My dissertation draws attention to a surprising and largely ignored element in several late medieval texts such as John Lydgate's Siege of Thebes, Chaucer's Knight's Tale, the Alliterative Morte, and The Wars of Alexander , and argues that several important writers of this era were concerned about warfare's impact upon, and complex relationship with, the natural world. Although modern criticisms of warfare's effects upon the lives of individual plants and animals or on ecosystemic health are surely sponsored by contemporary animal rights and environmentalist discourses, some medieval poets nevertheless reveal a sustained interest in the subjectivities of animals and in nonhuman capacities to take pleasure in one's own existence in a way that makes modern discussions of nonhuman "sentience," "interests," and "rights" appear not so foreign from the concerns of some of these medieval writers. Throughout this project, I examine how writers respond both to ecological relationships that are a product of specifically late medieval military tactics and proto-industries (such as those related to the increasing role of archery power), as well as ones that are hallmarks of premodern and modern warfare in general (such as the use of horses for cavalry charges or the penchant for putting an enemy's agricultural regions to the torch). In foregrounding the emphasis in several Middle English texts on the connections between medieval warfare and nature, my project not only builds upon a growing body of scholarly work on medieval views of nature, but also contributes to the burgeoning field of environmental studies and offers fresh approaches to familiar works of literature such as Malory's Morte Darthur and Chaucer's Knight's Tale.
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