Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
The Old English and Anglo-Latin Riddle Tradition

The Old English and Anglo-Latin Riddle Tradition

Orchard, Andy
Orchard, Andy

Hardcover

Series: Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library, Book 69

Medieval & Renaissance HistoryLiterary CriticismFiction Anthologies

Currently unavailable to order

ISBN10: 0674055330
ISBN13: 9780674055339
Publisher: Harvard Univ Pr
Published: May 11 2021
Pages: 928
Weight: 1.95
Height: 2.00 Width: 5.70 Depth: 8.00
Language: English

What offers over seven hundred witty enigmas in several languages? Answer: The Old English and Anglo-Latin Riddle Tradition. Riddles, wordplay, and inscrutable utterances have been at the heart of Western literature for many centuries. Often brief and always delightful, medieval riddles provide insights into the extraordinary and the everyday, connecting the learned and the ribald, the lay and the devout, and the familiar and the imported. Many solutions involve domestic life, including butter churn and chickens. Others like the harrowing of hell or the Pleiades appeal to an educated elite. Still others, like the one-eyed seller of garlic, are too absurd to solve: that is part of the game. Riddles are not simply lighthearted amusement. They invite philosophical questions about language and knowledge.

Most riddles in this volume are translated from Old English and Latin, but it also includes some from Old Norse-Icelandic. The Old English and Anglo-Latin Riddle Tradition assembles, for the first time ever, an astonishing array of riddles composed before 1200 CE that continue to entertain and puzzle.

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