Waste and the Wasters : Poetry and Ecosystemic Thought in Medieval England / Eleanor Johnson.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Johnson, Eleanor, 1979- author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

English literature--Middle English, 1100-1500--History and criticism.

English literature.

Environmental degradation in literature.

Climatic changes in literature.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (229 pages)

Edition:

First edition.

Other Title:

Poetry and Ecosystemic Thought in Medieval England

Place of Publication:

Chicago, IL : The University of Chicago Press, [2023]

Summary:

A groundbreaking examination of ecological thought in medieval England. While the scale of today's crisis is unprecedented, environmental catastrophe is nothing new. Waste and the Wasters studies the late Middle Ages, when a convergence of land contraction, soil depletion, climate change, pollution, and plague subsumed Western Europe. In a culture lacking formal scientific methods, the task of explaining and coming to grips with what was happening fell to medieval poets. The poems they wrote used the terms "waste" or "wasters" to anchor trenchant critiques of people's unsustainable relationships with the world around them and with each other. In this book, Eleanor Johnson shows how poetry helped medieval people understand and navigate the ecosystemic crises-both material and spiritual-of their time.

Contents:

Intro

Contents

Introduction. Thinking and Talking Ecosystemically

Chapter One. The Five Disasters Facing Medieval Ecosystems

Chapter Two. The Laws of Waste: The Bible and the Common Law

Chapter Three. Waste in Sermons and Penitential Manuals: The Unjust Steward

Chapter Four. Winner and Waster: The Imperilment of the Land

Chapter Five. Wasters and Workers in Piers Plowman: Famine and Food Insecurity

Chapter Six. Chaucer's Yeoman's Wasting Body: Pollution and Contagion

Chapter Seven. The Wasted Lands of the Green Knight, and the Wasting of Camelot: Climate Change, Climate Revenge

Chapter Eight. Gardens, Bees, and Wastours: Political Waste and the Fantasy of Sustainability

Chapter Nine. Aftermath: From Wasting to Waste Matter

Epilogue

Acknowledgments

Notes

Index.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 177-212) and index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

0-226-83018-7

OCLC:

1407313261