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  3. Clues suggesting that Quasimodo, the tragic hero of Victor Hugo’s novel The Hunchback of Notre Dame, is based on a historical fi

Clues suggesting that Quasimodo, the tragic hero of Victor Hugo’s novel The Hunchback of Notre Dame, is based on a historical fi

admin2020-09-03  26
问题    Clues suggesting that Quasimodo, the tragic hero of Victor Hugo’s novel The Hunchback of Notre Dame, is based on a historical figure have been uncovered in the memoirs of Henry Sibson, a 19th-century British sculptor who was employed at the cathedral at around the time the book was written and who described a hunchbacked (驼背的) stonemason also working there.
   The documents were acquired by the Tate Archive in 1999 after they were discovered in the attic of a house in Cornwall. However, the references to a "hunchbacked sculptor" working at Notre Dame were just discovered, as the memoirs were catalogued ahead of the archive’s 40th anniversary this year.
   The seven-volume memoirs documented Sibson’s time in Paris during the 1820s, when he was employed by contractors to work on repairs to Notre Dame Cathedral. In the course of work, he met with Trajan, a carver under the government sculptor whose name he forgot, all that he knew was that he was humpbacked and he did not like to mix with carvers. In a later entry, Sibson again mentioned the sculptor, this time recalling his name as "Mon. Le Bossu". Le Bossu is French for "the hunchback".
   Adrian Glew, the Tate archivist, who made the discovery, said: "When I saw the references to the humpbacked sculptor at Notre Dame, and saw that the dates matched the time of Hugo’s interest in the Cathedral, the hairs on the back of my neck rose and I thought I should look into it."
   Hugo began writing The Hunchback of Notre Dame in 1828 and the book was published three years later. He had a strong interest in the restoration of the Cathedral, with architecture features as a major theme in the book. Hugo publicly opposed the original neoclassical (新古典主义的) scheme for Notre Dame’s restoration led by the architect Etienne-Hippolyte Godde—the same scheme which Sibson describes Le Bossu and Trajan working on—favoring a more Gothic style for the cathedral. The publication of The Hunchback of Notre Dame in 1831, which made Hugo one of France’s most acclaimed authors, was widely credited with prompting the Gothic restoration of the Cathedral in 1844, designed by the architect Eugene Viollet-le-Duc, which Hugo had championed.
   Professor Sean Hand, the head of the Department of French Studies at the University of Warwick, and an expert on Hugo, said: "It is a fascinating discovery. Many scholars have tried to link Quasimodo’s deformities with certain medical conditions, but I have never seen any reference to a historical character that he may have been based upon. It sounds entirely plausible, and if Hugo was indeed inspired by this deformed stonemason at Notre Dame, it further renews our appreciation of his amazing imaginative powers to take details from real life and weave them into magical literature."
What has been found in the memoirs of Henry Sibson?
选项 A、The background information of the 19th-century France.
B、The imagination and mythical creation of Victor Hugo.
C、The real-life inspiration behind the deformed Quasimodo.
D、The private life and associations of Victor Hugo.
答案C
解析
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