Byzantine Ecocriticism: Women, Nature, and Power in the Medieval Greek Romance (The New Middle Ages)

__Byzantine Ecocriticism: Women, Nature, and Power in the Medieval Greek Romance__ applies literary ecocriticism to the imaginative fiction of the Greek world from the twelfth to fifteenth centuries. Through analyses of hunting, gardening, bride-stealing, and warfare, __Byzantine Ecocriticism__ exposes the attitudes and behaviors that justified human control over women, nature, and animals; the means by which such control was exerted; and the anxieties surrounding its limits. Adam Goldwyn thus demonstrates the ways in which intersectional ecocriticism, feminism, and posthumanism can be applied to medieval texts, and illustrates how the legacies of medieval and Byzantine environmental practice and ideology continue to be relevant to contemporary ecological and environmental concerns. Acknowledgments 7 Abbreviations of Medieval Greek Romances 10 Contents 13 Chapter 1: Byzantine Studies in an Age of Environmental Crisis 14 Reading in the Anthropocene 14 Ecocriticisms and Intersectionalities Present and Past 20 Towards a Byzantine Ecocriticism and the Ethical Turn in Byzantine Studies 32 Ecocriticism and the Medieval Greek Romance 43 Bibliography 46 Chapter 2: Zoomorphic and Anthomorphic Metaphors in the “Proto-Romance” Digenis Akritis 52 Lovers as Hunters and Gardeners in Chaucer: An Ecocritical Framework 54 The Lover as Hunter in the “Lay of the Emir” 61 The Lover as Hunter in the “Digeneid” 68 The Lover as Gardener in Digenis Akritis 77 “The Frontiersman of Double Descent” and the Sexual Ecopoetics of Gender and Space 88 Bibliography 95 Chapter 3: Rape, Consent, and Ecofeminist Narratology in the Komnenian Novels 98 Drosilla and Charikles 118 Hysmine and Hysminias 131 Ecofeminist Narratology in the Medieval Romance East and West 139 Bibliography 156 Chapter 4: Witches and Nature Control in the Palaiologan Romances and Beyond 160 Witches in the Palaiologan Romances: Kallimachos and Chrysorroi and Livistros and Rodamni 160 Medea and the Greek War of Troy in Its Pan-­European Context 168 Medeas Medieval and Modern 191 Bibliography 201 Chapter 5: Byzantine Posthumanism: Autopoiesis, Sympoiesis, and Making Kin in the Gardens of Romance 204 Autopoiesis and Sympoiesis in the Tale of Achilles 216 Posthuman Gardens in the Komnenian Novels 230 Posthumanism, (Odd)Kinning, and the Future of Byzantine Studies 234 Bibliography 244 Index 247 "Byzantine Ecocriticism: Women, Nature, and Power in the Medieval Greek Romance applies literary ecocriticism to the imaginative fiction of the Greek world from the twelfth to fifteenth centuries. Through analyses of hunting, gardening, bride-stealing, and warfare, Byzantine Ecocriticism exposes the attitudes and behaviors that justified human control over women, nature, and animals; the means by which such control was exerted; and the anxieties surrounding its limits. Adam Goldwyn thus demonstrates the ways in which intersectional ecocriticism, feminism, and posthumanism can be applied to medieval texts, and illustrates how the legacies of medieval and Byzantine environmental practice and ideology continue to be relevant to contemporary ecological and environmental concerns."--Back cover 'Byzantine Ecocriticism' applies literary ecocriticism to the imaginative fiction of the Greek world from the 12th to 15th centuries. Through analyses of hunting, gardening, bride-stealing, and warfare, Byzantine Ecocriticism exposes the attitudes and behaviours that justified human control over women, nature, and animals; the means by which such control was exerted; and the anxieties surrounding its limits. Adam Goldwyn thus demonstrates the ways in which intersectional ecocriticism, feminism, and posthumanism can be applied to medieval texts, and illustrates how the legacies of medieval and Byzantine environmental practice and ideology continue to be relevant to contemporary ecological and environmental concerns Front Matter ....Pages i-xv Byzantine Studies in an Age of Environmental Crisis (Adam J. Goldwyn)....Pages 1-38 Zoomorphic and Anthomorphic Metaphors in the “Proto-Romance” Digenis Akritis (Adam J. Goldwyn)....Pages 39-84 Rape, Consent, and Ecofeminist Narratology in the Komnenian Novels (Adam J. Goldwyn)....Pages 85-146 Witches and Nature Control in the Palaiologan Romances and Beyond (Adam J. Goldwyn)....Pages 147-190 Byzantine Posthumanism: Autopoiesis, Sympoiesis, and Making Kin in the Gardens of Romance (Adam J. Goldwyn)....Pages 191-233 Back Matter ....Pages 235-240