Cuvinte-cheie: argou, sexualitate, mâncare, marginalizare, alteritate
Abstract: Slang, Food and Love or how do Slums in Romanian Literature Speak, Eat and Love
The slums have always been an almost close space: with its looks, its customs, its rhythm and its language. Between the fragile borders of this deliquescent micro-universe, the thief is a central character, even if, by his nomadic and outcast nature, he does not belong to any community, he does not obey any rule. The language of the thieves is, obviously, a strong identity indicator: we are not what we eat, nor what we love, but what and how we say we eat or love. The slang of burglars, sneak-thieves, fraudsters, larceners, picklocks, prowlers, cracks men or, just bilks and slyboots is the perfect source for defining a marginalized social class, with its picturesque and its pathos. Having sex and eating, these two primary impulses which we can equalize actually measure off the real life of these depressed classes. And the language that describes their instincts – their hunger, their passions, and their madness – is the best way to get to their true identity. As the subject is very complex, covering anthropological, sociological, psycholinguistic issues, we limited this analysis of the thieves’ slang to a strict literary offcut: a few Romanian novels that dealt with the life in slums – Calea Văcăreşti (’Vacaresti Boulevard’, 1933), by I. Peltz, Maidanul cu dragoste (’The Waste Land Full of Love’, 1933), by G.M. Zamfirescu, and Eugen Barbu’s novel Groapa (’The Hollow’, 1957).
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