Widsith and the Anthropology of the Past.(Critical Essay)

From: Philological Quarterly | Date: January 1, 1999| Author: | Copyright information

Thanks in part to the opacity with which it names, without comment, tribe after tribe and ruler after ruler of the ancient world, the poem that we know as Widsith defies literary analysis. Those who know this work, either in modern translation or in its unique Old English text, will recall above all its central character, the itinerant singer Widsith himself, the imagined speaker of all but the first nine and last nine lines of the text.(1) The words that begin the poem--Widsi?? ma??olade, wordhord onleac (Widsith spoke, he unlocked his hoard of words, 1)--mark off the long speech ...

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