The Fall

Medieval Christian society understood the Fall as an upheaval of God’s intended design for creation as it brought about a reconfiguration of humans’ relationship to their surroundings, creating a world in which humans now needed to kill animals for food and clothing. The Fall was also understood as the introduction of pain into human life, demonstrated by the necessity of pain in childbirth for Eve, and the idea of labour to survive for Adam which the Middle English Metrical Paraphrase of the Old Testament illustrates:

To the worme He sayd, “Waryd thou be,

 wend on thy wome, ay erth forto eytte;

And, woman, frutt that comys on thee

 sall be broyght furth with paynys grett;

And, Adam, for thou trowd not me,

wyn thou thy foyd with swynke and swett;

So sall all thyn ofspryng   unto the uttmast ende.”¹

(The Middle English Metrical Paraphrase of the Old Testament, ll. 219-226).

Interestingly, although this stanza describes a fracturing of the harmony between humans, the earth, and non-human animals, the connections between the woman and the serpent reinforce their similarity rather than their separation and difference. For example, the rhymes of ‘eytte’,‘grett’, and ‘swett’ for the serpent, Eve, and Adam respectively link the three while the twofold meaning of ‘frutt’ as agricultural produce and offspring reconnects Adam and Eve with the ground that they have been banished from and cursed to till. Furthermore, the alliteration of ‘wome’ for the stomach of the worm, and ‘woman’ underscore the likeness between woman and the worm which is reinforced by the fact that the serpent is described as having a woman’s face: ‘As a serpent soyn was he sen,/ with woman face full fayr and free’ (Middle English Metrical Paraphrase, ll. 183-4). Thus, while God’s punishments for the snake, Adam, and Eve are enmity with one another and with the earth, the portrayal of this in the Middle English Metrical Paraphrase undermines this enmity, mirroring this distortion of order and normality as dictated by God represented by the Fall. 

In his etymology of the word ‘seed’, Isidore of Seville further illuminates this indistinction between humans, animals and the earth despite Genesis’ separation of them. He writes that ‘Seed (semen) is what is ‘taken up’ by either the earth or the uterus after it is cast, so that either a plant or a fetus may grow from it’ (Isidore of Seville, p. 249). Likening the earth to a womb demonstrates that both woman (and other animals) and the earth are fertile creations, this shared fecundity undermining claims of vital distinction between created beings. Thus, while the Fall consolidated man as superior to animals and the ground from which he was created, Isidore of Seville’s text demonstrates a more prelapsarian ideology of the relationship between humans and the natural world. This is just one way in which the lens of polarity with which we view ourselves in relation to the earth and non-human animals is very much a modern invention.  

Chaucer’s ‘The Former Age’, a romanticised rendering of prelapsarian life, encompasses the term solastalgia, which Kimberley Richards describes as ‘the sense of powerlessness and grief experienced by people when their homeland is under duress’.² In her article she mentions that various pieces of art such as Edvard Munch’s The Scream which depict human distress at changes in nature ‘speak to how our lives are entangled in ecological, cultural, and economic relationships’(Richards, ‘Solastalgia’, p. 270). Interestingly, while Chaucer’s wistfulness in ‘The Former Age’ depicts a desire to return to an idyllic life of harmony between humans and the natural world, his poem obscures the role of humanity in destroying this possibility to enjoy perpetual Edenic life by writing that the people in this former age ‘held hem payed [satisfied] by the fruits they ete’ (Chaucer, ‘The Former Age’, l. 3). The idea of human satisfaction in the garden runs counter to the biblical account which describes how Eve ate because of the fruit’s delightfulness (‘vidit igitur mulier quod bonum esset lignum ad vescendum et pulchrum oculis aspectuque delectabile’), implying dissatisfaction with the bounds God had draw for her (Vulgate Bible, Genesis 3.6). Chaucer’s erasure of human culpability in the destruction of an Edenic relationship to the natural world therefore mirrors the modern tendency to identify problems with our world while minimising our individual roles in facilitating or perpetuating those problems. 

