L’Antartide nell’immaginario Inglese

Highlighting the disciplinary contiguities existing between territorial studies and literary studies, the volume examines the representations of Antarctica in a series of narratives in English that constitute a rich repertoire of geographic imagery. The continent of ice has in fact been configured as an empty space that, over time, has coincided with the desire to reach knowledge of the natural world, lending itself to a ‘colonial’ appropriation not so much in a physical and material sense as in terms of verbal and iconographic. In English culture, the space of the extreme South has inspired a multiplicity of stories, from the chronicles of explorers in the early decades of the twentieth century to contemporary female and dystopian narratives. From Captain Scott to Beryl Bainbridge, from Cherry-Garrard to science fiction, an Antarctic ‘psychotopography’ has been created which reflects the charm and mystery of an anomalous place, deeply rooted in the imaginative dimension.