Quasimodo
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Quasimodo is one of the main characters of the 1831 novel The Hunchback of Notre Dame (Notre Dame de Paris in French) by French author Victor Hugo.
Quasimodo's physical deformities, which include his famous hump, invoke fear in others. The novel opens to a carnival, where Quasimodo's physical appearance is mistaken for a costume.
He was adopted as a baby by Claude Frollo and made to be the bell-ringer in the Cathedral. Deaf, blind, and barely able to speak, he falls in love with the young gypsy girl Esmeralda.
Many adaptations and movie versions of Hugo's novel have been made. Several actors have played Quasimodo including:
- Lon Chaney, Sr.
- Charles Laughton
- Anthony Quinn
- Anthony Hopkins
- Tom Hulce provided the voice of Quasimodo for the 1996 Disney animated version, and its sequel.
Salvatore Quasimodo
Salvatore Quasimodo (20 August 1901 - 14 June 1968; pron. qwah-ZIM-o-do) is the name of a 20th-Century Italian poet, awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1959. His collections of poetry include Ed è subito sera (And it's suddenly evening), Giorno dopo giorno (Day after day), La vita non è sogno (Life is not a dream), Il falso e vero verde (The true and false green), La terra impareggiabile (The incomparable earth), and Dare e avere (Profit and loss), as well as Lirici greci, a noteworthy Italian translation of lyric poems from ancient Greece.
Quasimodo Sunday
Quasimodo Sunday is, in the liturgical year, the first Sunday after Easter (also known as Low Sunday). The name is said to come from the opening line of the introit of the day: "Almost in the way that newborn babies do, desire the rational milk without trickery..." (in Latin, Quasi modo geniti infantes, rationale sine dolo lac concupiscite...), and also from the fact that the observance that day is "almost in the manner" of Easter. It was on this day that the character Quasimodo (above) was discovered abandoned on the steps of Nôtre Dame; hence his name.