The compositional role of the image of the Cathedral of Our Lady of Paris. "Notre Dame Cathedral": analysis (problems, heroes, artistic features). Esmeralda and Quasimodo represent, as it were, two different faces of this polyphonic crowd

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", which 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, puts together giant boulders, from 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— 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", with which Hugo fought, everything was determined by appearance, class belonging, costume - the soul of Quasimodo appears in the shell of an ugly bell ringer, an outcast, an outcast. This is the lowest link in the social hierarchy, crowned by a king. But the highest is in the hierarchy of moral values ​​established by the writer. The selfless, 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, plot of the novel, what has become a sign of romanticism has become established - exceptional characters in emergency situations. 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 characters: 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 rejected, 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.

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: this 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 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. 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, portrays history, but not in the way 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 a 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 "Argotians" (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 morals 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 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, 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, a rebellious, rebellious spirit, the ability to fight 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 courageous person who does not succumb 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 - were 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 up to art."

Hugo contrasted the grotesque images of his works with the conventionally beautiful images of epigone 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. With all the metaphysical understanding of the category of “grotesque” 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 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 - 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 have borrowed a dual character: diversity and eternity ... "

The cathedral became the main place 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 what they looked like 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 an external event outline and with 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 radiated from this magnificent whole. 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 ”.

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, tossing, 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 that 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, handed over 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 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, the next two pages describe Claude Frollo's “confrontation” with the Cathedral: “The bell-ringer stepped back a few steps behind the archdeacon's back and suddenly, in A burst of rage rushing 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. 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 nails onto the stones, and his knees were bruised. He heard how, with every effort he made, his cassock, caught in the chute, 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, above 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 - a dark origin and physical deformity, locked from childhood in this double irresistible circle, the poor man was accustomed not to 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 now as an egg, now as a nest, now as a home, now as a homeland, then, finally, the universe.

There was undoubtedly some kind of mysterious predetermined harmony between this creature and the building. When, still quite a crumb, 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, a 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 on 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. "

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 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, 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 concept of Notre Dame Cathedral was conceived by Hugo in the early 1920s and finally took shape by the middle of 1828. The prerequisites for the creation of an epoch-making work were the natural cultural processes that took place in the first third of the 19th century in France: popularity in literature historical themes, the appeal of writers to the romantic atmosphere of the Middle Ages and the public struggle for the protection of ancient architectural monuments, in which Hugo was directly involved. That is why we can say that one of the main characters of the novel, along with the gypsy Esmeralda, the bell ringer Quasimodo, the archdeacon Claude Frollo, the captain of the royal archers Phoebus de Chateauper and the poet Pierre Gringoire, is Notre Dame Cathedral itself - the main scene and an invisible witness to the key events of the work.

In his work on the book, Victor Hugo drew on the literary experience of Walter Scott, a recognized master of historical novels. At the same time, the French classic already understood that society needs something more lively than his English colleague, operating with typical characters and historical events, could offer. According to Victor Hugo, it should have been “... at the same time a novel, a drama and an epic, of course, picturesque, but at the same time poetic, real, but at the same time ideal, truthful, but at the same time same time majestic "(magazine" French Muse ", 1823).

Notre Dame Cathedral became exactly the kind of novel that the French writer dreamed of. He combined the features of a historical epic, a romantic drama and a psychological novel, telling the reader the incredible private lives of different people, taking place against the background of specific historical events of the 15th century.

Chronotope The novel, organized around Notre Dame Cathedral - a unique architectural monument that combines features of Romanesque and Gothic architecture - includes Parisian streets, squares and districts scattering from it in all directions (Cathedral and Greve Square, Cité, University, City, " Yard of Miracles ", etc.). Paris in the novel becomes a natural continuation of the Cathedral, towering over the city and protecting its spiritual and social life.

Notre Dame Cathedral, like most ancient architectural monuments, according to Hugo, is the Word embodied in stone - the only restraining force for the rude, uneducated Parisian people. The spiritual authority of the Catholic church is so great that it easily turns into a refuge for Esmeralda, accused of witchcraft. The inviolability of the temple of the Mother of God is violated by the royal arrows only by order of Louis XI, who asked for this act of prayer permission from his heavenly patroness and promised to bring her a beautiful silver statue as a gift. The French king has nothing to do with Esmeralda: he is only interested in the revolt of the Paris mob, who, in the opinion of Louis XI, decided to kidnap a sorceress from the Cathedral in order to put her to death. The fact that people are striving to free their sister and get hold of at the expense of church riches does not occur to either the king or his entourage, which is an excellent illustration of the political isolation of the authorities from the people and a lack of understanding of their needs.

