'Returning to Notre-Dame': Introduction to Victor Hugo's 'The Hunchback of Notre-Dame', trans. by Walter J. Cobb (Signet Clasics/Penguin, 2010), pp.ix-xvii (original) (raw)
Related papers
Medieval Elements in Victor Hugo's The Hunchback of Notre-Dame
Anastasis: Research in Medieval Culture and Art, 2018
Published in 1831, the classic historical Gothic romance The Hunchback of Notre-Dame is representative for narratology, since the plot is majestically set in medieval Paris and Victor Hugo manages to create a specific Middle-Ages atmosphere without having studied in a formal manner about the specificity of medieval times, therefore he is a medievalist avant-la-lettre. Moreover, it is important to underline Hugo's attention to details, the realism of description and the manner of giving shape to vivid characters, the predilection for creating memorable, powerful epic moments with a deep religious-ethical component. Furthermore, our purpose is to analyze medieval and modern elements in the novel The Hunchback of Notre-Dame, also insisting on the symbols present in the novel, its impact on the readers and also the narrative techniques used by Victor Hugo.
Walter Benjamin's readings of modernity are repeatedly strained by the tension he identifies between demystification and the drive towards the mythic. How are we to awaken from 'ideological dream-states' and engage with an indeterminate reality without positing the unity of an integrated whole to begin with? I suggest that Hugo's Notre-Dame de Paris yields a compelling perspective on this dilemma. Hugo never denies the lure of myths in his novel, simply their possibility, recognis-ing that they remain as irresistible as they are incredible. He energises the opposition between artifice and actuality, proposing that man can only oscillate between both the ideal and the real, even though he cannot overcome their incompatibility. This dynamic is observed upon Notre-Dame herself. Her hybrid edifice bears the mark of bygone values, yet as such stands as a monument to the transformative sweep of time. In turn, Hugo teases yet simultaneously refuses any absolute narrative viewpoint, stressing both the limitations of language and his own sub-jectivity. What makes this reading less an exercise of intellectual indulgence than a matter of critical urgency is Benjamin's widely overlooked attraction towards Hugo as a modernist writer. Indeed, the novel deploys two key tools of Benjamin's thinking: allegory, to expose meaning as arbitrary, and the ruin, which preserves the image of a history that is no more. I explore Hugo's representation of both novel and cathedral as realms of contrast, not integration, so as to make a productive return to the dilemmas Benjamin encounters.
Samantha Morgan, "Architectural Othering in The Hunchback of Notre Dame"
Culture in Focus, 2018
The importance of architecture in Hugo's work cannot be over-emphasized. The only locations mentioned in detail are those which have some tie to the Gothic; these locations are also where the novel is bound. Hugo does well in personifying buildings such as Notre Dame, giving the cathedral as much of a voice as those who dwell within her. Within the confines of the Gothic cathedral, human depravity at its fullest is displayed through characters such as Frollo, while the same walls showcase the grandeur of human achievement through the beauty of Notre Dame. The cathedral and the Court of Miracles are not bound by the staunch rules of society, choosing rather to shelter those whom the world rejects inside their dark confines. Likewise, characters such as Quasimodo, Frollo and Esmeralda doubtlessly see themselves reflected in the supposedly unfeeling architecture, choosing to live within a realm which ordinary society cannot understand.