint of human consciousness and creative spirit, completely subordinate to dogma, to free searches. In the echoing twilight of the cathedral, at the foot of its columns, under its cold stone vaults directed towards the sky, medieval man should have felt the indisputable greatness of God and his own insignificance. However, Hugo sees in the Gothic cathedral not only the stronghold of medieval religion, but also a brilliant architectural structure, the creation of a human genius. Built by the hands of several generations, Notre Dame Cathedral appears in Hugo's novel as a "stone symphony" and "stone chronicle of the ages."

Hugo embodies the signs of the depicted era in the characters and fates of the characters in the novel, especially such as the archdeacon of Notre Dame Cathedral Claude Frollo and the bell ringer of the cathedral Quasimodo. In a sense, they are antipodes, and at the same time, their fates are interconnected and closely intertwined.

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

As for Quasimodo, he is undergoing a truly amazing metamorphosis. At first, Quasimodo appears to the reader as a creature that can hardly be called a human in the full sense of the word. His name is symbolic: Latin quasimodo means "as if", "almost". Quasimodo is almost like a son (adopted son) to Claude Frollo and almost (so not quite) human. In him is the focus of all conceivable physical deformities: he is blind in one eye, he has two humps - on his back and on his chest, he limps, hears nothing, because he is deafened by the powerful sound of the big bell, which he rings, he says so it is rare that some consider him dumb. But his main deformity is spiritual: "The spirit that dwelt in this ugly body was just as ugly and imperfect," says Hugo. There is a frozen expression of anger and sadness on his face. Quasimodo does not know the difference between good and evil, knows neither pity nor remorse. Without reasoning and, moreover, without thinking, he carries out all the orders of his master and master Claude Frollo, to whom he is completely devoted. Quasimodo is not aware of himself as an independent person, he has not yet awakened that which distinguishes man from the beast - the soul, moral feeling, the ability to think.

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

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

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

Notre Dame Cathedral became the event and the pinnacle of the genre of the historical novel in French literature.

Introduction
Victor Hugo is a great romantic writer,
publicist-patriot, politician-democrat.
Aesthetic principles of Hugo's creativity

Section 2

Conclusion

Bibliography

Victor Hugo is a great romantic writer, patriotic publicist, politician-democrat.

Aesthetic principles of creativity Hugo

The personality of Victor Hugo (1802-1885) is striking in its versatility. One of the most widely read French prose writers in the world, for his compatriots he is, first of all, a great national poet, reformer of French verse, drama, as well as a patriotic publicist, politician-democrat. To connoisseurs, he is known as an outstanding master of graphics, a tireless draftsman of fantasies on the themes of his own works. But there is the main thing that defines this multifaceted personality and inspires its activity - it is love for a person, compassion for the disadvantaged, a call for mercy and brotherhood. Some aspects of Hugo's creative heritage already belong to the past: today, his oratorical-declamatory pathos, wordy eloquence, tendency to effective antitheses of thought and images seem to be old-fashioned. However, Hugo is a democrat, an enemy of tyranny and violence against a person, a noble defender of victims of social and political injustice, is our contemporary and will evoke a response in the hearts of many more generations of readers. Humanity will not forget the one who, before his death, summing up his activities, with good reason said: "In my books, dramas, prose and poetry, I stood up for the small and unfortunate, I implored the mighty and unforgiving. I restored the jester, the lackey, in human rights. convict and prostitute ".

The most striking demonstration of the validity of this statement can be considered the historical novel "Notre Dame Cathedral", begun by Hugo in July 1830 and completed in February 1831. Hugo's appeal to the distant past was caused by three factors of the cultural life of his time: the wide spread of historical themes in literature, his enthusiasm for the romantically interpreted Middle Ages, the struggle for the protection of historical and architectural monuments. Romantics' interest in the Middle Ages arose largely as a reaction to the classical focus on antiquity. The desire to overcome the contempt for the Middle Ages, which had spread thanks to the writers-enlighteners of the 18th century, for whom this time was a kingdom of darkness and ignorance, useless in the history of the progressive development of mankind, also played its role here. And, finally, almost mainly, the Middle Ages attracted romantics with their uniqueness, as the opposite of the prose of bourgeois life, a dull everyday existence. Here one could meet, the romantics considered, with whole, big characters, strong passions, exploits and martyrdom in the name of convictions. All this was perceived even in the halo of a certain mystery associated with insufficient study of the Middle Ages, which was supplemented by an appeal to folk traditions and legends, which are of special importance for romantic writers. Hugo outlined his view of the role of the Middle Ages as early as 1827 in the author's preface to the drama Cromwell, which became a manifesto of democratically-minded French romantics and expressed Hugo's aesthetic position, which he generally adhered to until the end of his life.

