The Hunchback of Notre Dame (65 page)
Read The Hunchback of Notre Dame Online
Authors: Victor Hugo
Tags: #Literature: Classics, #French Literature, #Paris (France), #France, #Children's Books, #General, #Fiction, #Ages 4-8 Fiction, #Classics
Comments & Questions
In this section, we aim to provide the reader with an array of perspectives on the text, as well as questions that challenge those perspectives. The commentary has been culled from sources as diverse as reviews contemporaneous with the work, letters written by the author, literary criticism of later generations, and appreciations written throughout the work’s history. Following the commentary, a series of questions seeks to filter Victor Hugo’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame through a variety of points of view and bring about a richer understanding of this enduring work.
Comments
FOREIGN QUARTERLY REVIEW
Notre Dame de Paris
has already, within a few months of its publication, run through several editions; and as long as a taste remains for the extraordinary, or perhaps it should be called the tremendous, such works must be popular. They appeal to an appetite which is shared by the peer with the peasant. Victor Hugo is not a writer in whose hands the power of moulding the human sympathies is likely to be idle. He is eloquent, his fancy is active, his imagination fertile; and passion, which gives life and energy to the conceptions of a writer, and which, acting upon ideas as fire does upon the parched woods of America, sets the whole scene in a flame, is in him readily roused. Hugo may be called an affected writer, a mannerist, or a horrorist, but he can never be accused of the great vice, in modern times, the most heinous of all—dullness. A volume of Hugo is an active stimulant.
—July 1831
THE ATHENÆUM
It is especially in
Notre Dame de Paris—a
terrible and powerful narrative, which haunts the memory with the horrible distinctness of a nightmare—that M. Victor Hugo displays, in all their strength, at once the enthusiasm and self-possession, the boldness and flexibility of his genius. What varieties of suffering are heaped together in these melancholy pages—what ruins built up—what terrible passions put in action—what strange incidents produced! All the foul-ness and all the superstitions of the middle ages are melted, and stirred, and mixed together with a trowel of mingled gold and iron. The poet has breathed upon all those ruins of the past; and, at his will, they have taken their old forms and risen up again, to their true stature, upon that Parisian soil which toiled and groaned, of yore, beneath their hideous weight, like the earth under Etna. Behold those narrow streets, those swarming squares, those cut-throat alleys, those soldiers, merchants, and churches; look upon that host of passions circulating through the whole—all breathing, and burning, and armed!
—July 8, 1837
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
The moral end that the author had before him in the conception of
Notre Dame de Paris
was (he tells us) to “denounce” the external fatality that hangs over men in the form of foolish and inflexible superstition. To speak plainly, this moral purpose seems to have mighty little to do with the artistic conception; moreover it is very questionably handled, while the artistic conception is developed with the most consummate success. Old Paris lives for us with newness of life: we have ever before our eyes the city cut into three by the two arms of the river, the boat-shaped island “moored” by five bridges to the different shores, and the two unequal towns on either hand. We forget all that enumeration of palaces and churches and convents which occupies so many pages of admirable description, and the thoughtless reader might be inclined to conclude from this, that they were pages thrown away; but this is not so: we forget, indeed, the details as we forget or do not see the different layers of paint on a completed picture; but the thing desired has been accomplished, and we carry away with us a sense of the “Gothic profile” of the city, of the “surprising forest of pinnacles and towers and belfries,” and we know not what of rich and intricate and quaint. And throughout, Notre Dame has been held up over Paris by a height far greater than that of its twin towers: the Cathedral is present to us from the first page to the last; the title has given us the clew, and already in the Palace of Justice the story begins to attach itself to that central building by character after character. It is purely an effect of mirage; Notre Dame does not, in reality, thus dominate and stand out above the city; and any one who should visit it, in the spirit of the Scott-tourists to Edinburgh or the Trossachs, would be almost offended at finding nothing more than this old church thrust away into a corner. It is purely an effect of mirage, as we say; but it is an effect that permeates and possesses the whole book with astonishing consistency and strength. And then, Hugo has peopled this Gothic city, and, above all, this Gothic church, with a race of men even more distinctly Gothic than their surroundings. We know this generation already: we have seen them clustered about the worn capitals of pillars, or craning forth over the church-leads with the open mouths of gargoyles. About them all there is that sort of stiff quaint unreality, that conjunction of the grotesque, and even of a certain bourgeois smugness, with passionate contortion and horror, that is so characteristic of Gothic art. Esmeralda is somewhat an exception; she and the goat traverse the story like two children who have wandered in a dream. The finest moment of the book is when these two share with the two other leading characters, Don Claude and Quasimodo, the chill shelter of the old cathedral. It is here that we touch most intimately the generative artistic idea of the romance: are they not all four taken out of some quaint moulding, illustrative of the Beatitudes, or the Ten Commandments, or the seven deadly sins? What is Quasimodo but an animated gargoyle? What is the whole book but the reanimation of Gothic art?
