Lecture 2: Reading Old English Riddles | Johanna Alden

This lecture provides an introduction into the literary world of Old English riddles.
After an overview of literary language in early medieval England and the period’s surviving literary texts, this lecture walks attendees through key moments from several different Old English texts, drawing together comparisons between a riddle-poem from the Exeter Book, a prose-riddle from Saturnus and Solomon, and a passage from one of the most famous Old English texts, Beowulf.
The selected passages will all emphasize either theological thinking or the use of animal symbols in Old English literature, with the aim of teasing out questions around how riddles as a form might be useful for thinking through theology, philosophy, and spirituality--and why animal symbols might be an effective tool for a project like this. The lecture would not seek to resolve such questions, but would instead seek to provoke them and further learning for participants, while also providing some exposure to literature from the period, particularly riddles with an interest in spiritual affairs and nonhuman members of the natural world.

[@rodrigocortesm.]

Thank you very much!

[@alisanina]

Wow!!