Against mankind. Eco-criticism, anti-anthropocentrism, hodoeporic in Paolo Volponi’s «Il Pianeta Irritabile»

This paper examines Paolo Volponi’s novel Il Pianeta Irritabile (1977) by a double perspective: on the one hand the anti-anthropocentric and forerunning eco-critical approach, like other writers of the same period as Cassola or Morselli, used by the author to denounce the exploitation of the planet, until the extreme, post-atomic consequences, by humans, in general, and capitalism, in particular, resolving in a harsh disapproval of human progress. On the other hand, being the entire plot based on a long voyage done by non-humans (or semi-human) protagonists, the hodeoporic interpretation key becomes a central point in the development of the novel and a new perspective to study and analyze the transformations of the characters.