The Man of Action of French Romanticism. Aesthetic Views of Victor Hugo and their Embodiment in Poetry and Dramaturgy

The subject of the study is the fundamental philosophical and aesthetic problems in the romantic aesthetics of one of its leaders in France - Victor Hugo. The evolution of his aesthetic views is traced - from adherence to the aesthetics of classicism and royalist views to the established theory and artistic practice of romanticism, colored with democratic pathos. The core of Hugo's aesthetics is revealed - the original concept of the grotesque, which has found a convincing embodiment in his poetry, drama, historical novels. Such main themes as the correlation of the tragic and the comic, the beautiful and the ugly, the sublime and the base, content and form, freedom and order, historical truth and fiction in art, romantic symbolization in the context of the formation of the concept of the artistic essence of romanticism by Hugo are considered. The features of his artistic and aesthetic concept related to the national specifics of art, local color, the problems of artistic taste, inspiration, imagination, aesthetic pleasure, artistic style, genius, talent are analyzed. The main conclusion of the study is the conclusion that all these topics form the basis of Hugo's judgments about the nature of romantic drama as the pinnacle of 19th century poetry and its differences from classic tragedy. The multidimensional nature of this study predetermined the use of a number of methodological approaches: philosophical and aesthetic approach, art history analysis, comparative, interdisciplinary methods. The author's special contribution lies in the fact that the study of Hugo's aesthetic theory and artistic practice is based on original material. The article provides a comparative analysis of the embodiment of Hugo's aesthetic views in various types and genres of art. Such a study was undertaken for the first time in domestic science.