Reading Old English Riddles

The riddles collected in the Exeter Book anthology form a distinct subset of Old English literature. Their provenance and concerns range from the literary to the popular, the learned to the vulgar, the devotional to the astringently existential. As riddles, of course, their purpose is to intrigue, beguile, baffle and entertain, all of which they achieve powerfully, making use of the language, conventions and techniques of the vernacular poetic tradition they have inherited alongside better-known works such as Beowulf and The Wanderer. In this book, Robert DiNapoli presents nearly all of the Exeter Book riddles in modern English verse translations, accompanied by substantial commentary that explores their historical, psychological, linguistic and literary dimensions.