Hugo begins his introduction by setting out his own conception of literary history in relation to the history of society. According to Hugo, the first big era in the history of civilization is a primitive era, when a person for the first time in his consciousness separates himself from the universe, begins to understand how beautiful it is, and expresses his enthusiasm for the universe in lyric poetry, the dominant genre of the primitive era. Hugo sees the peculiarity of the second era, antique, in the fact that at this time a person begins to create history, creates a society, realizes himself through connections with other people, the leading type of literature in this era is the epic.

From the Middle Ages begins, says Hugo, a new era, standing under the sign of a new outlook - Christianity, which sees in man a constant struggle between two principles, earthly and heavenly, perishable and immortal, animal and divine. Man, as it were, consists of two creatures: "one is perishable, the other is immortal, one is fleshly, the other is incorporeal, bound by desires, needs and passions, the other is flying on the wings of delight and dreams." The struggle between these two principles of the human soul is dramatic in its very essence: "... what is drama, if not this daily contradiction, every minute struggle of two principles, always opposing each other in life and challenging each other from cradle to grave?" Therefore, the third period in the history of mankind corresponds to the literary kind of drama.

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

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

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

The novel Notre Dame de Paris, which we are considering in this work, is convincing evidence that all the aesthetic principles set forth by Hugo are not just a theoretician manifesto, but the foundations of creativity that are deeply thought out and felt by the writer.

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

The main characters in the novel are fictional by the author: the gypsy Esmeralda, the archdeacon of Notre Dame Cathedral Claude Frollo, the bell ringer of the cathedral, the hunchback Quasimodo (long ago passed into the category of literary types). But there is a "character" in the novel who unites all the characters around him and coils into one ball practically all the main plot lines of the novel. The name of this character is included in the title of Hugo's work. The name is Notre Dame Cathedral.

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

The first chapter of the third book is called "The Cathedral of Our Lady". In it, Hugo in a poetic form tells about the history of the creation of the Cathedral, very professionally and in detail characterizes the belonging of the building to a certain stage in the history of architecture, describes its grandeur and beauty in a high style: in the history of architecture, there is a page more beautiful than the one that is the facade of this cathedral ... It is like a huge stone symphony; a colossal creation of both man and people, single and complex, like Iliad and Romancero to whom it is related; the miraculous result of the unification of all the forces of an entire era, where from each stone sprinkles a worker's fantasy, taking hundreds of forms, directed by the artist's genius; in a word, this creation of human hands is powerful and abundant, like the creation of God, from whom it, as it were, borrowed its dual character: diversity and eternity. "

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

On its ruins, one can distinguish three types of more or less deep destruction: first of all, those of them that have inflicted the hand of time, here and there imperceptibly chipped and covered with rust the surface of buildings, are striking; then hordes of political and religious unrest, blind and violent by nature, rushed at them in disorder; completed the destruction of fashion, more and more pretentious and ridiculous, replacing one another with the inevitable decline of architecture ...

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

Section 2
The image of Notre Dame Cathedral and its inextricable connection with the images of the main characters of the novel

We have already mentioned that the fates of all the protagonists of the novel are inextricably linked with the Cathedral both with the external event outline and with the threads of internal thoughts and motives. This is especially true of the inhabitants of the temple: Archdeacon Claude Frollo and the bell ringer Quasimodo. In the fifth chapter of the fourth book we read: "... A strange fate fell to the lot of the Cathedral of Our Lady in those days - the fate of being loved so reverently, but completely differently by two such dissimilar creatures as Claude and Quasimodo. One of them is a semblance of a half-man, wild, obedient only to instinct, he loved the cathedral for its beauty, for harmony, for the harmony that radiated this magnificent whole. his symbolism hidden behind the sculptural decoration of the facade - in a word, he loved the mystery that the Notre-Dame Cathedral remains for the human mind from time immemorial. "

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, ultimately, death. The clergyman Claude Frollo, ascetic and scientist-alchemist, personifies a cold rationalistic mind, triumphing over all good human feelings, joys, and affections. This mind, which prevails over the heart, inaccessible to pity and compassion, is an evil force for Hugo. The base passions that kindled in Frollo's cold soul not only lead to the death of himself, but are the cause of the death of all 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 surrenders himself to death, first tamed by him, and then, in fact, betrayed. The cathedral, being, as it were, a constituent part of Claude Frollo's life, and here acts as a full-fledged participant in the action of the novel: from his galleries the archdeacon watches Esmeralda dancing in the square; in the cathedral cell, equipped by him for practicing alchemy, he spends hours and days in studies and scientific research, here he begs Esmeralda to have mercy and give him love. The cathedral, in the end, becomes the site of his terrible death, described by Hugo with tremendous strength and psychological certainty.

