Strange Beauty: Ecocritical Approaches to Early Medieval Landscape

237 Pages·2009·5.355 MB·English

by  Alfred K. Siewers (auth.)

THE NEW MIDDLE AGES
BONNIE WHEELER, Series Editor
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Archipelago, Island, England Medieval Landscape
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STRANGE BEAUTY
ECOCRITICAL APPROACHES TO
EARLY MEDIEVAL LANDSCAPE
Alfred K. Siewers
STRANGE BEAUTY
Copyright © Alfred K. Siewers, 2009.
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2 0 0 9 978–0–230–60664–7
All rights reserved.
First published in 2009 by
PALGRAVE MACMILLAN®
in the United States—a division of St. Martin’s Press LLC,
175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.
Where this book is distributed in the UK, Europe and the rest of the world,
this is by Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited,
registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills,
Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS.
Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies
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ISBN 978-1-349-37397-0 ISBN 978-0-230-10052-7 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/9780230100527
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Siewers, Alfred K. (Alfred Kentigern)
Strange beauty : ecocritical approaches to early medieval landscape /
Alfred K. Siewers.
p. cm. — (The new Middle Ages)
1. Irish literature—Middle Irish, 1100–1550—History and criticism.
2. Welsh literature—1100–1400—History and criticism. 3. Landscape in
literature. 4. Nature in literature. 5. Ecocriticism. 6. Ulster cycle.
7. Mabinogion. I. Title.
PB1322.S54 2009
891.6′20936—dc22 2009005357
A catalogue record of the book is available from the British Library.
Design by Newgen Imaging Systems (P) Ltd., Chennai, India.
First edition: September 2009
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
To Olesya, Nick, Kevin, and Papas Pavlos and Mark;
and in memory of Karl, Marjorie, and Kristine
Let us adore the Lord,
Maker of wonderful works:
Great-bright heaven with its angels;
On earth the fair-waved sea.
—From “Lord of Creation,” anonymous
ninth-century Irish poem
There are some, although few indeed, to whom divine grace has given power to
contemplate the whole orb of the earth and the sea and heavens around it, brightly
and most manifestly, with scope of mind miraculously enlarged in one and the
same moment as if beneath a single ray of the sun.
—Attributed to Columcille of Iona
Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in . . . I would drink deeper, fish in the sky
whose bottom is pebbly with stars.
—Henry David Thoreau, Walden
CONTENTS
Preface xi
Acknowledgments xiii
1 Archipelago and Otherworld 1
2 Reading the Otherworld Environmentally 35
3 Paradise in the Sea: An Early Geography of Desire 67
4 Colors of the Winds, Landscapes of Creation 97
5 A Cosmic Imaginarium 111
6 Archipelago and Empire 133
Notes 145
Index 217