Beyond the verbum. Non-verbal communication in Anna Maria Ortese’s fantastic trilogy

Abstract

The essay reflects on the fantastic trilogy of Anna Maria Ortese, consisting of L’Iguana (1986), Il cardillo addolorato (1993) and Alonso e i visionari (1996), focusing on interspecies relationships involving the human protagonists and the monstrous creatures imagined by the author. The article investigates the possibilities of non-verbal communication used by the iguana, the bird and the puma, protagonists respectively of the three novels. By means of cries, singing and gazes, the three animals are able to undermine the idea of language as evidence of human superiority, and thus to question the very concept of humanity. The verbal language is superseded in favour of a new emotional intelligence, capable of empathetically reconnecting the human and the non-human.