Old English Enigmatic Poems and Their Reception in Early Scholarship and Supernatural Fiction

Humanities

Patrick Joseph Murphy¹ 

[1] Department of English, Miami University, Oxford, OH 45056, USA;

关键词: Old English literature;    reception history;    medievalism;    Exeter Book;    riddles;    The Husband’s Message;   

DOI  :  10.3390/h11020034

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

The scholarly reception history of the Old English riddles and adjacent “enigmatic poems” of the Exeter Book reveals a long process of creating intelligibility and order out of a complicated and obscure manuscript context. Understanding this history of reception allows us to see the influence of Old English poetry on modern creative medievalism, including the unexpected influence of medieval “enigmatic” poetry on the modern genre of supernatural fiction. Specifically, it is argued that the scholarly reception of folios 122v–123v of the Exeter Anthology was instrumental in inspiring one of the acknowledged classic ghost stories of the twentieth century, M.R. James’s “Oh, Whistle, and I’ll Come to You, My Lad”.

【 授权许可】

Unknown