Contrary to the notion of solastalgia is that of sehnsucht, which Andrew Hageman describes as a ‘synchronization of unflinching acceptance and utopian hopefulness’ about the current state of the world’ that helps us to overcome the despair of inhabiting a disintegrating world.³ Hageman proposes thinking ‘with’ sehnsucht as a way of realistically engaging with the climate crisis by acknowledging the horrors inflicted upon the earth while looking with hopeful anticipation at the unimagined ways the crisis can be addressed. It is interesting that Hageman specifies that sehnsucht is not ‘nostalgic pining’ for a non-existent former world, nor is it turning to ‘fantasy projections of humane capitalism that can keep things running essentially as they are now, but with smart phones made with bamboo cases’ as this confronts both Chaucer’s idealisation of a former world and our modern-day attempts to mitigate the crisis through small-scale individual choices such as eco-consumerism (Hageman, ‘Sehnsucht’, p. 239). However, the way in which this parallels the modern day saying that ‘There is no ethical consumption under capitalism’ perhaps complicates our ability to accept our circumstances by creating a feeling of hopelessness, propelling us to create art such as Chaucer’s that does deify the idea of an Edenic past of complete harmony with the natural world regardless of individual faith. 

The Cosmos

Unlike today, in the Middle Ages the world was generally understood as a picture of the human and the human as a picture of the world, which John of Trevisa reflects through his personification of the seasons. For example, he moralises springtime and describes it as the season that ‘openeþ þerþe þat is long iclosid and ibounde wiþ coolde’ (Trevisa, On the Properties of Things, p. 524). In the same way we might open a window to let the fresh air in, spring has agency, reflecting this indistinction between the human and the non-human. It is interesting to think of ‘openeþ’ as meaning ‘To make (one’s goods) accessible, give away (goods or property)’ as this also implies spring’s possession of its beauties and their being ‘on loan’ to us when we experience them in the three months we have spring.⁴ ‘Open’ also carries the notion of guardianship which furthers the idea of the pleasures of spring not being something entitled to us but literally something being given over to us, a striking difference from our conceptualisation of the seasons. Additionally, by referring to the ‘benefis’ (kindness) of summer, and the ‘cruelnesse’ of winter, Trevisa reveals how medieval people’s conceptualisation of weather was rooted in their conceptualisation of themselves and their own human capabilities, the remnants of this still evident in modern day colloquialisms such as ‘biting wind’ that personify the elements (Trevisa, p. 528). 

Although humans were generally understood as superior to animals and the earth in medieval times, the extent to which this belief was upheld individually varies much like the sliding scale of the scala naturae itself. While Isidore of Seville’s etymology of matter as ‘hyle’, meaning wood/woodland links all created beings to the earth and suggests that all animals are therefore a mirror of the natural world, reflecting the interconnectedness of humans and the world around them, ‘A Bok of Swevenyng’ asserts the scala naturae model of animals as inferior to humans (Isidore of Seville, Etymologies, p.272). For example, the poem states that ‘With houndes biset whose him syth:/ Tuene of enymis that bith’, with dogs being harbingers of problematic relationships with other humans. (Anon. ‘Art. 85, A Bok of Swevenyng’ ll. 199-200). Additionally, the idea that a person who dreams of himself turned into a ‘beast’ has angered God presents this conversion as a degradation, corresponding with the scala naturae (‘A Bok of Swevenyng’, ll. 264-5). This presentation of the relationship between non-human and human animals is interesting given that the primary meaning of ‘beste’ is ‘One of the animal kingdom (including man), any living creature (non-vegetable)’, thus the poem’s dissociation between humans and animals seems anachronistic and more in keeping with a modern view of the animal kingdom.⁵ 

It is interesting to consider how with technological developments, we have built structures that shield us from the elements and our attitude towards the elements is very utilitarian and oftentimes contemptuous. Jeffrey Jerome Cohen and Lowell Duckert represent this in their statement that we view nature ‘as adversary, a force to subdue and survive, not to live with’.⁶ For example, while we appreciate rain for how it waters crops, in everyday life we typically see it as a nuisance. This is very different from the almost sacred character water takes on in Trevisa’s text where where it is privileged as the most important element because ‘when poured out it becomes the cause of all living things on earth… cleans away filth, washes away sins, and provides drink for all living creatures’(Trevisa, p. 276). Cohen and Duckert put interestingly the way in which human callousness in our commodification of nature also affects how we relate to other humans, which is an interesting way that the medieval idea of the interconnectedness of nature and humans applies in a modern context. They link our ‘relentless objectification’ of the natural world with the transformation of other humans into disposable resources, using the example of miners who can be ‘discarded’ after they develop black lung (Cohen and Duckert, ‘Introduction’, pp. 4-5). It is interesting that the medieval understanding of the relationship between humans and the natural world is what Cohen and Duckert propose we return to as a means of mitigating the climate crisis. For example, they state that what they term ‘strategic anthropomorphisms— speaking of the elements as if we could know the elements’ is actually helpful for us to make sense of the world around us, which is exactly what Trevisa’s text in its anthropomorphism of the seasons did for his medieval audience (Cohen and Duckert, ‘Introduction’, p. 12). 

