Skip to main content

IMC 2018: Sessions

Session 1649: Medieval Ecocriticisms, I: Wind, Water, Weather

Thursday 5 July 2018, 11.15-12.45

Sponsor:Medieval Ecocriticisms
Organiser:Heide Estes, Department of English, Monmouth University, New York
Moderator/Chair:Heide Estes, Department of English, Monmouth University, New York
Paper 1649-a'Westron Wynde': Blustery Emotions in Middle English Lyrics
(Language: English)
Michael J. Warren, Department of English, Royal Holloway, University of London
Index terms: Language and Literature - Old English, Language and Literature - Middle English
Paper 1649-bThe Hydrosocial Medieval: Water, Weather, and Texts
(Language: English)
Bethany Whalley, Department of English Language & Literature, King's College London
Index terms: Language and Literature - Old English, Science, Social History
Abstract

Ecocriticism is a relatively new subfield of inquiry in the humanities, burgeoning in response to climate science. Interpreting literary texts from a perspective that foregrounds medieval weather conditions invites re-reading relationships between humans and the natural world as well as among humans. These three papers, in their focus on wind, weather, and water, demonstrate that the way that medieval writers thought about the natural world was complex and varied.