Apocalyptic ecologies: eschatology, the ethics of care, and the fifteen signs of the doom in early England

Exploring how late medieval texts imagined the promised destruction of the physical world, this essay offers an ecocritical reading of a single apocalyptic motif: the Fifteen Signs of the Doom. This once popular catalogue of ecological and cosmological portents of the Apocalypse encouraged environme...

Ausführliche Beschreibung

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Bibliographische Detailangaben
1. Verfasser: Gayk, Shannon (VerfasserIn)
Format: Artikel
Sprache:English
Veröffentlicht: [2021]
Schlagworte:
Zusammenfassung:Exploring how late medieval texts imagined the promised destruction of the physical world, this essay offers an ecocritical reading of a single apocalyptic motif: the Fifteen Signs of the Doom. This once popular catalogue of ecological and cosmological portents of the Apocalypse encouraged environmental watchfulness, moved human experience from the center to the margins, and explored the humbling inscrutability of natural disaster. Surveying some of the Middle English sermons and lyrics that include this motif, this article considers how the practice of imagining the coming apocalypse by cataloguing wonders, natural disasters, and strange phenomena in the material world not only reminded human beings of their participation in a larger ecology but also invited them to reflect upon their responsibilities to and sympathies with the larger world.
Beschreibung:1 Abbildung, appendix
ISSN:0038-7134