In that scene, the Cathedral also seems to be an almost animate being: only two lines are devoted to how Quasimodo pushes his mentor off the balustrade, while the next two pages describe Claude Frollo's "confrontation" with the Cathedral: A fit of rage rushed at him, pushed him into the abyss, over which Claude was leaning ... The priest fell down ... The drainpipe, over which he was standing, delayed his fall. the abyss ... In this terrible situation, the archdeacon did not utter a word, did not utter a single groan. He only wriggled, making inhuman efforts to climb the chute to the balustrade. But his hands slid over the granite, his feet, scratching the blackened wall, in vain looked for support ... The archdeacon was exhausted. Sweat rolled down his bald forehead, blood oozed from under his nails, his knees were bruised. I was behind the gutter, cracked and torn. To complete the misfortune, the gutter ended in a lead pipe, bent along the weight of his body ... The soil gradually disappeared from under him, fingers slipped along the gutter, hands weakened, the body became heavier ... He gazed at the impassive statues of the tower, hanging like him , over an abyss, but without fear for oneself, without regret for him. Everything around was stone: right in front of him - the open mouths of monsters, under him - in the depths of the square - the pavement, over his head - the weeping Quasimodo. "
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 pity, compassion, or mercy from him, because he himself did not give anyone compassion, pity, or mercy.

The connection with the Cathedral of Quasimodo - this ugly hunchback with the soul of an embittered child - is even more mysterious and incomprehensible. Here is what Hugo writes about this: "Over time, strong ties tied the bell ringer with the cathedral. Forever detached from the world by the double misfortune that gravitated over him - dark origin and physical deformity, locked from childhood in this double irresistible circle, the poor man is used to not noticing anything that lay on the other side of the sacred walls that sheltered him under their shade.As he grew and developed, the Cathedral of Our Lady served for him now as an egg, now as a nest, now as a home, now as a homeland, then, finally, the universe.

There was undoubtedly some mysterious predetermined harmony between this creature and the building. When, still quite small, Quasimodo, with painful efforts, skidded his way under the gloomy arches, he, with his human head and animal body, seemed to be a reptile, naturally appearing among the damp and gloomy slabs ...

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

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

Only a new, stronger, hitherto unfamiliar feeling could shake this inextricable, incredible connection between man and building. This happened when a miracle entered the life of the rejected, embodied in the image of an innocent and beautiful. 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 loyalty. Alas, in a cruel time, among cruel people, all these qualities were rather disadvantages than advantages: kindness, naivety and innocence do not help to survive in the world of anger and self-interest. Esmeralda died, slandered by her lover - Claude, betrayed by her beloved - Phoebus, not saved by the one who worshiped and deified her - Quasimodo.

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 woman by stealing her from the place of execution and using the cathedral's cell as a refuge, that is, a place, where criminals persecuted by law and authority were inaccessible to their persecutors, the condemned were inviolable outside the sacred walls of the refuge. However, the evil will of the people turned out to be stronger, and the stones of the Cathedral of Our Lady did not save Esmeralda's life.

At the beginning of the novel, Hugo tells the reader that “a few years ago, while examining Notre Dame Cathedral, or, more precisely, examining it, the author of this book discovered in a dark corner of one of the towers the following word inscribed on the wall: ANKГH These Greek letters, darkened by time and quite deeply embedded in the stone, some features characteristic of Gothic writing, captured in the shape and arrangement of letters, as if indicating that they were inscribed by the hand of a medieval man, and especially the dark and fatal meaning they contained deeply struck the author.

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

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

Hugo's contemporaries reproached him for not having enough Catholicism in his novel. Lamartine, who called Hugo "Shakespeare of the novel", and his "Cathedral" - "a colossal work," wrote that in his temple "there is anything, only there is not a bit of religion." Using the fate of Claude Frollo Hugo as an example, he strives to show the inconsistency of church dogmatism and asceticism, their inevitable collapse on the eve of the Renaissance, which was the end of the 15th century for France, depicted in the novel.

