Saint Aldhelm's Riddles

The first and one of the finest Latin poets of Anglo-Saxon England, the seventh-century bishop Saint Aldhelm can justly be called Britains first man of letters. Among his many influential poetic texts were the hundred riddles that made up his Aenigmata. In Saint Aldhelms 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 todays 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. Justers 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 texts historical, literary, and philological context. Saint Aldhelms Riddles will be essential for scholars and a treasure for lovers of Tolkien, Beowulf, and Harry Potter.