The Might and Mind of the Measurer: Creation and the Environment in Early English Literature

In a new Future of the Humanities Project event series — A Bent but Beautiful World: Literature, Art, and the Environment — we delve into the topical area of our environment. In recent years, we have rightly heard much about the world’s environmental problems, dangers, and disasters. However, in this series, we will invite speakers to explore the ways in which art and literature have foregrounded the inspirational beauty, delicacy, and strength of the natural world.

The natural environment has been a central concern of English literature from the earliest times. It is often overlooked that the English literary tradition, renowned for Chaucer, Shakespeare, and Milton, originates in the Anglo-Saxon period, which dates from c. 650 to 1066. At the very root of this tradition is the mid-to-late seventh century work Cædmon’s Hymn, preoccupied with creation and considered the first poem in Old English. Similarly, the eighth- and ninth-century Old English poems such as Exodus, Daniel, and Christ and Satan reflect a unique, early English understanding of creation as a place for understanding the creator.

In this talk, Jasmine Jones will conduct an analysis of several Old English poems to reveal how, since the earliest times, creation was understood as providing insight to God. This reverence for the environment remains relevant today, as our contemporary concern for the majesty of the natural world is a continuation of that which is first expressed in the oldest surviving literature of the English language. Michael Scott, director of the Future of the Humanities Project, will provide opening and closing remarks, and Kathryn Temple, a Future of the Humanities Project senior fellow, will moderate a Q&A session following the presentation.

Participants:

Jasmine Jones is completing her D.Phil. in English at St. Edmund Hall, University of Oxford, where she is a Clarendon Scholar and the Bruce Mitchell Scholar of Old and Middle English. Her doctoral thesis analyzes the earliest writings which survive in the English language—Anglo-Saxon theological poems from around 700 to 850 AD. Jasmine aspires to an academic career in which she can continue to research what she loves and share this knowledge through teaching others.

Kathryn Temple (moderator) is a professor in the Department of English at Georgetown University where she has taught since 1994. She specializes in the study of law and the humanities. Among her publications are Loving Justice: Legal Emotions in William Blackstone’s England (2019) and the co-edited Research Handbook on Law and Emotions (2021). Her humanities outreach activities include work with military veterans and the incarcerated.

Michael Scott (moderator) is senior dean, fellow of Blackfriars Hall, Oxford, college adviser for postgraduate students, and a member of the Las Casas Institute. He also serves as senior adviser to the president of Georgetown University. Scott previously was the pro-vice-chancellor at De Montfort University and founding vice-chancellor of Wrexham Glyndwr University.

Online. Free and open to all. Registration is required.

 

Contact:
Las Casas Institute with Georgetown University
lascasas@bfriars.ox.ac.uk