Stephen Knight, Nature and Medieval Literature. New Century Chaucer. Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2024, xiii, 313 pp.

Any new ecocritical approach to medieval literature and culture deserves our acknowledgment, especially when a scholar offers close readings of the various texts where the interaction between people and nature emerges as an explicit topic. The question, however, quickly comes to mind what we would do with the close focus on nature scenes or elements in medieval narratives and poems? How does this turn to those details contribute to a meaningful ecocritical perspective relevant also for us today? All this requires a careful balancing act and can set us on a new path of innovative critical interpretations of pre-modern comments vis-à-vis nature. It is one thing to utilize the label ‘ecocriticism,’ and another one to demonstrate how a thorough focus on birds, plants, animals, rivers, mountains, etc. can uncover new levels of meaning in medieval literature. We need, first of all, theoretical reflections on the historical dimension of ecocriticism and its impact on current conditions. Only then should we reconsider the images of nature in medieval literature.