The Exeter Book

The Exeter Book PDF

Author: Israel Gollancz

Publisher:

Published: 2018-10-09

Total Pages: 322

ISBN-13: 9780341945420

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This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. To ensure a quality reading experience, this work has been proofread and republished using a format that seamlessly blends the original graphical elements with text in an easy-to-read typeface. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

Anglo-Saxon Riddles

Anglo-Saxon Riddles PDF

Author: John Porter

Publisher:

Published: 2003

Total Pages: 137

ISBN-13: 9781898281320

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This book is full of ingenious characters who speak their names in riddles. Here you will meet a one-eyed garlic seller, a bookworm, an iceberg, an oyster, the sun and moon and a host of others from the everyday life and imagination of the early English. John Porter's translations retain all the vigour and subtlety of the original Old English poems, transporting us back over a thousand years to the roots of our language and literature.

Say what I Am Called

Say what I Am Called PDF

Author: Dieter Bitterli

Publisher: University of Toronto Press

Published: 2009-01-01

Total Pages: 233

ISBN-13: 0802093523

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Perhaps the most enigmatic cultural artifacts that survive from the Anglo-Saxon period are the Old English riddle poems that were preserved in the tenth century Exeter Book manuscript. Clever, challenging, and notoriously obscure, the riddles have fascinated readers for centuries and provided crucial insight into the period. In Say What I Am Called, Dieter Bitterli takes a fresh look at the riddles by examining them in the context of earlier Anglo-Latin riddles. Bitterli argues that there is a vigorous common tradition between Anglo-Latin and Old English riddles and details how the contents of the Exeter Book emulate and reassess their Latin predecessors while also expanding their literary and formal conventions. The book also considers the ways in which convention and content relate to writing in a vernacular language. A rich and illuminating work that is as intriguing as the riddles themselves, Say What I Am Called is a rewarding study of some of the most interesting works from the Anglo-Saxon period.

The Exeter Book Riddles

The Exeter Book Riddles PDF

Author:

Publisher:

Published: 2008

Total Pages: 140

ISBN-13:

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"The ninety-six Anglo-Saxon riddles in the eleventh-century Exeter Book are poems of great charm, zest, and subtlety. Ranging from natural phenomena (such as icebergs and storms at sea) to animal and bird life, from the Christian concept of the creation to prosaic domestic objects (such as a rake and a pair of bellows), and from weaponry to the peaceful pursuits of music and writing, they are full of sharp observation, earthly humour and, above all, a sense of wonder. The main text of this volume contains Kevin Crossley-Holland's newly-revised translations of seventy-five fascinating and discursive riddles - all those not very badly damaged or impenetrably obscure - while a further sixteen are translated in the notes. These translations are very widely anthologised in Britain and the USA. Sir Arthur Bliss and William Mathias set some of them to music, Ralph Steadman has illustrated them and Michael Fairfax has incorporated them in his Riddle Sculpture."--BOOK JACKET.

Unriddling the Exeter Riddles

Unriddling the Exeter Riddles PDF

Author: Patrick J. Murphy

Publisher: Penn State Press

Published: 2011-03-21

Total Pages: 274

ISBN-13: 0271078170

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The vibrant and enigmatic Exeter Riddles (ca. 960–980) are among the most compelling texts in the field of medieval studies, in part because they lack textually supplied solutions. Indeed, these ninety-five Old English riddles have become so popular that they have even been featured on posters for the London Underground and have inspired a sculpture in downtown Exeter. Modern scholars have responded enthusiastically to the challenge of solving the Riddles, but have generally examined them individually. Few have considered the collection as a whole or in a broader context. In this book, Patrick Murphy takes an innovative approach, arguing that in order to understand the Riddles more fully, we must step back from the individual puzzles and consider the group in light of the textual and oral traditions from which they emerged. He offers fresh insights into the nature of the Exeter Riddles’ complexity, their intellectual foundations, and their lively use of metaphor.

Anglo-Saxon Riddles

Anglo-Saxon Riddles PDF

Author: John Porter

Publisher:

Published: 1995

Total Pages: 120

ISBN-13:

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A book full of ingenious characters who speak their names in riddles-a bookworm, an iceberg, an oyster, the sun and moon and a one-eyed garlic seller are just a few that bear witness to the every-day life and imagination of the Anglo-Saxons. Their sense of the awesome power of creation goes hand in hand with a frank delight in obscenity, a fascination with disguise and with the mysterious processes by which the natural world is yurned to human use. Contains all 95 Exeter Book riddles.

A Feast of Creatures

A Feast of Creatures PDF

Author: Craig Williamson

Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press

Published: 2011-11-29

Total Pages: 242

ISBN-13: 081220445X

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In A Feast of Creatures, Craig Williamson recasts nearly one hundred Old English riddles of the Exeter Book into a modern verse mode that yokes the cadences of Aelfric with the sprung rhythm of Gerard Manley Hopkins. Like the early English riddlers before him, Williamson gives voice to the nightingale, plow, ox, phallic onion, and storm-wind. In lean and taut language he offers us mead disguised as a mighty wrestler, the sword as a celibate thane, the silver wine-cup as a seductress, the horn transformed from head-warrior to ink-belly or battle-singer. In his notes and commentary he gives us possible and probable solutions, sources, and analogues, a shrewd sense of literary play, and traces the literary and cultural contexts in which each riddle may be viewed. In his introduction, Williamson traces for us the history of riddles and riddle scholarship.

Saint Aldhelm's 'Riddles'

Saint Aldhelm's 'Riddles' PDF

Author: Saint Aldhelm

Publisher: University of Toronto Press

Published: 2015-11-26

Total Pages: 200

ISBN-13: 1442625309

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The first and one of the finest Latin poets of Anglo-Saxon England, the seventh-century bishop Saint Aldhelm can justly be called “Britain’s first man of letters.” Among his many influential poetic texts were the hundred riddles that made up his Aenigmata. In Saint Aldhelm’s Riddles, A.M. Juster offers the first verse translation of this text in almost a century, capturing the wit, warmth, and wonder of the first English riddle collection. One of today’s finest formalist poets, A.M. Juster brings the same exquisite care to this volume as to his translations of Horace (“The best edition available of the Satires in English” –Choice), Tibullus (“An excellent new translation” –The Guardian), and Petrarch. Juster’s translation is complemented by a newly edited version of the Latin text and by the first scholarly commentary on the Aenigmata, the result of exhaustive interdisciplinary research into the text’s historical, literary, and philological context. Saint Aldhelm’s Riddles will be essential for scholars and a treasure for lovers of Tolkien, Beowulf, and Harry Potter.