Territoire et littérature. Quelques excursions deçà et de-là de la mer Méditerranée

Abstract

The perception that fictional representations transmit open a window on the complexity of the real world  and on the multiplicity of shapes a territory may adopt. Faced to the variability that literature and other  means of artistic expression promote, the absurdity of a one-way sighted territory becomes obvious. As  Paul Ricoeur said, literature is a “laboratory of all possibilities”. It points out the options, but this doesn’t  mean it has to give them a concrete reality, a material one. When it comes to the stakes of literature, one  seems to be obvious: literature is bound to create new metaphors which may help people to read the  world. Yet, if there are specifically literary metaphors, there are other ones which merge at the crossroad  between different disciplines, and between various approaches to knowledge. Also in this case, literature  performs a major part, given that it is able to handle all these metaphors and put them together. In this  paper, some examples will be given about this issue, inside the Mediterranean area, especially through  Paisajes transformados/Paisagtes transformats, where Quique Dacosta, one of the most prominent  Spanish chefs and one of the most innovative ones, explains its view on a territory he particularly  appreciates, the very area that surrounds Dénia, in the province of Alicante.