—The Cornhill Magazine
(August 1874)
ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE
[Hugo,] the greatest poet of this century [,] has been more than such a force of indirect and gradual beneficence as every great writer must needs be. His spiritual service has been in its inmost essence, in its highest development, the service of a healer and a comforter, the work of a redeemer and a prophet. Above all other apostles who have brought us each the glad tidings of his peculiar gospel, the free gifts of his special inspiration, has this one deserved to be called by the most beautiful and tender of all human titles—the son of consolation. His burning wrath and scorn unquenchable were fed with light and heat from the inexhaustible dayspring of his love—a fountain of everlasting and unconsuming fire.
—Victor Hugo
(1886)
VICTOR BROMBERT
The principle of effacement in Hugo’s work has far-reaching implications. It not only signals a steady displacement of the historical center of gravity but corresponds to the dynamics of undoing that Hugo reads into the process of nature and of creation. It also denies the priority, and even the status, of the historical event. History itself—both as event and as discourse on the event—must ultimately be effaced in favor of transhistorical values. To be historically committed is a moral responsibility. But more important still is the need to understand that beyond history’s inability to provide meaning, there is history as evil. What is involved is not a banal inventory of history’s horrors—the brutalities, contusions, fractures, mutilations, and amputations attributed to man throughout history by the narrator of
Notre-Dame de Paris
as he considers the historical ravages that disfigured gothic architecture. More fundamentally, evil is linked to the very notion of sequentiality.
—Victor Hugo and the Visionary Novel
(1984)
Questions
1. Through the character of Pierre Gringoire, how does Hugo represent the figure of the writer/artist? What kinds of conclusions can we draw from this vision?
2. Who is the villain of the novel? Claude Frollo? Phoebus de Châteaupers? The king, Louis XI? What does this ambiguity suggest?
3. In the French original, the titular hero (so to speak) of this novel is the cathedral of Notre-Dame, not the “hunchback.” Which
title-Notre-Dame
de
Paris
or the title given in the English translation,
The Hunchback of Notre Dame—
more accurately names the novel’s thematic core?
4. In the manifesto-like preface to his play
Cromwell,
Hugo called for a new aesthetic that brought together the grotesque and the sublime. Clearly,
The Hunchback
is informed by this aesthetic. Is the result to be admired or deplored? What, for example, is the effect on characterization?
5.
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
has been popular for roughly 170 years. It has generated many movies, musicals, plays, and a library of commentary. How would you explain this enduring popularity?
For Further Reading
Biography and General Interest
Bloom, Harold, ed.
Victor Hugo.
Modern Critical Views. New York: Chelsea House, 1988.
Frey, John Andrew.
A Victor
Hugo
Encyclopedia.
Westport, CT, and London: Greenwood Press, 1999.
Georgel, Pierre.
Drawings by Victor Hugo: Catalogue.
London: Victoria and Albert Museum, 1974.
Peyre, Henri.
Victor Hugo: Philosophy and Poetry.
Translated by Roda P. Roberts. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1980.
Porter, Laurence.
Victor Hugo.
Twayne’s World Authors Series, no. 883. New York: Twayne Publishers, 1999.
Robb, Graham.
Victor Hugo: A Biography.
New York and London: W. W. Norton, 1998.
Ward, Patricia.
The Medievalism of Victor Hugo.
University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1975.
Criticism
Brombert, Victor.
Victor Hugo and the Visionary Novel.
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1984.
Grant, Richard B.
The Perilous Quest: Image, Myth, and Prophecy in the Narratives of Victor Hugo.
Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1968.
Grossman, Kathryn M.
The Early Novels of Victor Hugo: Towards a Poetics of Hannony.
