Il trickster e l'infinito. Alcune riflessioni a partire da esempi rom

Leonardo Piasere

Abstract:

This article explores the character of the beng, a trickster who appears in traditional narratives of some Rom groups living in or coming from Transylvania. 'Beng' literally means 'devil', but for the Rom he is not the incarnation of evil but in fact a playful demiurge who sees himself as the king of the alternating movement between order and non-order in the cosmos. Because of his cosmological role and the undefined configuration of his identity, the author suggests that the beng, and the figure of the trickster in general, represents one of the various cultural constructs conceived by people to express the idea of infinity.