El caso de "El Barón Rampante" de Italo Calvinoel tópico del Hombre Salvaje

Abstract

The wild man character arrives to the west medieval literature by two means, the Hebrew and the Greco-Latin, and it becomes a minor but recurrent topic in romances and novels of chivalry. The wild man is the mirror which shows the society's hidden desires. They are depicted as beings with a semi-fantastic appearance, breaking all the conventions of human beings and changing into animals. The present artide has two parts. The first one analyses thematologically the topic and places emphasis on its origin, variations and the function that the topic has played throughout the history. The second part is a comparative commentary which connects the character of Cosimo (Il Barone Rampante, by ltalo Calvino) with this topic. This analysis will lead us to the conclusion that we are facing an example of a wild man in the 20th century.