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Realismo grottesco e ambiguità cultural-culinarie in Constance Fenimore Woolson
Grego, Edoarda
2004
Abstract
Fosco Maraini once wrote that, during his childhood, if he complained about the food, his aunt Violet, an English Protestant lady, always rebuked him by saying that food is supposed to feed and not to give pleasure, thus it has no need to be tasty. This frame of mind is the complete opposite of the one of the Middle Ages with its happy banquet, where drinking and eating were considered to lead to happiness and to be capable of defeating any fear. Bachtin, in his "Rabelais and Folk Culture of the Middle Ages and Renaissance", states that the juxtaposition between food as nourishment and food as pleasure is like the one between the classic and the grotesque, considering the classic a world incapable of merriment and laughter, and the grotesque its polar opposite.
The essay analyses this juxtaposition in some of Constance Fenimore Woolson’s ‘Italian’ short stories, in which the food becomes a means to articulate the opposition between two very different point of views. Finally, from the grotesque realism of the stories, emerges Woolson’s ambivalence, her love-hate relationship with the Italian culture and its cuisine.
Series
Prospero XI
Publisher
EUT Edizioni Università di Trieste
Source
Edoarda Grego, “Realismo grottesco e ambiguità cultural-culinarie in Constance Fenimore Woolson", in: Prospero. Rivista di Letterature Straniere, Comparatistica e Studi Culturali, XI (2004), pp. 157-172
Languages
it
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