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”The Minefield of Dietary Proscriptions”: cibo e letteratura secondo J.M. Coetzee
Adamo, Sergia
2004
Abstract
In J.M. Coetzee’s "Elizabeth Costello", the heroine calls “the minefield of dietary prescriptions” a space where logic is absent and where tensions coagulate and harden: the emphasis is on what people are not allowed to eat, more than on what it is actually allowed.
Different cultures find the practice of consuming certain animals acceptable, while they refuse to eat other animals, and the eight lessons held by the fictional character are about vegetarianism, dietary prescriptions and ethics regarding the animals’ life and the effects that any decision on the matter might have on the same definition of humanity.
Our current opinions on animal rights and the way contemporary art have recently portrayed animals, have fuelled the debate which has risen around the changing of our ethics and the need to question some old certainties. Coetzee is very interested in animal rights and writes frequently about them. In this article, the author uses Coetzee’s novels to investigate the relationship between food and literature, between practice and theory, focusing in particular on the negativity of the prohibition and the ‘minefield of prescriptions’.
Series
Prospero XI
Publisher
EUT Edizioni Università di Trieste
Source
Sergia Adamo,”The Minefield of Dietary Proscriptions”: cibo e letteratura secondo J.M. Coetzee", in: Prospero. Rivista di Letterature Straniere, Comparatistica e Studi Culturali, XI (2004), pp. 117-142
Languages
it
File(s)