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Exeter Book Riddle 95: ‘The Sun’, a New Solution

  • Dieter Bitterli EMAIL logo
Veröffentlicht/Copyright: 12. November 2019
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Aus der Zeitschrift Anglia Band 137 Heft 4

Abstract

Elusive and fraught with textual difficulties, Riddle 95, the ‘last’ of the Old English verse riddles preserved in the tenth-century Exeter Book, has long baffled modern readers as one of a handful of thorny items in the collection that have so far defied solution. ‘Book’ is the answer that has found most acceptance with critics in the past, yet the speaking subject of Riddle 95 is unlike anything described in those items of the collection that actually deal with writing and the tools of the monastic scriptorium. Rather, the linguistic and thematic parallels between Riddle 95 on the one hand, and the cosmological riddles and poems in the Exeter Book on the other, strongly suggest that the subject of Riddle 95 is the sun, a frequent topic of early medieval enigmatography. The poem obliquely relates how the rising sun installs itself in the sky to shed its welcome light upon the earth before it sets and vanishes from sight, completing its daily orbit along unknown paths. The main clues helping to secure the solution ‘sun’ are based upon what was known in Anglo-Saxon England about the solar course and the planetary motions, especially from the astronomical writings of Isidore of Seville and Bede. Further evidence is provided by several analogues in the Anglo-Latin riddle tradition, including the Enigmata of Aldhelm and his followers.

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Published Online: 2019-11-12
Published in Print: 2019-11-11

© 2019 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

Artikel in diesem Heft

  1. Frontmatter
  2. Frontmatter
  3. Articles
  4. Translating the Gospel in Viking Age England: The Evidence from Two Old Norse Loan Translations from Old English
  5. The Latin and the Old English Versions of St Augustine’s Prayer in his Soliloquia: A Study and a Rhetorical Synopsis
  6. Exeter Book Riddle 95: ‘The Sun’, a New Solution
  7. Matrilineality and Mothers-in-Law in Ama Ata Aidoo’s “Something to talk about on the way to a funeral” and The Dilemma of a Ghost
  8. Reviews
  9. Uwe Carls (comp.), Peter Lucko, Lothar Frank and Frank Polzenhagen (eds.). 2017. A Dictionary of Indian English. With a Supplement on Word-formation Patterns. Leipzig: Leipziger Universitätsverlag, xxvi + 432 pp., € 33.00.
  10. Monika Bednarek. 2018. Language and Television Series: A Linguistic Approach to TV Dialogue. The Cambridge Applied Linguistics Series. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, xv + 303 pp., 40 figures and 36 tables, £ 28.99.
  11. Päivi Pahta, Janne Skaffari and Laura Wright (eds.). 2018. Multilingual Practices in Language History: English and Beyond. Language Contact and Bilingualism 15. Boston, MA/Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton, viii + 361 pp., 36 figures, 31 tables, £ 91.00.
  12. Eric Weiskott. 2016. English Alliterative Verse: Poetic Tradition and Literary History. Cambridge Studies in Medieval Literature 96. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, xiv + 236 pp., 6 figures, £ 64.99.
  13. Susan Irvine and Winfried Rudolf (eds.). 2018. Childhood and Adolescence in Anglo-Saxon Literary Culture. Toronto Anglo-Saxon Series 28. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, x + 335 pp., $ 90.00
  14. Sarah Schäfer‑Althaus. 2016. The Gendered Body: Female Sanctity, Gender Hybridity and the Body in Women’s Hagiography. Regensburger Beiträge zur Gender-Forschung 8. Heidelberg: Winter, 184 pp., € 35.00.
  15. Frederick M. Biggs. 2017. Chaucer’s Decameron and the Origin of the Canterbury Tales. Chaucer Studies 44. Cambridge: Brewer, xiii + 275 pp., 5 figures, £ 60.00 (hb)/£ 19.99 (pb).
  16. Lindsay Ann Reid. 2018. Shakespeare’s Ovid and the Spectre of the Medieval. Studies in Renaissance Literature 36. Cambridge: Brewer, xiii + 267 pp., 12 figures, £ 60.00.
  17. T. L. Burton and K. K. Ruthven (eds.). 2018. The Complete Poems of William Barnes. Volume II: Poems in the Modified Form of the Dorset Dialect. Oxford: Oxford University Press, xxxvii + 808 pp., 8 figures, £ 195.00.
  18. Christine Gerhardt (ed.). 2018. Handbook of the American Novel of the Nineteenth Century. Berlin / Boston: de Gruyter, 574 pp., € 199.95 / $ 229.99 / £ 182.00.
  19. Melanie V. Dawson and Meredith L. Goldsmith (eds.). 2018. American Literary History and the Turn toward Modernity. Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida, 298 pp., $ 85.00.
  20. Nathalie Aghoro. 2018. Sounding the Novel: Voice in Twenty-First Century American Fiction. Heidelberg: Winter, 258 pp., € 38.00.
  21. Marc Singer (ed.). 2019. Breaking the Frames: Populism and Prestige in Comics Studies. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 312 pp., 30 illustr., $ 34.95.
  22. Books Reviewed: Anglia 137 (2019)
https://doi.org/10.1515/ang-2019-0054

