Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
The Literary Riddle in Early Modern Italy

The Literary Riddle in Early Modern Italy

Arnaudo, Marco

Hardcover

Series: Anglo-Italian Renaissance Studies

Literary CriticismPoetry Criticism

ISBN10: 1041042175
ISBN13: 9781041042174
Publisher: Routledge
Published: Aug 5 2025
Pages: 260
Weight: 1.17
Height: 0.63 Width: 6.00 Depth: 9.00
Language: English

This book describes the development of the literary riddle in Renaissance Italy, when poets appropriated riddles from oral tradition, combined them with the conventions of literature, and paired them with solutions that could be checked after reading. This book includes an original theoretical framework for the investigation of riddles, dividing riddles into categories based on their enigmatic link. A section about the social uses of riddles in early modern Italy shows how riddles were routinely exchanged at soirees and in the activities of academies and congreghe, all environments where the folk qualities of the riddle could be playfully appreciated. The riddle became a key element in narrative works by Giovanni Francesco Straparola and Ascanio de' Mori, and, for the first time, it fueled enough collections of poems to trigger an entire genre. Examples will come from Angelo Cenni, Daphne di Piazza, Girolamo Musici, Tommaso Stigliani, Giulio Cesare Croce, Antonio Malatesti, and many others.

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