
A Feast of Creatures
Anglo-Saxon Riddle-Songs
University of Pennsylvania Press
Published on 14. September 2011
Book
Paperback/Softback
248 pages
978-0-8122-1129-0 (ISBN)
Description
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.
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.
Reviews / Votes
"A veritable feast."-Verbatim"Captivating."-Choice
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Pennsylvania
United States
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Dimensions
Height: 226 mm
Width: 152 mm
Thickness: 15 mm
Weight
340 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-8122-1129-0 (9780812211290)
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Schweitzer Classification
Person
Craig Williamson is the Alfred H. and Peggi Bloom Professor of English Literature at Swarthmore College. He is editor and translator of "Beowulf" and Other Old English Poems, also available from the University of Pennsylvania Press.
Edited and translated