This study places the last three novels of Victor Hugo's maturity - Les Travailleurs de la mer (1866), L'Homme qui rit (1869), and Quatrevingt-Treize (1874) - within the context of his artistic development after the success of Les Miserables (1862). By situating these historical narratives in relation to each other, to all of Hugo's previous fiction, and to a number of poetic and critical works published in exile and in the initial years of the Third Republic, it illuminates the final structural and thematic shifts from a poetics of harmony to one of transcendence. As in Les Miserables, the disharmony associated with social tumult, apocalyptic vision, and oxymoronic tensions provides an essential component of the later Hugo's Romantic sublime. Instead of merely capitalizing on the runaway success of Les Miserables by recycling its prominent features, however, each novel makes an original contribution to the political and aesthetic trajectory inscribed by the entire oeuvre. Each testifies as well to the wizardry of Hugo's own 'special effects' that contribute to his story-telling genius. Such effects, especially the dizzying spatial optics and manipulation of temporal dimensions, function not as mere playful gimmicks or novelistic flourishes but as strategies for figuring and communicating the ideal, both political and artistic. The unique interplay of poetic and historical discourse in each text reconfigures our disordered experience of the world into something far more coherent: a construction of meaning that strives to change perceptions and to promote social action.

Exploring the enduring popularity of Victor Hugo's Les Miserables, this collection offers analysis of both the novel itself and its adaptations. In spite of a mixed response from critics, Les Miserables instantly became a global bestseller. Since its successful publication over 150 years ago, it has traveled across different countries, cultures, and media, giving rise to more than 60 international film and television variations, numerous radio dramatizations, animated versions, comics, and stage plays. Most famously, it has inspired the world's longest running musical, which itself has generated a wealth of fan-made and online content. Whatever its form, Hugo's tale of social injustice and personal redemption continues to permeate the popular imagination. This volume draws together essays from across a variety of fields, combining readings of Les Miserables with reflections on some of its multimedia afterlives, including musical theater and film from the silent period to today's digital platforms. The contributors offer new insights into the development and reception of Hugo's celebrated classic, deepening our understanding of the novel as a work that unites social commentary with artistic vision and raising important questions about the cultural practice of adaptation.

Exploring the enduring popularity of Victor Hugo's Les Miserables, this collection offers analysis of both the novel itself and its adaptations. In spite of a mixed response from critics, Les Miserables instantly became a global bestseller. Since its successful publication over 150 years ago, it has traveled across different countries, cultures, and media, giving rise to more than 60 international film and television variations, numerous radio dramatizations, animated versions, comics, and stage plays. Most famously, it has inspired the world's longest running musical, which itself has generated a wealth of fan-made and online content. Whatever its form, Hugo's tale of social injustice and personal redemption continues to permeate the popular imagination. This volume draws together essays from across a variety of fields, combining readings of Les Miserables with reflections on some of its multimedia afterlives, including musical theater and film from the silent period to today's digital platforms. The contributors offer new insights into the development and reception of Hugo's celebrated classic, deepening our understanding of the novel as a work that unites social commentary with artistic vision and raising important questions about the cultural practice of adaptation.

The result of interdisciplinary collaboration rarely undertaken in such a systematic manner. Confrontations brings together literary critics, historians, and art historians to reflect on a cluster of themes inspired by the commemoration of the centenary of the Dreyfus Affair. From literary expressions of revolt in all its excess - and nuance - to the complexities of political confrontations illuminated by analyses of "J'Accuse...!", this book explores the tensions and dissent kindled throughout the century by rhetorical, artistic, and political audaciousness. These essays invite the reconsideration of diverse forms of opposition, repression, and resistance, from the most blatant to the most subtle, as expressed through a variety of objects: word, act, and image become political gestures, just as politics is inspired by artistic and literary creation. After examining diverse forms of textual negotiation, the book explores acts of defiance and concludes with a discussion of a range of polemics, including but not limited to the Dreyfus Affair. This volume represents a reference source rich in new perspectives on the emblematic controversies of the nineteenth century -, literary, artistic, social, and political.

First published in 1994, Figuring Transcendence in "Les Miserables" is a book-length study of Victor Hugo's Les Miserables. Kathryn M. Grossman's authoritative command of Hugo's work and Hugo criticism enables her to situate the novelist's masterpiece in relation both to his earlier novels-up to and including Notre-Dame de Paris-and to the poetry published during his exile under the Second Empire. Drawing on Paul Ricoeur's theory of metaphor and on Thomas Weiskel's analysis of the romantic sublime, Grossman illustrates how the novel's motifs and structures correspond to a closely connected set of ethical, spiritual, political, and aesthetic concerns.

First published in 1994, Figuring Transcendence in "Les Miserables" is a book-length study of Victor Hugo's Les Miserables. Kathryn M. Grossman's authoritative command of Hugo's work and Hugo criticism enables her to situate the novelist's masterpiece in relation both to his earlier novels-up to and including Notre-Dame de Paris-and to the poetry published during his exile under the Second Empire. Drawing on Paul Ricoeur's theory of metaphor and on Thomas Weiskel's analysis of the romantic sublime, Grossman illustrates how the novel's motifs and structures correspond to a closely connected set of ethical, spiritual, political, and aesthetic concerns.