IMC 2017: Sessions

Session 1301: Anglo-Saxon Riddles, III: Theorizing and Interpreting

Wednesday 5 July 2017, 16.30-18.00

Sponsor:	The Riddle Ages
Organisers:	Megan Cavell, Faculty of English Language & Literature, University of Oxford Jennifer Neville, Department of English, Royal Holloway, University of London
Moderator/Chair:	Jennifer Neville, Department of English, Royal Holloway, University of London
Paper 1301-a	Avian Pedagogies: Wondering with Birds in the Old English Riddles (Language: English) Michael J. Warren, Department of English, Royal Holloway, University of London Index terms: Language and Literature - Old English, Philosophy
Paper 1301-b	The Map of Mise-en-page: Reading Riddle 1 as a Preface to the Exeter Book Riddles (Language: English) Rachel Burns, Department of English, University College London Index terms: Language and Literature - Old English, Manuscripts and Palaeography
Paper 1301-c	Interpreting Slaves Words in the Exeter Book Riddles (Language: English) Katherine Miller, School of English, University of Leeds Index terms: Language and Literature - Old English, Social History
Abstract	The papers in Session III consider what riddles reveal and conceal about their content. Thus, Warren analyses the relationship between knowledge and the birds of the Old English riddles, with an emphasis on wonder, transformation and resistance to identification; Miller demonstrates how a corpus-linguistic approach to interpreting terminology associated with slavery can correct biases in lexicographical resources and past translations of the riddles; and Burns examines the first 104 lines of the Exeter Book riddles, suggesting a new way of dividing the texts and proposing that they form a preface for the entire riddle series.