Hugo's Poetics of Harmony: Transcending Dissonance in Notre-Dame de Paris

The union of Gothic and Romanesque architecture in Notre-Dame de Paris exemplifies one of the major repeating patterns in Victor Hugo's novel-the triumph of harmony over apparent disorder. Similarly, Quasimodo and la Esmeralda's mixed alliance resists a simplistic antithetical interpretation. Their relationship of reciprocity adumbrates that of Revolutionary brotherhood, whereas Claude Frollo represents the paternalistic forces of the French monarchy. Thus are the Romanesque/architectural/monarchic/Neoclassical "fathers" eventually supplanted by their Gothic/printed/republican/Romantic "children." By incorporating paternal rules, however, these offspring achieve a freedom and originality grounded in eternal laws, thereby assuring their own perpetuity. (KMG)