Figuring Transcendence in Les Miserables

Figuring Transcendence in Les Miserables
Author: Kathryn M. Grossman
Publisher: SIU Press
Total Pages: 384
Release: 1994
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 9780809318896

The intricate interweaving of characters, plot, subplots, themes, imagery, topography, and digressions in Hugo's prose masterpiece results in a completely integrated metaphorical system. Superficial chaos, Grossman argues, is deeply ordered by repeating patterns that produce a kind of literary fractal, a multilayered verbal network.

The Oxford Handbook of the British Musical

The Oxford Handbook of the British Musical
Author: Robert Gordon
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 777
Release: 2016-11-21
Genre: Music
ISBN: 0199988765

The Oxford Handbook of the British Musical provides a comprehensive academic survey of British musical theatre offering both a historical account of the musical's development from 1728 and a range of in-depth critical analyses of the unique forms and features of British musicals, which explore the aesthetic values and sociocultural meanings of a tradition that initially gave rise to the American musical and later challenged its modern pre-eminence. After a consideration of how John Gay's The Beggar's Opera (1728) created a prototype for eighteenth-century ballad opera, the book focuses on the use of song in early nineteenth century theatre, followed by a sociocultural analysis of the comic operas of Gilbert and Sullivan; it then examines Edwardian and interwar musical comedies and revues as well as the impact of Rodgers and Hammerstein on the West End, before analysing the new forms of the postwar British musical from The Boy Friend (1953) to Oliver! (1960). One section of the book examines the contributions of key twentieth century figures including Noel Coward, Ivor Novello, Tim Rice, Andrew Lloyd Webber, director Joan Littlewood and producer Cameron Macintosh, while a number of essays discuss both mainstream and alternative musicals of the 1960s and 1970s and the influence of the pop industry on the creation of concept recordings such as Jesus Christ Superstar (1970) and Les Misérables (1980). There is a consideration of "jukebox" musicals such as Mamma Mia! (1999), while essays on overtly political shows such as Billy Elliot (2005) are complemented by those on experimental musicals like Jerry Springer: the Opera (2003) and London Road (2011) and on the burgeoning of Black and Asian British musicals in both the West End and subsidized venues. The Oxford Handbook of the British Musical demonstrates not only the unique qualities of British musical theatre but also the vitality and variety of British musicals today.

Les Misérables and Its Afterlives

Les Misérables and Its Afterlives
Author: Kathryn M. Grossman
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 263
Release: 2016-03-09
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1317105702

Exploring the enduring popularity of Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables, this collection offers analysis of both the novel itself and its adaptations. In spite of a mixed response from critics, Les Misérables 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 Misérables 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.

Les Misérables

Les Misérables
Author: Victor Hugo
Publisher: Wordsworth Editions
Total Pages: 546
Release: 1994
Genre: Ex-convicts
ISBN: 9781853260858

"Les Miserables" is a magisterial work which is rich in both character portrayal and meticulous historical description. site accessed 03/06/2013 http://www.booktopia.com.au/les-miserables-victor-hugo/prod9781853260858.html.

Approaches to Teaching Hugo's Les Misérables

Approaches to Teaching Hugo's Les Misérables
Author: Michal P. Ginsbug
Publisher: Modern Language Association
Total Pages: 225
Release: 2018-08-01
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 160329337X

The greatest work of one of France's greatest writers, Victor Hugo's Les Misérables has captivated readers for a century and a half with its memorable characters, its indictment of injustice, its concern for those suffering in misery, and its unapologetic embrace of revolutionary ideals. The novel's length, multiple narratives, and encyclopedic digressiveness make it a pleasure to read but a challenge to teach, and this volume is designed to address the needs of instructors in a variety of courses that include the novel in excerpts or as a whole. Part 1 of the volume, "Materials," provides guidance on editions in French and in English translation, biographies, criticism, and maps. Part 2, "Approaches," contains essays that discuss the novel's conceptions of misère, sexuality, and the politics of the time and that demonstrate techniques for teaching context including the book's literary market, its adaptations, its place in popular culture, and its relation to other novels of its time.