Geneva: Librairie Droz, 1986.
Works Cited in the Introduction
Hugo, Victor.
Oeuvres complètes.
18 vols. Edited by Jean Massin. Paris: Le Club français du livre, 1967-1970.
Greek word that signifies “fate.”
The king’s eldest son; used as a title from 1349 to 1830.
Reference to Henri Sauval, a seventeenth-century historian whose study Histoire
et recherches des antiquités de la ville de Paris (Antiquities of Paris)
Hugo draws upon frequently in the novel for descriptions of the period depicted.
Reference to Théophile de Viau (1590-1626), poet who was imprisoned with Ravaillac.
Horned and hairy (Latin).
Thibaut the gamester (Latin).
Thibaut of the dice (Latin).
Here are the Saturnalian nuts that we send thee (Latin).
Lined with gray fur (Latin).
Four farthings—or a fart (Latin).
Behind the rider sits black worry (Latin; from Roman lyric poet Horace [65-8 B.C.],
Odes
, book 3, ode 1).
Never let a god intervene (Latin; from Horace,
Ars Poetica
, c. 13 B.C.).
Hail Jupiter! Citizens, applaud! (Latin).
The populace’s shout of joy in the Middle Ages.
Cordial made from wine and flavored with spices.
A play on words; “dolphin,” the ocean-dwelling, whale-like mammal, and “dauphin,” a French king’s eldest son, are spelled identically in French as
dauphin.
Let us drink like popes (Latin).
Company of clerks of the Parliament of Paris.
Cassock full of wine! (Latin).
In the original French,
gant,
meaning glove, is used as a play on words with the name of the Belgian city of Ghent.
Pearls before swine (Latin).
Swine before a pearl (Latin); a pun on the name Margaret, which means “pearl.”
A kiss brings pain (Spanish).
Nun of the Order of the “Sack,” a name derived from the sack-like garment members of this group wore.
A chest richly decorated / They found in a well, / And in it new banners / With figures most terrifying (Spanish).
Arab horsemen they are / Looking like statues, / With swords, and over their shoulders / Crossbows that shoot well (Spanish).
Men who feigned insanity.
The Realm of Gamblers.
Reference to “The Hare and the Frogs,” a fable by Jean de la Fontaine (1621-1695).
Every way, highway, and byway (Latin).
Hail, star of the sea! (Latin).
Charity, kind sir! Charity! (Italian).
Kind sir, something with which to buy a piece of bread! (Spanish).
Charity! (Latin).
Where do you go, man? (Spanish).
Take off your hat, man! (Spanish).
Slang for King of the Beggars.
King of the Gypsies.
Leader of the Gamblers.
Slang term signifying “Men of Slang.”
All things are included in philosophy, all men in the philosopher (Latin).
Show one’s skill at picking pockets.
When the bright-hued birds are quiet, / And the earth-(Spanish).
Reference to the giant who is the hero of a 1752 story of the same name by Voltaire (pen name of François Marie Arouet, 1694-1778).
Author’s note:
[from Histoire
Gallicane]
(
Gallican History),
book ii, period ii, fo. 130, p. 1, by Robert Cenalis.
Author’s note:
This is also known, according to situation, race, or style, as Lombard, Saxon, or Byzantine; four sister and parallel architectures, each having its own peculiar characteristics, but all springing from the same principle: the circular arch.
“Facies non omnibus una / non diversa tamen, qualem,”
etc. [“Appearance not the same for all, not different however, such”; Latin, from Ovid’s
Metamorphoses,
book 2, lines 13-14].
Author’s note:
This part of the spire, which was not made of timber, was destroyed by lightning in 1823.
“The dam damning Paris set Paris free” (French).
Stomping ground of Parisian students, the present Faubourg Saint-Germain.
Fidelity to kings, though broken at times by revolts, has procured many privileges for citizens (Latin).
Place of execution and/or burial of the executed that will figure prominently in the outcome of the novel.
Reference to Pierre Mignard (1610-1695), a well-known French painter and contemporary of the comic dramatist Molière (1622-1673).
