The Earliest English Poems - Couverture rigide

Couverture rigide

ISBN 10 : 075341189X ISBN 13 : 9780753411896

Editeur : Kingfisher Books Ltd, 2005

Synopsis

ONE OF THE GREAT GLORIES OF EUROPE - OLD ENGLIHS POETRY. READ IT NOW IN MICHAEL ALEXANDER'S BEAUTIFUL TRANSLATIONS

A propos du livre

Présentation de l'éditeur

Anglo-Saxon poetry was produced between 700 and 1000 AD for an audience that delighted in technical accomplishment, and the durable works of Old English verse spring from the source of the English language.

Michael Alexander has translated the best of the Old English poetry into modern English and into a verse form that retains the qualities of Anglo-Saxon metre and alliteration. Included in this selection are the "heroic poems" such as  Widsith, Deor, Brunanburh and  Maldon, and passages from  Beowulf; some of the famous 'riddles' from The Exeter Book; all the "elegies," including  The Ruin, The Wanderer, The Seafarer, The Wife's Complaint and  The Husband's Message, in which the  virtu of Old English is found in its purest and most concentrated form; together with the great Christian poem  The Dream of the Rood.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

Extrait

Riddle 25

I'm the world's wonder, for I make women happy
- a boon to the neighbourhood, a bane to no one,
though I may perhaps prick the one who picks me.

I am set well up, stand in a bed,
have a roughish root. Rarely (though it happens)
a churl's daughter more daring than the rest
- and lovelier! - lays hold of me,
rushes my red top, wrenches at my head,
and lays me in the larder.
She learns soon enough,
the curly-haired creature who clamps me so,
of my meeting with her: moist is her eye!

Swings by his thigh a thing most magical!
Below the belt, beneath the folds
of his clothes it hangs, a hole in its front end,
stiff-set and stout, but swivels about.

Levelling the head of this hanging instrument,
its wielder hoists his hem above the knee:
it is his will to fill a well-known hole
that it fits fully when at full length.

He has often filled it before. Now he fills it again.

Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: Kingfisher Books Ltd
• Date d'édition: 2005
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN 10: 075341189X
• ISBN 13: 9780753411896
• Reliure: Relié
• Nombre de pages: 240
• Coordonnées du fabricant: non disponible
• Personne responsable: non disponible