The main characters of the novel are closely related to each other, not only the central love theme, but also by his belonging to Notre Dame Cathedral: Claude Frollo is the archdeacon of the temple, Quasimodo is the bell ringer, Pierre Gringoire is a student of Claude Frollo, Esmeralda is a dancer performing on Cathedral Square, Phoebus de Chateauper is the fiancé of Fleur de Lys living de Gondalorier in a house overlooking the Cathedral.

At the level of human relationships, the characters intersect with each other through Esmeralda, whose artistic image is plot-forming for the whole novel. Everyone's attention is riveted to the beautiful gypsy woman in Notre Dame Cathedral: Parisian citizens enjoy admiring her dances and tricks with the snow-white goat Jali, the local rabble (thieves, prostitutes, imaginary beggars and cripples) reveres her no less than the Mother of God, poet Pierre Gringoire and the captain of the royal archers Phoebus have a physical attraction to her, the priest Claude Frollo - a passionate desire, Quasimodo - love.

Esmeralda herself - a pure, naive, virgin child - gives her heart to the outwardly beautiful, but inwardly ugly Phoebus. The love of the girl in the novel is born as a result of gratitude for salvation and freezes in a state of blind faith in her beloved. Esmeralda is blinded by love so much that she is ready to blame herself for Phoebus's coldness, who confessed under torture to the murder of the captain.

Young handsome man Phoebus de Chateauper- a noble person only in the company of ladies. Alone with Esmeralda - he is a deceitful seducer, in the company with Jehan Melnik (the younger brother of Claude Frollo) - a hefty foul language and a drinker. Phoebus himself is an ordinary Don Juan, brave in battle, but cowardly when it comes to his good name. The exact opposite of Phoebus in the novel is Pierre Gringoire... Despite the fact that his feelings for Esmeralda are devoid of any particular elevation, he finds the strength to recognize the girl as a sister rather than a wife, and over time, to love in her not so much a woman as a man.

The person in Esmeralda also sees the extremely terrible bell-ringer of Notre-Dame Cathedral. Unlike the rest of the heroes, he pays attention to the girl not earlier than she takes care of him by giving water to Quasimodo, who is standing at the pillar of shame. Only when he knows the kind soul of the gypsy woman, the hunched over freak begins to notice her physical beauty. External discrepancy between yourself and Esmeralda Quasimodo he experiences quite courageously: he loves the girl so much that he is ready to do everything for her - not to show herself, bring another man, protect her from the angry crowd.

Archdeacon Claude Frollo Is the most tragic character in the novel. The psychological component of Notre Dame Cathedral is associated with it. A perfectly educated, just, God-loving priest, having fallen in love, turns into a real Devil. He wants to win Esmeralda's love at any cost. Inside him, there is a constant struggle between good and evil. The archdeacon begs the gypsy woman for love, then he tries to take her by force, then he saves her from death, then he himself gives her into the hands of the executioner. Passion that does not find a way out eventually kills Claude himself.

Notre Dame Cathedral is a novel by V. Hugo. The novel was conceived in 1828, when the historical theme prevailed in French literature. On November 15, 1828, Hugo signed an agreement with the publisher Goslin for a two-volume novel, which was to be completed on April 15, 1829. Already on November 19, 1828, in the Journal de Debes, Goslin announced the publication of the Cathedral. But at this time, Hugo was fascinated by the creation of other works and, in order not to pay a penalty for unfulfilled obligations, he had to ask for a delay until December 1, 1830. Hugo took up the novel on July 25, 1830 and even wrote several pages, but the events of the July Revolution again distract writer from work. A new postponement - until February 1, 1831, there was no further hope. By mid-September, Hugo, according to him, “went to the Cathedral up to his neck. The novel was completed on January 15, and on March 16, 1831, the book went on sale. But even after that the work continued: the second edition, which was published in October 1832, was supplemented with three new chapters - “Abbas beat! Martini "," It will kill that "(in the fifth book) and" Dislike of the people "(in the fourth).