Conclusion
Architecture - "the first book of mankind"

There is such a scene in the novel. Before the archdeacon of the cathedral, the austere and learned keeper of the shrine, lies one of the first printed books published by Gutenberg's printing press. It takes place in Claude Frollo's cell at night. The gloomy bulk of the cathedral rises outside the window.

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

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

There are thousands of floors in this building ... Everything here is full of harmony. From Shakespeare Cathedral to Byron's Mosque ...

However, the wonderful building still remains unfinished .... The human race is all in the forests. Every mind is a bricklayer. "

Using the metaphor of Victor Hugo, we can say that he built one of the most beautiful and stately buildings that have been admired. his contemporaries, and do not get tired of admiring more and more generations.

At the very beginning of the novel, you can read the following lines: "And now nothing remained of the mysterious word carved in the wall of the gloomy tower of the cathedral, nor of that unknown fate, which this word so sadly signified, - nothing but a fragile memory that the author of this He dedicates books to them. Several centuries ago, the person who wrote this word on the wall disappeared from among the living; the word itself disappeared from the wall of the cathedral; perhaps the cathedral itself will soon disappear from the face of the earth. " We know that Hugo's sad prophecy about the future of the cathedral has not yet come true, we want to believe that it will not come true. Humanity is gradually learning to be more careful with the works of their own hands. It seems that the writer and humanist Victor Hugo contributed to the understanding that time is cruel, but it is human duty to resist its destructive onslaught and protect the soul of the creator people embodied in stone, metal, words and sentences from destruction.

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

Hugo's ballads such as The Tournament of King John, The Hunt of the Burgrave, The Legend of the Nun, The Fairy, and others are rich in signs of national and historical flavor. Already in the early period of his work, Hugo addresses one of the most acute problems of romanticism, what was the renewal of drama, the creation of a romantic drama. As an antithesis to the classicistic principle of "ennobled nature", Hugo develops the theory of the grotesque: it is a means of presenting the funny, the ugly in a "concentrated" form. These and many other aesthetic attitudes relate not only to drama, but, in essence, to 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 realized both 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 fascination with historical genres, which began with the novels of Walter Scott. Hugo pays tribute to this passion both in drama 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 Gosslen. However, his work is hampered by many circumstances, and the main one is that his attention is increasingly attracted by modern life.

For work on the novel, Hugo was taken only in 1830, just a few days before the July Revolution. His reflections on his time are closely intertwined with the general concept of human history and with ideas about the fifteenth century, about which he is writing his novel. This novel is called Notre Dame Cathedral and comes out in 1831. Literature, be it a novel, a poem, or a drama, depicts history, but not in the way that historical science does. 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 inner side of life.

Following these new ideas for his time, Hugo created Notre Dame Cathedral. The writer considers the expression of the spirit of the era to be the main criterion for the veracity of a historical novel. In this, the work of fiction is 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 can develop. The truth of the historical novel is not in the accuracy of facts, but in fidelity to the spirit of the times. Hugo is convinced that in pedantic retelling of historical chronicles one cannot find as much meaning as it hides in the behavior of an unnamed crowd or "Argotins" (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 bell ringer Quasimodo , or in a learned monk, in whose alchemical experiments the king is also interested.

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

Romantics considered imagination to be the highest creative ability, and fiction as an indispensable attribute of a literary work. The fiction, by means of which it is possible to recreate the real historical spirit of the time, according to their aesthetics, may 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, but genuine historical characters with unknown ones, but clearly prefers the latter. All the main characters in the novel - Claude Frollo, Quasimodo, Esmeralda, Phoebus - are fictionalized 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 Cardinal of Bourbon (the latter appears only sporadically). The plot of the novel is not based on any major historical event, and only detailed descriptions of Notre Dame Cathedral and medieval Paris can be attributed to real facts.

Unlike the heroes of literature of the 17th - 18th centuries, Hugo's heroes combine contradictory qualities. Making extensive use of the romantic technique of contrasting images, sometimes deliberately exaggerating, referring 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, a rebellious, rebellious spirit, the ability to deal with circumstances. In the characters, conflicts, plot, landscape of Notre Dame Cathedral, the romantic principle of reflecting life - exceptional characters in extraordinary circumstances - triumphed. The world of unbridled passions, romantic characters, surprises and accidents, the image of a brave man who does not give in to 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 vividly than in Hugo's poetry, the search for new moral values, which the writer finds, as a rule, not in the camp of the rich and those in power, but in the camp of the dispossessed and despised poor, became apparent. All the best feelings - kindness, sincerity, selfless devotion - are given to them to the foundling Quasimodo and the gypsy Esmeralda, who are the true heroes of the novel, while the antipodes who are at the helm of secular or spiritual power, like King Louis XI or the same Archdeacon Frollo, differ 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 "Preface" in his article about the novel by W. Scott "Quentin Dorward". “Isn't there,” he wrote, “life is a bizarre drama in which good and evil, beautiful and ugly, high and low, are mixed, a law operating in all creation?”

