FRIT1912W

What makes Victor Hugo's 1862 Les Misérables such an enduring novel that it has been adapted over a hundred times from European movies to Japanese anime, a graphic novel from India, and a telenovela from Mexico - and of course one of the most successful musicals ever created? In this class we will read the unabridged novel in English translation (1,400 pages!) through a technique called Split Reading and Group Summaries, where each student reads only about 250 pages.To answer what makes this novel unique, we will organize research teams that will investigate in depth key aspects of the novel within a forensic and archaeological approach. What was the situation of the working classes in Europe by mid-19th-century? Why are criminality, foster parentage, policing, enrichment, and revolution so closely intertwined? Where is the particular creativity of Hugo in sketching this immense panorama of Paris and France at the threshold of modernity?With the novel and its film and musical adaptations as focus, we will discover and probe the methods at our disposal to assess and represent the past as a living reality. We will work mostly through Reading Groups and Research Groups (which will set some of our secondary readings). At the end of the semester each student will offer a creative retort to Les Misérables in the form, media and tone of their choice.

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