This book examines the impact of environmental crises on early medieval English theology and poetry. Like their modern counterparts, theologians at the turn of the first millennium understood the interconnectedness of the Earth community, and affirmed the independent subjectivity of other-than-humans. The author argues for the existence of a specific Old English ecotheology, and demonstrates the influence of that theology on contemporaneous poetry. Taking the Exeter Book as a microcosm of the poetic corpus, she explores the impact of early medieval apocalypticism and environmental anxiety on Old English wisdom poems, riddles, elegies, and saints’ lives.
- Cover
- Table of Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction: Early Medieval Earth Consciousness
- Ælfric, Wulfstan, and the Exeter Book
- Chapter Summaries
- Bibliography
- 1. Old English Ecotheology
- Medieval and Modern Ecotheology
- Conclusions
- Bibliography
- 2. The Web of Creation in Wisdom Poems
- Gnome(ish) Wisdom in Old English Poetry
- “The Web of Mysteries”: Poetic Entanglement in The Order of the World
- Mapping Kinship Connections in Maxims I
- Conclusions
- Bibliography
- 3. Identity, Affirmation, and Resistance in the Exeter Riddle Collection
- Ambiguous interpretation in the Exeter riddle collection
- Birds’-Eye View: Riddle 6 and Riddle 7
- Heroic Horns and Wounded Wood: Riddles of Transformation
- Conclusions
- Bibliography
- 4. Trauma and Apocalypse in the Eco-elegies
- Environmental Trauma & Natural Depression in The Wanderer
- Apocalypse / Now: The Ruin
- Conclusions
- Bibliography
- 5. Mutual Custodianship in the Landscapes of Guðlac A
- Home, Alone: Guðlac in the Wilderness
- Lessons in Early Medieval English Environmentalism
- Conclusions
- Bibliography
- Coda: Old English Ecotheology
- Bibliography
- Primary Sources & Critical Editions
- Secondary Works
- Reference Works
- Index
- Index of Essential Old English Terms
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