Victor Hugo, The Hunchback of notre dame

Victor Hugo and his Notre Dame : Social and Literary Relevance

Thesis statement

Victor Hugo is the most important French Romantic writer in the 19th century and his works have social and literary relevance

I . Introduction

Victor Hugo is a poet , dramatist , and novelist , whose brilliance in writing made him the most important French Romantic writer in the 19th century . He has a distinguished style for writing a historical novel . He fuses concrete historical details with his vivid imagination . One of his best-known creations , Notre-Dame de Paris , better known as The Hunchback

br of Notre Dame , captured the attention of the people with its melodramatic plot and social relevance

II . The author

Victor-Marie Hugo was born in Besanzon in February 26 , 1802 to Joseph-Lyopold-Sigisbert Hugo and Sophie-Francoise Trybuchet . His father is a ranking officer in Napoleon 's army . Soon after his birth , his father had a mistress and her mother had an affair with General Lahorie Despite the affairs of both , his parents were only legally separated in 1818 (Falkayn 83

During the early years of Victor 's life , his family lived in Corsica Elba , Italy , and Spain . In 1809 , General Lahorie was arrested at their house for conspiring against Napoleon and charged with treason . He was sentenced to a firing squad in 1812 (Falkayn 98

Even as an adolescent , he had already been showing his talent for writing . At the age of 15 , he had won an award in a prestigious poetry competition , making him a famous child prodigy . The statesman and writer Franzois Reny Chateaubriand serving as his inspiration , he published his first collection of poems in 1822 , the Odes et Poyies , gaining him a pension from Louis XVII . Being financially secured of his future , he married his childhood sweetheart , Adyle Foucher . On the day of his marriage , his brother Eugyne , who was secretly in love with Adyle and who had mental problems , went permanently insane (Maurois and Sheilah 187

Through the years , he engaged himself into several adulterous relationships with other women (Falkayn 103 . Lyonie Biard , whom he had his most known affair , went to jail for their relationship , but Hugo was immune to the prosecution because of his position in the government

Both Hugo 's literary and political career were active . He wrote masterpieces as well as criticism essays . However , his political stand changed from one side to the other . At one point , he was criticizing Napoleon , but at the other , he was defending his father 's role in Napoleon 's victories and attacking the monarchist regime (Maurois and Sheilah 239 . His play Cromwell in 1827 sparked a debate between the Romanticists and French Classicists . He deeply influenced the Romanticist movement despite of his indirect involvement in the campaign against the bourgeois (Maurois 152 . When he published Notre-Dame de Paris in 1831 , it became widely accepted in the popular culture

In 1841 , he was elected to the Acadymie Francaise after three failed attempts . Two years later , his daughter Lyopoldine drowned with her husband , which deeply saddened Hugo . He...