Saint Aldhelm's "Riddles"

Description

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. Acknowledgements vii Translator’s Note ix Introduction xiii Saint Aldhelm’s "Riddles" 2 Answer Key 69 Commentary 73 Sources 159 Index 165