For over a century, studies of the medieval epic in romance languages have focused on questions of genesis, transmission, themes, symbols, and motifs, but the contributions from the non-human—but very real—natural world to this literature remains under-represented. These epics bear witness to a profound understanding of the inter-relatedness of all life forms and to the consequences of its denial. This session invites scholars from diverse disciplines to reconsider medieval romance epic traditions that reaffirm the bond between the human and non-human, and that address any human eclipse due to the discounting of the natural world.

This panel invites papers that theorize the surplus of a literary object as something accidentally produced by that object. What is the substance and effect of this surplus? How is surplus figured in poetry, especially in poetics in or working in relation to the New York School? Following Stephen Best's assertion that "beauty is a force of erasure," papers might contribute theories of beauty in or as surplus. If art implies a frame but beauty can also erase that frame, papers might theorize framing in poetry and consider poetics that both constitute and move to exceed a frame. What else might constitute or figure surplus in poetry? Do New York School poetics figure a surplus of discourse or perhaps of thought?