Old English Enigmatic Poems and the Play of the Texts

Description

This book consists of a close study of a number of verse texts chiefly drawn from the Exeter Book of Old English poetry. All of these texts are enigmatic. Some are outright riddles, while others (such as the elegies) are riddle-like in their manner of simultaneously giving and withholding information. The author approaches these poems as microcosms of the art of Old English poetry in general, which (particularly in its more lyrical forms) relies on its audience’s ability to decipher metaphorical language and to fill out details that remain unexpressed. The chief claim advanced is that Old English poetry is a good deal more playful than is often acknowledged, so that the art of interpreting it can require a kind of ‘game strategy’ whereby riddling authors match their wits against adventurous readers. Innovative readings of a number of poems are offered, while the whole collection of Exeter Book riddles is given a set of answers posed in the language of the riddler. The literary use of runes in The Rune Poem, The Husband’s Message, and Cynewulf ’s runic signatures comes under close scrutiny, and the thesis is advanced that Anglo-Saxon runes (particularly those that lacked stable conventional names) were sometimes used as initialisms. The book combines the methods of rigorous philology and imaginative literary analysis Front Matter ("Contents", "Acknowledgements", "List of Abbreviations", "List of Illustrations"), p. i Citation | PDF (467 KB) Free Access Introduction: Old English Poems and Current Readers, p. 1 https://doi.org/10.1484/M.SEM-EB.4.00022 Citation | PDF (483 KB) 1. Exeter Book Riddle 74 and the Play of the Text, p. 11 https://doi.org/10.1484/M.SEM-EB.4.00023 Citation | PDF (688 KB) 2. Exeter Book Riddle 55: Some Gallows Humour, p. 61 https://doi.org/10.1484/M.SEM-EB.4.00025 Citation | PDF (664 KB) 3. New Answers to Exeter Book Riddles 36, 58, 70, and 75/76, p. 85 https://doi.org/10.1484/M.SEM-EB.4.00026 Citation | PDF (534 KB) 4. Answering the Riddles in their Own Tongue, p. 101 https://doi.org/10.1484/M.SEM-EB.4.00027 Citation | PDF (696 KB) 5. The Problem of the Ending of The Wife’s Lament, p. 149 https://doi.org/10.1484/M.SEM-EB.4.00029 Citation | PDF (748 KB) 6. The Trick of the Runes in The Husband’s Message, p. 213 https://doi.org/10.1484/M.SEM-EB.4.00031 Citation | PDF (764 KB) 7. Runic Hermeneutics in The Rune Poem, p. 251 https://doi.org/10.1484/M.SEM-EB.4.00032 Citation | PDF (728 KB) 8. Cynewulf’s Use of Initialisms in his Runic Signatures, p. 285 https://doi.org/10.1484/M.SEM-EB.4.00034 Citation | PDF (637 KB) Conclusion: On the Dance of Wit and Wisdom, p. 307 https://doi.org/10.1484/M.SEM-EB.4.00035 Citation | PDF (442 KB) Back Matter ("Index of Old English Words and Phrases Discussed", "Index of Old English Works and Passages", "Index of Modern Scholars Cited", "General Index"), p. 311 Citation | PDF (637 KB)