Publisher's Synopsis
The first and one of the finest Latin poets of Anglo-Saxon England, the seventh-century bishop Saint Aldhelm can justly be called Britain s first man of letters. Among his many influential poetic texts were the hundred riddles that made up his Aenigmata. In Saint Aldhelm s Riddles, A.M. Juster offers the first verse translation of this text in almost a century, capturing the wit, warmth, and wonder of the first English riddle collection.
One of today s finest formalist poets, A.M. Juster brings the same exquisite care to this volume as to his translations of Horace ( The best edition available of the Satires in English Choice), Tibullus ( An excellent new translation The Guardian), and Petrarch. Juster s translation is complemented by a newly edited version of the Latin text and by the first scholarly commentary on the Aenigmata, the result of exhaustive interdisciplinary research into the text s historical, literary, and philological context. Saint Aldhelm s Riddles will be essential for scholars and a treasure for lovers of Tolkien, Beowulf, and Harry Potter.
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