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18 janvier 2020
- doi: 10.4000/books.ledizioni.9244
- isbn: 9788867058280
- eisbn: 9788855260398
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ , info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess
Mots-clés
cultura filologia germanica gnomica tradizione Università degli studi di Milano culture Germanic philology gnomics tradition University of Milan culture philologie germanique gnomique tradition Université de Milan Literature, Romance LIT004200 DSBSujets proches
Slave keeping Antislavery Enslavement Slaveholding Servitude Ownership of slaves Mui tsai Abolition of slavery Thralldom Slave systemCiter ce document
Marusca Francini, « Immagini letterarie della schiavitù negli indovinelli dell’Exeter Book », Ledizioni, ID : 10.4000/books.ledizioni.9244
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Résumé
The essay examines the themes, poetic diction, metaphors, and rhetorical devices of the Exeter Book riddles 12, 52, and 72, selected because they associate Welsh servitude to oxen and because they include images of captivity and bondage, showing a connection between slavery, ethnicity, and conduct through the multifaceted term wealh, which relates to slavery, Celtic origin and transgressive behaviour. The noun came to signify both racial and social difference; the analysis reveals that it conveyed moral otherness as well. The cultural equivalence of ‘slave’ and ‘beast’ gives Celtic slaves a status as ethnic, social, and moral ‘other’, so that the figures of the riddles embody the cultural distance between labourers and aristocratic elite, illuminating the opposition between ‘self/other’, ‘English/Welsh’, ‘free/bound’. The subjugated condition of the Welsh is exploited with the didactic aim to convey monastic concerns such as the transience of wordly joys and the loathing of earthly life.