Artikel in diesem Heft

  1. Frontmatter
  2. Frontmatter
  3. Articles
  4. Translating the Gospel in Viking Age England: The Evidence from Two Old Norse Loan Translations from Old English
  5. The Latin and the Old English Versions of St Augustine’s Prayer in his Soliloquia: A Study and a Rhetorical Synopsis
  6. Exeter Book Riddle 95: ‘The Sun’, a New Solution
  7. Matrilineality and Mothers-in-Law in Ama Ata Aidoo’s “Something to talk about on the way to a funeral” and The Dilemma of a Ghost
  8. Reviews
  9. Uwe Carls (comp.), Peter Lucko, Lothar Frank and Frank Polzenhagen (eds.). 2017. A Dictionary of Indian English. With a Supplement on Word-formation Patterns. Leipzig: Leipziger Universitätsverlag, xxvi + 432 pp., € 33.00.
  10. Monika Bednarek. 2018. Language and Television Series: A Linguistic Approach to TV Dialogue. The Cambridge Applied Linguistics Series. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, xv + 303 pp., 40 figures and 36 tables, £ 28.99.
  11. Päivi Pahta, Janne Skaffari and Laura Wright (eds.). 2018. Multilingual Practices in Language History: English and Beyond. Language Contact and Bilingualism 15. Boston, MA/Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton, viii + 361 pp., 36 figures, 31 tables, £ 91.00.
  12. Eric Weiskott. 2016. English Alliterative Verse: Poetic Tradition and Literary History. Cambridge Studies in Medieval Literature 96. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, xiv + 236 pp., 6 figures, £ 64.99.
  13. Susan Irvine and Winfried Rudolf (eds.). 2018. Childhood and Adolescence in Anglo-Saxon Literary Culture. Toronto Anglo-Saxon Series 28. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, x + 335 pp., $ 90.00
  14. Sarah Schäfer‑Althaus. 2016. The Gendered Body: Female Sanctity, Gender Hybridity and the Body in Women’s Hagiography. Regensburger Beiträge zur Gender-Forschung 8. Heidelberg: Winter, 184 pp., € 35.00.
  15. Frederick M. Biggs. 2017. Chaucer’s Decameron and the Origin of the Canterbury Tales. Chaucer Studies 44. Cambridge: Brewer, xiii + 275 pp., 5 figures, £ 60.00 (hb)/£ 19.99 (pb).
  16. Lindsay Ann Reid. 2018. Shakespeare’s Ovid and the Spectre of the Medieval. Studies in Renaissance Literature 36. Cambridge: Brewer, xiii + 267 pp., 12 figures, £ 60.00.
  17. T. L. Burton and K. K. Ruthven (eds.). 2018. The Complete Poems of William Barnes. Volume II: Poems in the Modified Form of the Dorset Dialect. Oxford: Oxford University Press, xxxvii + 808 pp., 8 figures, £ 195.00.
  18. Christine Gerhardt (ed.). 2018. Handbook of the American Novel of the Nineteenth Century. Berlin / Boston: de Gruyter, 574 pp., € 199.95 / $ 229.99 / £ 182.00.
  19. Melanie V. Dawson and Meredith L. Goldsmith (eds.). 2018. American Literary History and the Turn toward Modernity. Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida, 298 pp., $ 85.00.
  20. Nathalie Aghoro. 2018. Sounding the Novel: Voice in Twenty-First Century American Fiction. Heidelberg: Winter, 258 pp., € 38.00.
  21. Marc Singer (ed.). 2019. Breaking the Frames: Populism and Prestige in Comics Studies. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 312 pp., 30 illustr., $ 34.95.
  22. Books Reviewed: Anglia 137 (2019)
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