Cohen and Duckert’s traditionalism in seeking to return to a more medieval approach to the natural world is echoed by Cherice Bock who in ‘Watershed Discipleship’ asserts that the Christian worldview endorses good stewardship of the earth and defines the ‘proper’ use of the land as that which creates ‘a rhythm of work and rest that is healthy for people and the ecosystem’.⁷ The inclusion of the ecosystem in this ‘rhythm’ demonstrates sensitivity to the elemental aspects of creation, right down to the soil, worms and insects that we usually dismiss as insignificant. Thus, although there are great differences in how human today conceptualise themselves in relation to the natural world compared to how medieval society conceptualised themselves, with growing awareness of the climate crisis is increasing thought about returning to a more holistic way of considering humans in relation to the cosmos, as shown by Cohen and Duckert, and Bock. 

Bibliography

Anon. ‘Art. 85, Bok of Swevenyng’ in The Complete Harley 2253 Manuscript, ed. by Susanna Greer Fein, Vol 3, 2015

Bock, Cherice, ‘Watershed Discipleship’ in An Ectopic Lexicon, ed. by Matthew Schneider-Mayorson and Brent Ryan Bellamy (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2019), pp. 305-16

Chaucer, Geoffrey, ‘The Former Age’ in The Riverside Chaucer, ed. by Larry D. Benson, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988)

Cohen, Jeffrey Jerome, and Lowell Duckert, ‘Introduction: Eleven Principles of the Elements’ in Elemental Ecocriticism: Thinking with Earth, Air, Water and Fire (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2015), pp. 1-26

‘Genesis: Fall of Adam and Eve’ in The Middle English Metrical Paraphrase of the Old Testament, ed. by Michael Livingstone (Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publication, 2011)

‘Genesis Chapter 2’, Vulgate.Org <https://vulgate.org/ot/genesis_2.htm> [accessed 7 October 2022]

Genesis Chapter 3, Vulgate.Org <https://vulgate.org/ot/genesis_3.htm> [accessed 7 October 2022]

Hageman, Andrew, ‘Sehnsucht’ in An Ectopic Lexicon, ed. by Matthew Schneider-Mayorson and Brent Ryan Bellamy (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2019), pp. 237-44

Middle English Dictionary, <https://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/middle-english-dictionary/dictionary>, [accessed 21 November 2022]

Richards, Kimberley Skye, ‘Solastalgia’ in An Ectopic Lexicon, ed. by Matthew Schneider-Mayorson and Brent Ryan Bellamy (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2019), pp. 266-72

Seville, Isidore, The Etymologies of Isidore of Seville, ed. by Stephen A. Barney et al (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006)

Trevisa, John, On the Properties of Things: John Trevisa’s Translation of Bartholomaeus Anglicus, De Proprietatibus Rerum: A Critical Text, ed. by M.C. Seymour (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1975), Vol. 1

1. ‘Genesis: Fall of Adam and Eve’ in The Middle English Metrical Paraphrase of the Old Testament, ed. by Michael Livingstone (Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publication, 2011), ll. 219-226.
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2.  Kimberley Skye Richards, ‘Solastalgia’ in An Ectopic Lexicon, ed. by Matthew Schneider-Mayorson and Brent Ryan Bellamy (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2019), p. 267.
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3.  Hageman, ‘Sehnsucht’ in An Ectopic Lexicon, ed. by Matthew Schneider-Mayorson and Brent Ryan Bellamy (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2019), p. 239.
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4.  MED, s.v. ‘openen (v.)’ 1.(h). [accessed 21 November 2022].
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5.  MED, s.v. ‘beste (n.)’ 1.(a). [accessed 21 November 2022].
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6.  Jeffrey Jerome Cohen and Lowell Duckert, ‘Introduction: Eleven Principles of the Elements’ in Elemental Ecocriticism: Thinking with Earth, Air, Water, and Fire (Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press, 2015), p. 11.
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7.  Cherice Bock, ‘Watershed Discipleship’ in An Ectopic Lexicon, ed. by Matthew Schneider-Mayorson and Brent Ryan Bellamy (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2019), p. 311.
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