埃克塞特书谜语中的博物学

Natural History Manifested in the Exeter Book Riddles

自18世纪以来,中世纪早期流传下来的"埃克塞特书"受到学者们的广泛关注,书中谜语更是引起热烈讨论。谜语惯用隐喻、拟人、对偶冲突等手法,具有模糊、晦涩的特点,通常不被视为严肃的知识形态,谜语史也极少受到科学史界关注。实际上,埃克塞特书中的谜语包含丰富的博物学知识,分析其中的谜语既能了解中世纪博物学的特点,也能一瞥中世纪人与自然的关系。

Copied in the south of England towards the end of the tenth century, the Exeter Book has attracted generations of scholars since the 18th century. The Old English Riddles of the Exeter Book are also highly controversial. The uses of metaphor, personification, antithesis, and paradox has endowed riddle a feature of vague and obscure. Therefore, as a form of knowledge, Riddle has rarely been considered seriously by science historians. Through analyzing riddles of the Exeter book, this essay attempts to point out the natural history knowledge manifested in them. Riddle also reflects the characteristics of the medieval natural history