About this product

Product Identifiers

PublisherUniversity of Virginia Press

ISBN-100813942276

ISBN-139780813942278

eBay Product ID (ePID)16038779889

Product Key Features

Book TitleEvergreen Ash : Ecology and Catastrophe in Old Norse Myth and Literature

Number of Pages256 Pages

LanguageEnglish

Publication Year2019

TopicSubjects & Themes / Nature, Folklore & Mythology, European / Scandinavian

IllustratorYes

GenreLiterary Criticism, Social Science, Literary Collections

AuthorChristopher Abram

Book SeriesUnder the Sign of Nature Ser.: Explorations in Environmental Humanities

FormatTrade Paperback

Dimensions

Item Height0.6 in

Item Weight13.4 Oz

Item Length9 in

Item Width5.9 in

Additional Product Features

Intended AudienceScholarly & Professional

LCCN2018-041484

Dewey Edition23

ReviewsEvergreen Ash is an ecocritical reading of medieval Old Norse literature, arguing for the parallels between Ragnarök, the apocalypse of the Old Norse world, and the climatic disaster of the Anthropocene. By analysing the myths of pagan Iceland, Abram aims to discover how Icelanders imaginatively lived in a place so apparently inhospitable to human settlement., Old Norse studies sometimes lags behind other fields in assimilating new critical and theoretical approaches, and this has certainly been the case with ecocriticism. The tide is turning, however, and medieval Icelandic literature offers very rich material for the environmental humanities. As the first book-length ecocritical study in its field, Evergreen Ash will become the key reference point for everyone interested in how Old Norse Icelandic literature and ecocriticism might illuminate each other., Christopher Abram uses the paradoxes of volcanic ash vs the ash (the words are similar but not identical in Old Norse), and a deciduous tree that is always green in a tree-less volcanic landscape to launch into a wide-ranging and dense discussion of environment and ecological catastrophe in the literature and especially the mythology of medieval Iceland. His approach is ecocritical: he aims to introduce ecocrticism into Old Norse-Icelandic studies; and to show how Old Norse-Icelandic literature "provides us with distinctively different at at times advantageous viewpoints on matters of fundamental concern to ecocriticism.", Christopher Abram offers us a brilliant study bringing ecocriticism comprehensively to early Icelandic and Norse literature... this is a significant book, whose diligent creative scholarship will make it foundational to further iterations of medieval ecocriticism, and is distinguished also by a virtuous clear-eyed view of current crises.

Grade FromCollege Graduate Student

Dewey Decimal839/.609

Grade ToCollege Graduate Student

Table Of ContentPrologue: Evergreen Ash 1. Ecocriticism and Old Norse 2. Remembering and Dismembering a Transcorporeal Cosmos 3. The Nature of World in a World without Nature: Heimr, Verold, Jorð 4. Tree-People and People-Trees 5. Trees, Vines, and the Golden Age of Settlement 6. The Æsir and the Anthropocene 7. Reading Ragnarok at the End of the World Conclusion

SynopsisNorse mythology is obsessed with the idea of an onrushing and unstoppable apocalypse: Ragnarok, when the whole of creation will perish in fire, smoke, and darkness and the earth will no longer support the life it once nurtured. Most of the Old Norse texts that preserve the myths of Ragnarok originated in Iceland, a nation whose volcanic activity places it perpetually on the brink of a world-changing environmental catastrophe. As the first full-length ecocritical study of Old Norse myth and literature, Evergreen Ash argues that Ragnarok is primarily a story of ecological collapse that reflects the anxieties of early Icelanders who were trying to make a home in a profoundly strange, marginal, and at times hostile environment. Christopher Abram here contends that Ragnarok offers an uncanny foreshadowing of our current global ecological crisis--the era of the Anthropocene. Ragnarok portends what may happen when a civilization believes that nature can be mastered and treated only as a resource to be exploited for human ends. The enduring power of the Ragnarok myth, and its relevance to life in the era of climate change, lies in its terrifying evocation of a world in which nothing is what it was before, a world that is no longer home to us--and, thus, a world with no future. Climate change may well be our Ragnarok., Norse mythology is obsessed with the idea of an onrushing and unstoppable apocalypse: Ragnarok, when the whole of creation will perish in fire, smoke, and darkness and the earth will no longer support the life it once nurtured. Most of the Old Norse texts that preserve the myths of Ragnarok originated in Iceland, a nation whose volcanic activity places it perpetually on the brink of a world-changing environmental catastrophe. As the first full-length ecocritical study of Old Norse myth and literature, Evergreen Ash argues that Ragnarok is primarily a story of ecological collapse that reflects the anxieties of early Icelanders who were trying to make a home in a profoundly strange, marginal, and at times hostile environment. Christopher Abram here contends that Ragnarok offers an uncanny foreshadowing of our current global ecological crisis?the era of the Anthropocene. Ragnarok portends what may happen when a civilization believes that nature can be mastered and treated only as a resource to be exploited for human ends. The enduring power of the Ragnarok myth, and its relevance to life in the era of climate change, lies in its terrifying evocation of a world in which nothing is what it was before, a world that is no longer home to us?and, thus, a world with no future. Climate change may well be our Ragnarok., Norse mythology is obsessed with the idea of an onrushing and unstoppable apocalypse: Ragnarok, when the whole of creation will perish in fire, smoke, and darkness and the earth will nolonger support the life it once nurtured. Most of the Old Norse texts that preserve the myths of Ragnarok originated in Iceland, a nation whose volcanic activity places it perpetually on the brink of a world-changing environmental catastrophe. As the first full-length ecocritical study of Old Norse myth and literature, Evergreen Ash argues that Ragnarok is primarily a story of ecological collapse that reflects the anxieties of early Icelanders who were trying to make a home in a profoundly strange, marginal, and at times hostile environment. Christopher Abram here contends that Ragnarok offers an uncanny foreshadowing of our current global ecological crisis--the era of the Anthropocene. Ragnarok portends what may happen when a civilization believes that nature can be mastered and treated only as a resource to be exploited for human ends. The enduring power of the Ragnarok myth, and its relevance to life in the era of climate change, lies in its terrifying evocation of a world in which nothing is what it was before, a world that is no longer home to us--and, thus, a world with no future. Climate change may well be our Ragnarok., Most of the Old Norse texts that preserve the myths of Ragnarok originated in Iceland. As the first full-length ecocritical study of Old Norse myth and literature, Evergreen Ash argues that Ragnarok is primarily a story of ecological collapse that reflects the anxieties of early Icelanders who were trying to make a home in a hostile environment.

LC Classification NumberPT7154.A227 2019