ABSTRACT
The identity of Paris draws on a persistent awareness of historical and cultural memory rich in symbolism and linked in particular with the French Revolution. This chapter explores how these defining qualities of Paris have been differently dramatised in the three novels Les Misérables, The Phantom of the Opera and Aspects of Love. The literary sources are examined to show how fact and fiction in the portrayals of Paris have been fused through the mediation of each author’s biography. Comparisons with the London stage adaptations as musicals in the 1980s show further refinements to the characterisation of Paris, including through the temporal interplay of framing devices. Finally, these otherwise contrasting literary and dramatic works are linked through the refractions between past and present that Paris connotes, especially in relation to revolutionary ideals of freedom.
