Resumen de Scrounging and Salvaging: Literary Guidance and the Descent into the Underworld in the "Inferno", "Paradise Lost", "Frankenstein" and "Heart of Darkness"
Socrates, in Phaedo, posits that the route to Hades is far from ‘straightforward’, and that it is riddled with ‘crossroads’ that demand the presence of a vigilant guide. The possibility of multiple routes culminating in the underworld, and the necessity of guidance, form the bedrock of the interwoven analysis of the Inferno, Paradise Lost, Frankenstein, and Heart of Darkness. Amidst the profusion of pathways, the Inferno and Paradise Lost gesture towards a direction that is replicated and repudiated in Mary Shelley and Joseph Conrad's versions of the descent voyage in Frankenstein and Heart of Darkness.
Dante and Milton's ‘prototype’ narratives exemplify the descent – or the fall – into hell, and shape the two novels through ‘literary guidance’. Heart of Darkness emerges as an inversion of the meticulously structured Dantean universe. The Pilgrim's progress in the Inferno is a consistent counterpoint to Conradian chaos and Marlow's wilful yet meandering descent into colonial Africa. Dante's Pilgrim emerges from the underworld to progress onwards, while Marlow remains entrenched in the inescapably infernal condition of twentieth-century imperialism. The Inferno is an unacknowledged spectre that haunts the proceedings of the novella, but Milton's poetic re-telling of Genesis is a recognised presence in Frankenstein. Paradise Lost is re-viewed through the perspective of the hapless Monster, who oscillates between identifying with Satan and Adam. Both poets thus dabble in the attainment (or the elusiveness) of salvation, while the novelists struggle to salvage a semblance of significance with which they can imbue their characters' journeys.
While 2016 saw several literary anniversaries, a strand that the organisers envisioned intertwining with ‘salvaging’, the year 2015 marked the 750th birth anniversary of Dante, sparking speculation about the present-day pertinence of the afterlife. This interplay between the theme of Salvage and these four narratives ought to provide unexpected insights that complement BCLA's emphasis on renewing critical perspectives.
