Gewritu secgað: "the sensible inscription" in Old English Riddle poetry
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2007
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Haverford College. Department of English
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Thesis
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The Newton Prize in English Literature
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eng
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Open Access
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Abstract
In this essay, I will examine the relationship between textuality and meaning in a number of Exeter Book riddles, using Derrida's critique of phonocentricism as my lens. These brief but intricate lyrics---because riddlic, strongly and sometimes self-consciously logocentric---betray a distrust of oral communication and concurrent privileging of the written word in guiding their audience towards the solution. The bulk of my essay examines the various methods, often involving runes, employed by the Exeter poets in building this hierarchy; the last third proposes that its origin lies in the logocentric, literary Christian tradition.
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Brittany Pladek was a Bryn Mawr College student.