Geryon and the Poetics of Usury

The mysterious figure of Geryon has had a complicated interpretative history in Dante studies. Traditionally understood as an allegory for fraud, a renewed interest in the beast during the latter half of the twentieth century generated new and important theories about his meaning and significance. Despite the awareness amongst early commentators of the connection between usury and fraud, and therefore usury and Geryon, modern critics have nevertheless paid very little attention to the relationship between Geryon and the condemned sinners of the canto he occupies. In this article I argue that the narrative location of the encounter with the monster, as well as details of its appearance and movement suggest that Geryon is associated with usury. This connection not only contributes to wider debates about the status of Geryon but sheds light on the medieval understanding of the relationship between usury and fraud.