Le paradis des affamés : le motif du « Pays de Coccagne »
The Paradise of Those Who Hunger. The Motif of The ‘Land of Plenty’

Summary/Abstract: The present paper intends to explore the content and to describe the European fortune of the motif of the ‘Land of Plenty’ (from the thirteenth to the eighteenth century). It outlines the characteristics of this theme, which is to be found in the Romanian literature in I. Budai-Deleanu’s work. This writer, who died in 1820, produced a masterpiece, a heroic-comical poem about gypsy life, Tziganiada. The ‘Land of Plenty’ is a grotesque and comical Paradise, where there are rivers of milk and butter with polenta shores and liquor springs, stacks of sausages, mountains of cheese, etc. This book stresses the fortune of the theme, abundantly present in Italy (in Boccacio’s and Teofilo Folenga’s works, as well as in chapbooks), in France, Germany (Schlaraffendland), The Netherlands (the famous painting by Brueghel), etc. It ventures to explain the origin of the motif and its associations with the ‘Golden Age’ and the ‘World Upside-Down’ themes.

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