The papers in this session address, severally and collectively, the nature and imaginative reach of the Pearl-poet’s treatment, in Middle English, of humanity’s encounters with the environment, and all consider aspects of the poems’ descriptive art. For Jane Beal, the topos of a waterside encounter in Pearl illuminates our understanding of Tolkien’s artistry. Mickey Sweeney considers how Sir Gawain’s representation of the fertile land yields new insights into perceptions of the environment and human experience across the genres of history and romance, while Ashley Bartelt​’s work addresses how, in the poet’s work, the weather registers deeper moral and spiritual assaults on a vulnerable humanity.