Long before the appearance of the text itself, the novel was titled with the name of an architectural monument, and this is no coincidence. After reading mountains of books, thoroughly studying medieval France, old Paris, its heart - Notre Dame Cathedral, Hugo created his philosophy of medieval art, calling the cathedral in the novel "the great book of mankind", which preserves the people's memory, its traditions (the construction of the cathedral lasted three centuries from XII to XV centuries). Discussions about the architecture of Hugo are filled with philosophical and historical ideas in the spirit of their time, explaining what the stone chronicle of the cathedral is about: “Every civilization begins with a theocracy and ends with democracy. This law, according to which freedom replaces unity, is written in architecture. " So the idea of ​​historical progress, the continuous movement of mankind from slavery to freedom, from aristocracy to democracy, widespread in the theories of the 1820s, received artistic expression.

Notre Dame Cathedral turned out to be the symbol and core of the novel: it personifies the spiritual life of the people, but also embodies all the dark forces arising from feudal oppression, religious superstitions and prejudices. In an effort to reveal the dependence of a man of the Middle Ages on religion, the power of dogmas that enslaved his consciousness, Hugo makes the cathedral a symbol of this power. The temple, as it were, directs the fate of the heroes of the novel. That is why the chapters devoted to him are so significant (books three, fifth, chapter four from book ten). Stained-glass windows of "flaming Gothic" decorated the cathedral in the 15th century, and a new spirit penetrated into the temple, which spoke of the birth of a new era. It was not by chance that Hugo turned to the 15th century, to the end of the Middle Ages: he needed to show the historical mission of this century for the further development of French history. Depicting the most important process of the era - in the course of the struggle against the feudal lords, the royal power was forced to seek support by its actions in the strength of the people - Hugo sharpened the historical conflict, giving it a modern political sound.

Louis XI is glad that he can undermine the power of the feudal lords with the help of his "good people", but he is frightened when he learns that the rebellion is directed against him, the king. The Parisian mob will be exterminated by the king's confidant Tristan, and the meaning of the rebellion will be explained to him by the Dutch envoys, who have experience in how rebellions are made. So in the king's bedchamber, in the Bastille, the stronghold of feudalism, Hugo brought together different social forces, different views on the plebs revolt. In the storming of Notre Dame Cathedral - a prediction of the future storming of the Bastille. With the help of a fictional siege of the cathedral, Hugo introduces a rebellious people into the novel, which he presents as a declassified rabble: these are vagabonds, thieves, homeless people from the "Court of Miracles", a kingdom within a kingdom, with their king Trulfu, their laws and justice. Parisian grief is rude, cruel, ignorant, but in its own way human in an inhuman world where witches were burned, free-thinking was punished (therefore, the symbolic role of Greve Square in the novel is great - a place of executions and festivities). Among the "people" there are no representatives of the middle class - they are immersed in their trade affairs and willingly compromise with the authorities.

The crowd plays an important role in the novel also because it ties the action together. With the crowd, the reader finds himself in the Palace of Justice for the presentation of the mystery on a festive January day in 1482 (the marriage of Margaret of Flanders to the French dauphin), with a procession of fools penetrates the exotic streets of Paris, admires them from a "bird's eye view", amazed at the picturesque, musicality of this "city orchestra ", visits the hermit's kennel, houses, shacks - everything that connects various events and many characters into one knot. It is these descriptions that should help the reader to believe in the writer's fiction, to be imbued with the spirit of the era.

The strength of Hugo's Notre Dame de Paris lies not in its historical accuracy, but in the free imagination of the romantic artist. Hugo the narrator constantly reminds of himself. Commenting on the events or actions of the character, he explains the strangeness of that era, which is so distant from us, thereby creating a special method of historical depiction. The story seems to be pushed into the background, and the novel arises from the passions and feelings of fictional characters: Esmeralda, the street dancer, Claude Frollo, the archdeacon of the cathedral, his slave Quasimodo, the poet Gringoire, the hermit of Gudula. By chance, their fates collide, a dramatic conflict ensues, the intrigue of which sometimes resembles an adventure novel. And yet the characters of Notre Dame Cathedral think, act, love, hate in the spirit of the time in which they live.

