Notre-Dame de Paris: the Cathedral in the Book

Although universally acknowledged as a thrilling melodrama, Hugo's Notre-Dame de Paris has not fared well with literary critics for its artistry. Critical approaches have remained largely separated: concentrating either on Hugo's art-historical digressions or on patterns of imagery and the action of the plot. However, an analysis based on the figure of the cathedral that gives the book its title reveals that its unique character as a combination of Gothic and Romanesque elements represents the idea of a graft, pointing towards Hugo's definiton of the ideal "complete" literary form, illustrated by the epico-dramatic structure of the novel. (IMZ-J)