Author’s note added to the fifth edition of May
1831: It is with grief mingled with indignation that we hear that there is a project to enlarge, alter, reconstruct—that is, to destroy—this beautiful palace. Modern architects are too clumsy to touch the delicate work of the Renaissance. We still hope that they dare not attempt the task. Besides, the demolition of the Tuileries now would be not only a brutal deed at which a drunken vandal might blush, it would be an act of treason. The Tuileries is not just an artistic masterpiece of the sixteenth century, it is a page in the history of the nineteenth century. This palace no longer belongs to the king, but to the people. Let us leave it as it is. The French revolution has twice marked its brow. In one façade are the bullets of August 10; in the other, the bullets of July 29. It is sacred.
From the period of the French Revolution, when imitation of antiquity was in vogue.
Deal out blows and pull out hair (Latin).
Sluggard’s altar (Latin).
The guardian of a monstrous herd, and himself more monstrous (Latin).
A sturdy boy is a naughty boy (Latin).
Title given to a certain level of priesthood, roughly equivalent to “Reverend.”
A brawl, resulting directly from too liberal potations (Latin).
A street of ill-fame, known for its gambling houses.
Where the world comes to an end (Latin).
Lawful (Latin).
Unlawful (Latin).
Author’s note:
Hugo II of Bisuncio, 1326-1332.
Certain ladies of a high degree may not be turned away without offense (Latin).
Slang term for foot soldiers.
Ho! Ho! Claude with the cripple! (Latin).
The The Abbot of Saint-Martin (Latin).
Of Predestination and Free Will
(Latin); Honorius of Autun was a theologian and philosopher who flourished in the first half of the twelfth century.
A pun on the word
abricotier,
French for “apricot tree.”
Name for a gossip.
Writing from right to left and back again from left to right.
The Abbot of Saint-Martin, that is to say the King of France, is canon, according to custom, and has the small benefice which Saint-Venantis had, and shall sit in the seat of the treasurer (Latin).
Author’s note:
This comet, for deliverance from which Pope Calixtus, uncle to Borgia, ordered a public prayer, is the same that reappeared in 1835.
A dignity to which is attached no little power in dealing with public safety, together with many prerogatives and rights (Latin).
Author’s note:
Crown accounts, 1383.
Be silent and hope (Latin).
A strong shield is the safety of the leaders (Latin).
It is yours (Latin).
Pray, thou (Latin).
Song blossom.
Daisy.
A deaf man is absurd (Latin).
Reference to Guillaume de Salluste du Bartas (1544-1590), popular French poet of the sixteenth century.
A man and a woman alone together do not think about paternosters (Latin); the Lord’s Prayer is also known as the Pater Noster (Our Father).
Expressions such as “how” and “verily” (Latin).
Truly these cookshops are wonderful places! (Spanish).
I breathe; I hope (Latin).
Whence thence? (Latin). Man is a monster to men (Latin). The stars, a fortress, the name, a wonder (Latin). A great book, great evil (Greek). Dare to be wise (Latin). [The spirit] blows where it wants (Latin).
Account the Lord of heaven thy ruler upon earth (Latin).
They tore the robe (Latin).
It is in Greek, it is not read (Latin).
The surnames signify Pierre as “the Slaughterer” and Baptiste as “the Rook.”
He who will not work shall not eat (Latin).
Against goads, hot blades, torture, shackles, / straps, chains, dungeons, iron collars (Latin).
Bound naked, you weigh a hundred pounds when you are hung up by the feet (Latin).
A witch or ghost! (Latin).
Dialogues upon the Powers and Works of Demons
(Latin); written by Byzantine political figure and scholar Michel Psellus (1018-1078).
There is no place without its genius (Latin).
By preserving it under a special form the soul is saved (Latin).
He is unworthy who dwelleth among evil words (Latin).
Concerning Regular and Irregular Figures
(Latin).
Therefore, Gentlemen, the witchcraft being proved and the crime made manifest, as likewise the criminal intention, in the name of the holy church of Notre-Dame de Paris, which is seized of the right of all manner of justice high and low, within this inviolate island of the city, we declare by the tenor of these presents that we require, firstly, a pecuniary compensation; secondly, penance before the great portal of the cathedral church of Notre-Dame; thirdly, a sentence, by the virtue of which this witch, with her goat, shall either in the public square, commonly called the Place de Grève, or in the island stretching out into the Seine, adjacent to the royal gardens, be executed! (Latin).
Oh, the monk’s Latin! (Latin).
Term signifying “I say no!”