Claude Frollo, a monk who lost his faith and became a villain, was prompted by living reality. Hugo sees in him not only a criminal who destroyed an innocent soul, he shows the tragedy of a man who gave his strength, his life to the comprehension of truth. Freed from the fettering dogmatic fetters and left alone with himself and the diverse world, his restless consciousness, in conflict with old concepts, could not accept a simple life, understand Esmeralda's simple love. Turning good into evil, freedom into dependence, Frollo fights against the very nature that overcomes him. He is the victim and instrument of doom. Phoebus de Chateauper, a frivolous handsome man, turns out to be happier in love. But both Chateauper and Frollo find themselves on the same moral level in relation to love. Quasimodo, a freak, opposed to the handsome Phoebus, a simpleton, opposed to the clever Claude, is a different matter, he, thanks to his love for a gypsy, turns from a slave into a person. Esmeralda stands outside society, she is a gypsy (interest in these "free" people occupied the minds of writers in the first third of the 19th century), which means that only she is inherent in the highest morality. But since the world in which the heroes of Notre Dame de Paris lived was in the grip of a blind and cruel fate, the bright beginning was doomed to death: all the main characters perish, the old world perishes. “Phoebus de Chateaupert also ended tragically,” the author notes ironically. - He got married".

In the 1830s, despite the fact that the fashion for the historical novel had passed, Hugo's Notre Dame Cathedral was a great success. Hugo's ingenuity amazed readers. Indeed, he managed to animate his "archaeological" novel: the "local flavor" helped him to carefully write out Frollo's dark cloak and Esmeralda's exotic outfit, Chateaupera's shiny jacket and Gudula's pathetic rags; the brilliantly developed language of the novel reflected the speech of all strata of society in the 11th century. (art criticism terminology, Latin, argot). Metaphors, comparisons, antitheses, the methods of grotesque, contrast, the method of paintings - all this gave the novel that degree of "ideal and sublime" to which the writer so strived. Hugo's work has always attracted attention in Russia. Notre Dame Cathedral was translated into Russian in 1866, in 1847 by A.S. Dargomyzhsky wrote the opera Esmeralda.

Writing

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, at 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 , the arts finally civilization in the fifteenth century. However, this is not the main thing in the book. If she has one merit, it is that she is a work of imagination, whim and fantasy. " However, it is reliably known that in order to describe the cathedral and Paris in the 15th century, the depictions of the mores of the era, Hugo studied considerable historical material. Researchers of the Middle Ages meticulously checked Hugo's “documentation” and could not find any serious errors in it, despite the fact that the writer did not always draw his information from primary sources.

The main characters 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'Ange, 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 a doubt, the colorful figure of the Abbot Egrze served as the writer for Claude Frollo. At the same time, Hugo studies historical works, makes numerous extracts from books such as Sauval's History and Study of the Antiquities of the City of Paris (1654), Du Brel's Review of the Antiquities of Paris (1612), etc. The preparatory work on the novel was in a thorough and scrupulous manner; not one of the names of the minor characters, including Pierre Gringoire, was 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 the 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 the fantasy of a worker taking hundreds of forms, guided 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 remains, decrepit, one cannot help grieving and not being 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 chipping and covering 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 "

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 destinies of all the main characters of the novel are inextricably linked with the Cathedral both with the external eventual 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 radiated from this magnificent whole. 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 ”.

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, tossing, 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 that 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, handed over 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 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, the next two pages describe Claude Frollo's “confrontation” with the Cathedral: “The bell-ringer stepped back a few steps behind the archdeacon's back and suddenly, in A burst of rage rushing 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. 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 nails onto the stones, and his knees were bruised. He heard how, with every effort he made, his cassock, caught in the chute, 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, above 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 - a dark origin and physical deformity, locked from childhood in this double irresistible circle, the poor man was accustomed not to 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 now as an egg, now as a nest, now as a home, now as a homeland, then, finally, the universe.

There was undoubtedly some kind of mysterious predetermined harmony between this creature and the building. When, still quite a crumb, 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, a 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 on 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. "

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 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, 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 the 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:

These Greek letters, darkened with time and quite deeply cut into the stone, are some features characteristic of Gothic writing, imprinted 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, in them concluded, deeply struck the author.

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

This word in Greek means "Rock". The destinies of the characters in "Cathedral" are 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 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 action of the novel unfolds.

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. and otherworldly dreams, then for Hugo medieval Gothic is a wonderful folk art, and the Cathedral is not an arena of mystical, but of 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 you want, only it does not have 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.

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 a while, 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 justification from him. He continues: “... So a sparrow would have been alarmed at the sight of the angel of the Legion, unfolding its six million wings in front of him ... 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 ancient, from 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 the hive where the golden bees of the imagination bring their honey.

There are thousands of floors in this building ... Everything is full of harmony here. 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 never cease to admire more and more new generations.

At the very beginning of the novel, you can read the following lines: “And now there is nothing left 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 devotes books to them. Several centuries ago, a 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.