The principle of contrasting oppositions in Hugo's poetics was based on his metaphysical ideas about the life of modern society, in which the defining factor of development is supposedly the struggle of opposing moral principles - good and evil - that have existed forever.

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

Hugo contrasted grotesque images of his works with the conventionally beautiful images of epigonese classicism, believing that without introducing into literature both sublime and base phenomena, both beautiful and ugly, it is impossible to convey the fullness and truth of life. Hugo's justification of this element of art was nevertheless a step forward on the path of bringing art closer to the truth of life.

In the novel there is a “character” who unites all the characters around him and coils practically all the main plot lines of the novel into one ball. The name of this character is included in the title of Hugo's work - Notre Dame Cathedral.

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 union of all the forces of the era, where from each stone sprinkles the fantasy 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 fate of Archdeacon Claude is associated with it, and Frollo, Quasimodo, Esmeralda are also associated with it. The stone sculptures of the cathedral become witnesses of human suffering, nobility and betrayal, just retribution. By 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 with the external event outline and with the threads of internal thoughts and motives. This is especially true of the inhabitants of the temple: Archdeacon Claude Frollo and the bell ringer Quasimodo. In the fifth chapter of the fourth book we read: “... A strange fate fell to the lot of the Cathedral of Our Lady in those days - the fate of being loved so reverently, but completely differently by two such dissimilar beings as Claude and Quasimodo. One of them - a semblance of 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, gifted with an ardent imagination enriched with knowledge, loved in him his inner meaning, the hidden meaning in him, loved the legend associated with him, his symbolism hidden behind the sculptural decoration of the facade - in a word, he loved the riddle that has remained for the human mind from time immemorial Notre Dame Cathedral ”.

In that scene, the Cathedral also seems to be an almost animate being: only two lines are devoted to how Quasimodo pushes his mentor off the balustrade, while the next two pages describe Claude Frollo's “confrontation” with the Cathedral: A fit of rage rushed at him, pushed him into the abyss, over which Claude was leaning ... The priest fell down ... The drainpipe, over which he stood, delayed his fall. In despair, he clung to her with both hands ... An abyss gaped beneath him ... In this terrible situation, the archdeacon did not utter a word, did not utter a single groan. He only wriggled, making inhuman efforts to climb the chute to the balustrade. But his hands slipped over the granite, his feet, scratching the blackened wall, in vain looked for support ... The archdeacon was exhausted. Sweat rolled down his bald forehead, blood oozed from under his fingernails, and his knees were bruised. He could hear how, with every effort he made, his cassock, caught in the gutter, crackled and torn. To complete the misfortune, the gutter ended in a lead pipe, bent along the weight of his body ... The soil gradually disappeared from under him, fingers slipped along the gutter, hands weakened, the body became heavier ... He gazed at the impassive statues of the tower, hanging like him , over an abyss, but without fear for oneself, without regret for him. Everything around was stone: right in front of him - the open mouths of monsters, under him - in the depths of the square - the pavement, over his head - the weeping Quasimodo. "

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 pity, compassion, or mercy from him, because he himself did not give anyone compassion, pity, or mercy.

The connection with the Cathedral of Quasimodo - this ugly hunchback with the soul of an embittered child - is even more mysterious and incomprehensible. Here is what Hugo writes about this: “Over time, a strong bond tied the bell ringer to the cathedral. Forever detached from the world by the double misfortune that gravitated over him - dark origin and physical deformity, locked from childhood in this double irresistible circle, the poor man was accustomed to not notice anything that lay on the other side of the sacred walls that sheltered him under their shadow. While he was growing and developing, the Cathedral of Our Lady served for him as an egg, then a nest, then a home, then a homeland, then, finally, the universe.

