The Contagion of Passions: the Epidemic as Dystopia in two 20th Century Novels (Cerami and Angelini)

Abstract

This paper focuses on the representation of epidemics in the Italian novels La lepre by Vincenzo Cerami (1988) and Gomorra by Claudio Angelini (1987). The analysis of these two works leads to a reflection about the efficacy of epidemics as a distopic topos for an engaged literature proposing both a morally oriented worldview and a critique of the contemporary society (oppressed with the AIDS pandemics in the considered cases), the semiotic idea of “contagion of passions” (Landowski, Lotman), the connection between the ideas of sickness and order, which has ancient cultural roots, and the related theme of the inefficacy of reclusive systems, engaged through the lens of the Foucaultian theory.