Group Identity and the Early Medieval Riddle Tradition

从七世纪到十世纪，数百个诗歌谜语记录了中世纪早期英国日常生活和世俗智慧的细节。他们告诉我们，洋葱可能是一个粗鲁的笑话的屁股，猫当时（和现在一样）非常独立，当剑有机会说话时，暴力并不是毫无疑问的。因为它们存在于两种语言中，古英语和拉丁语，这些谜语很少被带入彼此的对话中，有些谜语除了专家之外几乎没有人知道。该项目将通过一个提供开放式文本和翻译的网站，以及解读文学和文化信息的评论，一个邀请公众以创造性方式参与谜语的讨论论坛和比赛，将整个中世纪早期谜语传统公之于众。如果说中世纪早期的谜语是了解许多世纪前生活的一扇窗户，那么这个项目旨在将它完全打开。在探索谜语的过程中，项目团队还旨在收集有关作曲家群体身份的信息。猜谜语的竞争性质，以及中世纪课堂上使用这些诗歌的情况，沿着我们从已确定作者的传记中了解到的情况，表明在英格兰工作的高地位人士和与英格兰有着密切联系的孤立网络有着共同的群体身份。即便如此，这一传统本身也是建立在国际合作的基础上的，北非和泛欧的诗歌材料被广泛传播、模仿和改编。谜语传统在英国和国外的流行强调了中世纪早期谜语人的共同群体身份具有全球视野。这些谜语本身也可能具有深刻的颠覆性，并提供了一种移情的视角，让人们了解到，与那些身份显赫的男性谜语人（他们的名字和作品都保存了下来）所经历的生活截然不同的生活意味着什么。考虑到这一切，项目小组的成员试图从四个方面来研究群体身份：首先，他们将研究在英格兰和欧洲大陆工作的谜语人的网络--不同的谜语集是如何相互参照的？哪些是一起流传的，我们如何绘制它们的关系？第二，他们将研究身份的表演在谜语本身-如何高地位/男性身份的探索和加强通过谜语的主题？哪些谜语颠覆了这些“规范”，我们可以从中收集到什么文化见解？第三，他们将把透镜转向自己，询问研究谜语的学者如何复制传统对群体身份的监管--出版物中的言语争吵和对寻找“正确”解决方案的强调如何模仿他们所处环境的竞争力？- 第四，他们将探讨当代与谜语的互动--翻译和评论如何为通过谜语学习历史提供机会？如何将它们引入博物馆/文物活动和教育资源？简而言之，该项目旨在研究群体认同与谜语的产生、文本的内容、对谜语的批判性参与以及学术界以外的各种用户社区对谜语的接受之间的关系。谜语对中世纪早期生活的各个方面都有很大的影响。最终，他们告诉我们，当我们想到武器、英雄和战斗时，这个世界比我们想象的更加微妙。伴随着这种武士文化的是一种复杂的文学创作传统，包括双语猜谜和阅读社区，它跨越了整个中世纪早期，并产生了数百首诗，这些诗至今仍在取悦读者。

Several hundred poetic riddles -- composed and written down from the seventh- through tenth-centuries -- record the minutiae of daily life and worldly wisdom in early medieval England. They tell us that onions could be the butt of a rude joke, cats were then (as now) fiercely independent, and violence did not go unquestioned when swords were given the chance to speak. Because they exist in two languages, Old English and Latin, these riddles are rarely brought into conversation with each other and some are little known to any but specialists. This project will bring the entire early medieval riddle tradition to light, through a website that provides open-access texts and translations, alongside commentaries that unpack literary and cultural information, a discussion forum and competitions that invite members of the public to engage with the riddles in creative ways. If the early medieval riddles are a window onto life many centuries ago, this project seeks to throw it wide open.In exploring the riddles, the project team also aims to gather information about their composers' group identity. The competitive nature of riddling and the use of these poems in the medieval classroom, along with what we know from the biographies of identified authors suggests a shared group identity of high-status men working in England and insular networks with strong links to England. Even so, the very tradition itself was founded on international collaboration, with North African and pan-European poetic material widely circulated, imitated and adapted. The popularity of the riddle tradition both within England and abroad emphasizes that the shared group identity of early medieval riddlers had a global outlook. The riddles themselves could also be deeply subversive, and provide empathic visions of what it meant to live a very different life to that experienced by the high-status, male riddlers whose names and works survive.With all this in mind, the members of the project team seek to examine group identity in four ways:- First, they will examine the networks of riddlers working in England and on the continent -- how did different riddle collections reference each other? Which ones were circulated together, and how can we map their relationships?- Second, they will examine performances of identity within the riddles themselves -- how are high-status/masculine identities explored and reinforced through the subject matter of the riddles? Which riddles subvert these 'norms', and what cultural insights might we glean from them?- Third, they will turn the lens on themselves, to ask how scholars working on the riddles replicate the tradition's policing of group identity -- how does verbal sparring in publications and an emphasis on finding the 'right' solutions mimic the competitiveness of the environment in which they were composed? - Fourth, they will explore contemporary engagements with the riddles -- how might translations and commentaries open up opportunities for learning history through the riddles? How might they be channelled into museum/heritage activities and educational resources?In short, the project seeks to investigate group identity in relation to the production of the riddles, the content of the texts, critical engagement with the riddles, and the reception of the riddles by various user communities outside academia.The riddles have a great deal to say about all aspects of life in the early medieval period. Ultimately, they tell us that this world was much more nuanced than we imagine it when we think of weapons, heroes and battles. Alongside this warrior culture was a complex tradition of literary production, including bilingual riddling and reading communities, which spanned the entire early medieval period and produced hundreds of poems that continue to delight readers today.