Reading the novel, we see that for Quasimodo, the cathedral was everything - a refuge, a dwelling, a friend, he protected him from the cold, from human malice and cruelty, he satisfied the need of a monster rejected by people in communication: “Only with extreme reluctance did he turn his gaze to of people. The cathedral, inhabited by marble statues of kings, saints, bishops, who at least did not laugh in his face and looked at him with a calm and benevolent gaze, was quite enough for him. The statues of monsters and demons also did not harbor hatred for him - he was too much like them ... The saints were his friends and guarded him; the monsters were also his friends and guarded him. He poured out his soul in front of 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 in a serenade. "

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 woman by stealing her from the place of execution and using the cathedral's cell as a refuge, that is, a place, where criminals persecuted by law and authority were inaccessible to their persecutors, the condemned were inviolable outside the sacred walls of the refuge. However, the evil will of the people turned out to be stronger, and the stones of the Cathedral of Our Lady did not save Esmeralda's life.

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

The history of the creation of the novel

Notre Dame Cathedral is the first historical novel in French (the action, as conceived by the author, takes place about 400 years ago, at the end of the 15th century). Victor Hugo began to nurture his idea back in the 1820s, and published in March 1831. The preconditions for the creation of the novel were the rising interest in historical literature and, in particular, in the Middle Ages.

Romanticism began to form in the French literature of that time, and with it romantic tendencies in cultural life in general. So, 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 supporters of the demolition of the cathedral retreated, and an incredible interest in cultural monuments and a wave of civil consciousness in the desire to protect ancient architecture awakened in society.

Characteristics of the main characters

It is this reaction of society to the book that gives the right to say that the cathedral is the true protagonist of the novel, along with people. This is the main place of the events taking place, a mute witness to the dramas, love, life and death of the main characters; a place that, against the background of the transience of human lives, remains the same motionless and unshakable.

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

Esmeralda unites the rest of the main characters around her: all of the listed men are in love with her, but some - unselfishly, like Quasimodo, others furiously, like Frollo, Phoebus and Gringoire - experiencing carnal attraction; the gypsy herself loves Phoebus. In addition, all the characters are linked by the Cathedral: Frollo serves here, Quasimodo works as a bell ringer, Gringoire becomes a priest's apprentice. Esmeralda usually speaks 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 the street thieves, gives her their hearts, worshiping her like a deity. With the same childlike spontaneity with which a child reaches for shiny objects, Esmeralda gives her preference to Phoebus, the noble, brilliant Chevalier.

The external beauty of Phoebus (coincides with the name of Apollo) is the only positive trait of an 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 - a gentleman.

Pierre Gringoire, a local poet who was forced by circumstances to plunge into the thick of French street life, is a bit like Phoebus in that his feelings for Esmeralda are physical attraction. True, he is not capable of meanness, and loves both a friend and a person in a gypsy, putting 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 to do anything, even love her quietly and secretly from everyone, even give the girl to a rival.

Claude Frollo has the most difficult feelings for the gypsy. Love for a gypsy is a special tragedy for him, because it is a forbidden passion for him as a priest. Passion does not find a way out, so he either appeals to her love, then pushes her away, then pounces on her, then saves her from death, finally, he himself hands the gypsy to the executioner. Frollo's tragedy 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 outliving 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 dissolves without a trace in the centuries along with the handwritten folios.

The plot, composition, problems of the work

The novel takes place 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 "Yard of Miracles".

A religious performance is given in front of the Cathedral (the author of the mystery is Gringoire), but the crowd prefers to watch Esmeralda dance on the Place de Grève. Looking at the gypsy, Gringoire, Quasimodo, and Frollo's father fall in love with her at the same time. Phoebus meets Esmeralda when she is invited to entertain a group of girls, including Phoebus's bride, Fleur de Lys. Phoebus makes an appointment with Esmeralda, but the priest also comes on the date. Out of jealousy, the priest wounds Phoebus, and Esmeralda is accused of 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 flee with him. On the day of the execution, Phoebus oversees the execution of the sentence with his fiancée. But Quasimodo does not allow the execution to take place - he grabs the gypsy and runs to hide in the Cathedral.

The entire "Yard of Miracles" - a haven of thieves and beggars - rushes to "free" their beloved Esmeralda. The king learned about the riot and ordered the execution of the gypsy at any cost. When she is executed, Claude laughs a devilish laugh. Seeing this, the hunchback rushes at the priest, and he breaks down, falling from the tower.

Compositionally, the novel is looped: 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 - sees in a crypt outside the city two skeletons, which are intertwined in an embrace. These are the heroes of the novel - a hunchback and a gypsy. Time has erased their history into 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 national passions (wealth and poverty, the 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.