Identifiant pérenne de la notice : 223720224
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Note publique d'information : 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
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