Italo Calvino et Jacques Probst : nourriture comme propulseur textuel (déploiement structurel et déploiement diffus d’un thème littéraire)

Abstract

Italo Calvino and Jacques Probst: food as a textual propulsor (structural deployment and diffuse deployment of a literary theme) This article analizes the theme (motif) of food in Un navire chargé de..., a folk tale rewritten by Italo Calvino and Lise, l’île by Jacques Probst. The Italian tale and the Suiss monologue actually represent two different ways of using food elements in the construction of a text. The first uses the thematic elements in a punctual way, in the crucial moments of the action which correspond to the strong points of the fable; this strategy is called structural deployment of the thematic cluster. The second text, exploiting the absence of food, involves food elements over its entire extent and at different levels of its structure, what we call diffuse deployment (of the thematic cluster).