Adaptation and Extraction Among the Waterways of Dante’s "Inferno"

Authors

Chelsea E. Keane, University of California, RiversideFollow

Abstract

This paper examines cycles of environmental adaptation within Dante’s Inferno, as well as how certain models of learned adaptation can be read as a type of environmental extraction. This paper takes cues from medieval Italian water management and geological phenomenon to argue that the swamplands of the Acheron and Styx and the blood-read Phlegethon exhibit varied and contextually dependent models of adaptation and networked agency. From there, it engages tenets of seep ecology to argue that these models seep into the symbiosing biocycles between environment, infernal creatures, and human shades along the banks of these waterways—and that by virtue of the slippage between Dante-pilgrim and Dante-poet, these networks of relationality extend toward the poem’s audience. Finally, this paper examines the extractive view with which Dante and his Inferno engage their environments and asks ethical questions about how people and disciplines can engage with environments both literary and material apart from extractive logics.

Recommended Citation

Keane, Chelsea E. (2024) "Adaptation and Extraction Among the Waterways of Dante’s "Inferno"," Medieval Ecocriticisms: Vol. 3, Article 4.
Available at: https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/med_ecocriticisms/vol3/iss1/4