Looking for Home at the End of the World: A Study of Regional Belonging in Old English Environmental Literature

近年来，中世纪生态批评领域受到了极大的关注，古英语文本是一个特别富有成果的研究对象。Corinne Dale的2017年专著探讨了Exeter Book Riddles中的自然世界，而Heide Estes的盎格鲁-撒克逊文学景观涵盖了从Beowulf到圣徒的生活到盎格鲁-撒克逊编年史的段落等文本。然而，古英语的Rogationtide布道和宪章界限仍然是一种未开发的资源。这个项目将使用这些文本来研究中世纪早期的农业社区是如何概念化的，并与他们的直接物理环境相结合。通过将这些10世纪的文本与当代的生态批评理论和生态诗学进行对话，我不仅试图揭示它们以前被忽视的环境共鸣，而且还探索中世纪的生态批评如何有助于当代的环境话语。在大曼彻斯特地区权力下放的背景下，我的研究将特别关注是否像埃斯蒂斯所说的那样-“中世纪早期的例子是转向本地化经济是可能的”，以及区域主义和对区域景观的社区认同如何让我们在环境崩溃的时候“生态化”（蒂莫西·莫顿，2018年）。对Rogationtide布道和宪章界限的研究将开辟新天地，不仅因为它们尚未从生态批评的角度进行审查，还因为这两种文本都与步行的仪式行为有关，使社区沉浸在当地的景观中。在当地方言中，罗格申日被称为“gangdagas”或“步行日”，它致力于为土地的持续丰收祈祷，并围绕着每天的步行活动来划分当地定居点的边界。边界步行也构成了盎格鲁-撒克逊土地所有权的一个关键方面，将定居边界的变化传达给在土地上生活和工作的口头识字社区。到了10世纪，绝大多数拉丁土地赠款都包含古英语的边界条款。这些非凡的文本通过从一个充满意义的地标--一个坟墓，一个黄鼠狼的巢穴，一个妖精的春天--到下一个来追踪新的边界线。打破边界，让步行者对熟悉的地方有一个外围的视角，雄辩地说明了当代生态写作及其对步行的迫切关注-正如激进的风景诗人马克·迪金森所写的那样，这是一种“距离和亲密，以及在世界中重新定位自己”的行为。

The field of medieval ecocriticism has experienced a surge in interest in recent years, with Old English texts provingan especially fruitful object of study. Corinne Dale's 2017 monograph examines The Natural World in the ExeterBook Riddles, while Heide Estes' Anglo-Saxon Literary Landscapes covers texts ranging from Beowulf to Saints'Lives to passages from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. Old English Rogationtide homilies and charter bounds, however,remain something of an untapped resource. This project will use these texts to study how early medieval agrariancommunities conceptualised and engaged with their immediate physical environments. Through bringing thesetenth-century texts into conversation with contemporary ecocritical theory and ecopoetics, I seek not only to shedlight on their previously overlooked environmental resonances, but also to explore how medieval ecocriticism cancontribute to contemporary environmental discourse. Contextualised by the Devolution of Greater Manchester,my research will focus particularly on whether as Estes argues - 'the example of the early Middle Ages is that areturn to localised economies is possible', and how regionalism and communal identification with regionallandscapes can allow us to 'be ecological' at a time of environmental breakdown (Timothy Morton, 2018).A study of Rogationtide homilies and charter bounds will break new ground not only because they haveyet to be examined from an ecocritical perspective, but also because both bodies of texts are associated with ritualacts of walking which immersed communities in their local landscapes. Called gangdagas or 'walking days' in thevernacular, Rogation days were devoted to praying for the ongoing fruitfulness of the land, and structured arounddaily walks that marked out the boundaries of a local settlement. Boundary walks also constituted a key aspect ofAnglo-Saxon land tenure, communicating changes in settlement boundaries to the orally literate communities wholived and worked on the land. By the 10th century, the vast majority of Latin land grants contained a boundaryclause in Old English. These remarkable texts trace the new boundary line by moving from one meaningfullyimbued landmark - a grave mound, a weasel's den, a goblin's spring - to the next. Beating the bounds, which gavewalkers a peripheral perspective on a familiar place, speaks eloquently to contemporary ecowriting and itsemergent focus on walking - an act, as radical landscape poet Mark Dickinson writes, 'of distance and intimacy,and of relocating ourselves within the world'.