Hunchback of Notre Dame (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) (78 page)

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Authors: Victor Hugo

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—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.