Description
Literary scholars have traditionally understood landscapes, whether natural or manmade, as metaphors for humanity instead of concrete settings for people’s actions. This book accepts the natural world as such by investigating how Anglo-Saxons interacted with and conceived of their lived environments. Examining Old English poems, such as Beowulf and Judith, as well as descriptions of natural events from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and other documentary texts, Heide Estes shows that Anglo-Saxon ideologies that view nature as diametrically opposed to humans, and the natural world as designed for human use, have become deeply embedded in our cultural heritage, language, and more.
Chapter
Ecocriticism and Anglo-Saxon Studies
Anglo-Saxon Texts and Ecocriticisms
2. Imagining the Sea in Secular and Religious Poetry
Sea Crossings: Elene, Andreas, Exodus
Beowulf and the Sea-Creatures
Ecofeminism and the Other
Menstrual Blood and Amniotic Flood: Andreas
Roman Past and Mutable Present
Imagined Biblical Origins
Constructed Danish Memories
4. Rewriting Guthlac’s Wilderness
Postcolonial Ecocriticism
Guthlac A and the ‘beorg’
Eating Animals As Cultural Norm
Animals, Humans, and Reason
Animal Aesthetics and Agency
6. Objects and Hyperobjects
Gender and Ethnicity as Hyperobjects
7. Conclusion: Ecologies of the Past and the Future
Ecocriticisms in Dialogue
Some Proposals for Future Research
Ecocritical Ethics and Activist Scholarship