Robinson Crusoe Viaggio di Alexander Selkirk 1676 1721

Robinson Crusoe Viaggio di Alexander Selkirk (1676 -1721) ricordato in: • Edward Cooke (membro della spedizione di Rogers), A Voyage to the South Sea and Around the World 1712 • Woodes Rogers, A Cruising Voyage Around the World 1712 • Richard Steele, in un articolo su The Englishman, 3 dicembre 1713

La fortuna di Robinson • • Gustav Landcron, 1724 di anonimo Robinson der Jüngere, 1779 -80 di Heinrich Campe Der Schweizerische Robinson, 1812 -27, di Johann David Wyss The Swisss Family Robinson, 1849, traduzione/riscrittura del testo di Wyss, dalla quale nel XX secolo è statp tratto anche un cartone dal titolo Flo la piccola Robinson • • • Robinsonade (termine coniato nel 1731 da Johann Gottried Schnabel che ha finito col designare un vero e proprio genere narrativo, cioè l’avventura sull’isola deserta. Un esempio di tale genere è The Coral Island, 1858 di Robert Michael Ballantyne • • Sovvertimenti radicali: Robinson, 1958 di Muriel Spark Vendredi, 1966 di Michel Tournier Foe, 1996 di J. M. Coetzee

Il tema dell’altro in Robinson • Si propongono di seguito citazioni tratte da The History of Jamaica di Edward Long (1774) quali esempi di descrizione dell’altro nativo in cui la presunta oggettività del discorso scientifico tradisce un evidente pregiudizio razzista.

Descrizioni dell’altro nativo. Edward Long, History of Jamaica, 1774 • The particulars wherein they differ most essentially from the Whites are, first, in respect to their bodies, viz. , the dark membrane which communicates that black colour of their skins, which does not alter by transportations into other climates, and which they never lose, except by such diseases, or casualties, as destroy the texture of it, for example, the leprosy, and accidents of burning or scalding

Descrizioni dell’altro nativo. Edward Long, History of Jamaica, 1774 • Secondly, a covering of wool, like the bestial fleece, instead of hair. The roundness of their eyes, the figure of their ears, tumid nostrils, flat noses, invariable thick lips, and general large size of the female nipples, as if adapted by nature to the peculiar comformation of their children’s mouths. Fourthly, the black colour of the lice which infest their bodies… It is known, that there is a very great variety of these insects; and some say, that almost all animals have their peculiar sort. Fifthly, their bestial or fetid smell, which they all have in a greater or less degree

Descrizioni dell’altro nativo. Edward Long, History of Jamaica, 1774 • They have no plan or system of morality among them. Their barbarity to their children debases their nature even below that of brutes. They have no moral sensation; no state but for women; gormandizing, and drinking to excess; no wish but to be idle.

Aphra Behn, Oroonoko, 1688 • The most famous Statuary cou’d not form the Figure of a man more admirably turn’d from head to foot. His Face was not of that brown rusty Black which most of that Nation are, but of perfect Ebony, or polished Jett. His Eyes were the most awful that cou’d be seen, and very piercing; the White of ‘em being like Snow, as were his teeth. His Nose was rising and Roman, instead of African and flat. His mouth the finest shaped that could be seen; far from those great turn’d Lips, which are so natural to the rest of the Negroes. • Si confronti questa descrizione con quella di Friday in RC