The Later Novels of Victor Hugo

The Later Novels of Victor Hugo
Author: Kathryn M. Grossman
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 298
Release: 2012-03-29
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 0199642958

This study places the last three novels of 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 Misérables (1862), thereby illuminating the shift from a poetics of harmony to one of transcendence.

The Construction of Race in Les Misérables Fanworks

The Construction of Race in Les Misérables Fanworks
Author: Nemo Madeleine Sugimoto Martin
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Total Pages: 177
Release: 2024-10-31
Genre: Social Science
ISBN:

By analyzing contemporary Les Misérables online fandom, how can we conceptualize fandom racism, especially when it complicates the typical and sometimes reductive narratives that assign racism to only the "bad" and the conservative "other"? Victor Hugo's Les Misérables is a well-adapted novel with films, television shows, anime, and stage productions constantly bringing new fans into the fold. Fans of these adaptations use the political text as a breeding ground for contemporary political conversations about socio-economic inequality, republicanism, and gendered violence. Yet in these conversations, race is an awkward, silenced topic. This primer presents findings from the author's study of a decade of Les Misérables fanart, in which they catalogue the formulation of racial identity in the fandom. Citing interviews with fans of color, they discuss the mechanics of how fandoms leverage concepts of “diversity” to downplay and ultimately silence criticisms in the name of fandom hegemony. They argue that despite using Hugo's barricade boys to process their white guilt, fan artists often see race as skin-deep and non-specific, rarely as active cultural or ethnic identities. This study of fan racism is held around moments of racial characterization that have convinced fans of color that "nothing changes, nothing ever will." In looking at a fandom whose key principles are liberty, justice, and social equality, this research provides a base for future researchers and fans to have frank conversations about the subtle and thus more pernicious forms of racism that exist within fan spaces.

Encyclopedia of the Novel

Encyclopedia of the Novel
Author: Paul Schellinger
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 838
Release: 2014-04-08
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1135918260

The Encyclopedia of the Novel is the first reference book that focuses on the development of the novel throughout the world. Entries on individual writers assess the place of that writer within the development of the novel form, explaining why and in exactly what ways that writer is importnant. Similarly, an entry on an individual novel discusses the importance of that novel not only form, analyzing the particular innovations that novel has introduced and the ways in which it has influenced the subsequent course of the genre. A wide range of topic entries explore the history, criticism, theory, production, dissemination and reception of the novel. A very important component of the Encyclopedia of the Novel is its long surveys of development of the novel in various regions of the world.

Text, Image, and the Problem with Perfection in Nineteenth-Century France

Text, Image, and the Problem with Perfection in Nineteenth-Century France
Author: Daniel Sipe
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 254
Release: 2016-04-01
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1317045696

In the decades after the French Revolution, philosophers, artists, and social scientists set out to chart and build a way to a new world and their speculative blueprints circulated like banknotes in a parallel economy of ideas. Examining representations of ideal societies in nineteenth-century French culture, Daniel Sipe argues that the dream-image of the literary or art-historical utopia does not disappear but rather is profoundly altered by its proximity to the social utopianism of the day. Sipe focuses on this persistent afterlife in utopias ranging from François-René de Chateaubriand’s Amerindian utopia in Atala (1801) to the utopian spoof of J.J. Grandville’s illustrated novel Un autre monde (1844). He proposes a new reading of Etienne Cabet’s seminal utopian novel, Voyage en Icarie (1840) and offers an original perspective on the gendered utopias of technological inspiration that authors such as Charles Barbara and Auguste Villiers de l’Isle-Adam penned in the second half of the century. In addition, Sipe considers utopias or important readings of the century’s rampant utopianism in, among others, Victor Hugo, Alfred de Vigny, Théophile Gautier, Charles Baudelaire, and Gustave Courbet. His book provides the historical context for comprehending the significance and implications of this enigmatic afterlife in nineteenth-century utopian art and literature.