{"title":"Notre-Dame as the Memory of Paris: Hugo, the Historical Novel and Conservation","authors":"Sarah Zammit","doi":"10.55939/a5050pxtvl","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Controversies surrounding the restoration and representation of the narrative and memory of Notre-Dame de Paris are not new. The latest debates remind us that the building has been at the centre of conservation controversies since the nineteenth century. But why is Notre-Dame de Paris central to these debates? The answer appears to lie in its function as a mnemonic device for Paris and the French nation.\nThis paper focuses on the four literary pieces published by Victor Hugo in the period between 1823 and 1832 – ‘Le Bande Noir’ (‘The Black Band’), ‘Note sur la Destruction des Monuments en France’ (‘Note on the Destruction of Monuments in France’), ‘Guerre aux Démolisseurs!’ (‘War on the Demolishers!’) and Notre-Dame de Paris (also known as The Hunchback of Notre-Dame). Through an analysis of these four texts, the paper will attempt to understand Hugo’s convictions about the role of buildings – especially Notre-Dame de Paris – in establishing the memory of the city and the nation, and how these in turn underpinned his arguments for conservation.\nWhilst these texts were all written in a period before the development of key contemporary concepts in the psychology and neuroscience of memory, this paper nevertheless uses the concepts of memory, imagination and Mental Time Travel to try to understand the kind of memory work that the Cathedral performs, and that Hugo suggests it performs in his writing. By examining how Hugo’s literature augmented and engaged the reader’s memory and imagination of the past, this paper will explain how Hugo romanticised the idea that the building was a witness to history. The paper ultimately argues that Hugo positioned Notre-Dame de Paris not only as the centrepiece in his own fiction, but as a beacon of memory for Paris and France, and as such the building came to represent Paris, and indeed the nation as a whole.","PeriodicalId":445270,"journal":{"name":"Proceedings of the Society of Architectural Historians, Australia and New Zealand.","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0000,"publicationDate":"2023-06-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Proceedings of the Society of Architectural Historians, Australia and New Zealand.","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.55939/a5050pxtvl","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"","JCRName":"","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Controversies surrounding the restoration and representation of the narrative and memory of Notre-Dame de Paris are not new. The latest debates remind us that the building has been at the centre of conservation controversies since the nineteenth century. But why is Notre-Dame de Paris central to these debates? The answer appears to lie in its function as a mnemonic device for Paris and the French nation.
This paper focuses on the four literary pieces published by Victor Hugo in the period between 1823 and 1832 – ‘Le Bande Noir’ (‘The Black Band’), ‘Note sur la Destruction des Monuments en France’ (‘Note on the Destruction of Monuments in France’), ‘Guerre aux Démolisseurs!’ (‘War on the Demolishers!’) and Notre-Dame de Paris (also known as The Hunchback of Notre-Dame). Through an analysis of these four texts, the paper will attempt to understand Hugo’s convictions about the role of buildings – especially Notre-Dame de Paris – in establishing the memory of the city and the nation, and how these in turn underpinned his arguments for conservation.
Whilst these texts were all written in a period before the development of key contemporary concepts in the psychology and neuroscience of memory, this paper nevertheless uses the concepts of memory, imagination and Mental Time Travel to try to understand the kind of memory work that the Cathedral performs, and that Hugo suggests it performs in his writing. By examining how Hugo’s literature augmented and engaged the reader’s memory and imagination of the past, this paper will explain how Hugo romanticised the idea that the building was a witness to history. The paper ultimately argues that Hugo positioned Notre-Dame de Paris not only as the centrepiece in his own fiction, but as a beacon of memory for Paris and France, and as such the building came to represent Paris, and indeed the nation as a whole.
围绕巴黎圣母院的叙事和记忆的修复和再现的争议并不新鲜。最近的争论提醒我们,自19世纪以来,这座建筑一直处于保护争议的中心。但为什么巴黎圣母院是这些争论的中心呢?答案似乎在于它作为巴黎和法兰西民族的记忆装置的功能。本文重点研究了维克多·雨果在1823年至1832年间发表的四篇文学作品——《黑带》(Le Bande Noir)、《法国纪念碑毁灭笔记》(Note sur la Destruction des Monuments en France)、《Guerre aux dsammolisurs !》(War on the demolition !)和巴黎圣母院(Notre-Dame de Paris)(又名“钟楼怪人”)。通过对这四篇文章的分析,本文将试图理解雨果关于建筑——尤其是巴黎圣母院——在建立城市和国家记忆中的作用的信念,以及这些信念如何反过来支持他的保护论点。虽然这些文本都是在心理学和记忆神经科学的关键当代概念发展之前写的,但本文仍然使用记忆,想象和心理时间旅行的概念来试图理解大教堂所做的记忆工作,以及雨果在他的作品中所暗示的记忆工作。通过研究雨果的文学作品如何增强和吸引读者对过去的记忆和想象,本文将解释雨果如何将这座建筑作为历史见证的想法浪漫化。这篇论文最后认为,雨果不仅将巴黎圣母院定位为自己小说的中心,而且将其定位为巴黎和法国记忆的灯塔,因此这座建筑代表了巴黎,甚至整个国家。