Unveiling Italian and Floridian Ecopoetic Voices Translations and Cross-Cultural Perspectives

Abstract

In an increasingly precarious and interconnected world, the emerging field of environmental humanities provides a multifaceted approach for interpreting literary representations of relations with and within the natural world. In particular, the genre of ecopoetry can function as a powerful medium for redefining our positionality and confronting distant yet analogous ecological realities. Through an ecocritical lens, this research explores Italian ecopoets who engage with local identities, peninsular landscapes, and environmental challenges. A comparative analysis of poetry from the Florida peninsula creates a cross-cultural dialogue that underlines shared vulnerabilities and diverse perspectives. To facilitate this dialogue, translations were produced from Italian to English, as well as from English to Italian. This work introduces a corpus of Italian ecopoetry not yet known to an English-speaking audience and amplifies urgent shared ecological concerns such as coastal overbuilding. This study will show how ecopoetry and ecologically aware poetics can give voice to threatened ecosystems, disappearing linguistic traditions, and marginalized nonhuman life in the Anthropocene.