ABSTRACT
After proposing a distinction between setting and landscape — the setting is the description of the context, while the landscape presumes a relational dimension between the human being and the context — the chapter examines settings and landscapes of dystopian and post-apocalyptic narratives. As far as dystopian narratives are concerned, the setting is heavily artificial, generally characterized by a high urban density and a marked territorialization, it is littered with garbage and also characterized by spatial inequalities and social segregation. Nature, within a fairly traditional dualism, is opposed to culture. It exists externally, beyond a border, and constitutes an element of disorder, but also of freedom, to aspire to (or as a possible place to flee to). Some post-apocalyptic narratives charge the landscape with a metaphorical dimension. In this regard, the chapter examines three post-apocalyptic texts, which, in a biocentric perspective, deal with a future in which the planet continues its history, indifferent to the disappearance of the human species. The texts are The Last Man (1826, Mary Shelley), Earth Abides (1949, George Stewart) and The Drowned World (1962, J.C. Ballard). The chapter ends with the analysis of a text (both in the literary and cinematographic version) that has enjoyed great critical acclaim: The Road (2006, Cormac McCarthy). Here too the landscape has great importance. In this case, however, the biosphere was destroyed, and the planet died
