Untying the Knot On Riddles and Other Enigmatic Modes

by Hasan-Rokem, Galit; Shulman, David

• ISBN13: 9780195101867
• ISBN10: 0195101863
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1996-11-28
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

This book collects eighteen previously unpublished essays on the riddle--a genre of discourse found in virtually every human culture. Hasan-Rokem and Shulman have drawn these essays from a variety of cultural perspectives and disciplines; linguists, anthropologists, folklorists, and religion and literature scholars consider riddling practices in Hebrew, Finnish, Indian languages, Chinese, and classical Greek. The authors seek to understand the peculiar expressive power of the riddle, and the cultural logic of its particular uses; they scrutinize the riddle's logical structure and linguistic strategies, as well as its affinity to neighboring genres such as enigmas, puzzles, oracular prophecy, proverbs, and dreams. In this way, they begin to answer how riddles relate to the conceptual structures of a particular culture, and how they come to represent a culture's cosmology or cognitive map of the world. More importantly, these essays reveal the human need for symbolic ordering--riddles being one such form of cultural ritual.

Author Biography

Poet and essayist Galit Hasan-Rokem is Professor of Folklore at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem David Shulman is Professor of Indian Studies and Comparative Religion at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Table of Contents

Contributors	p. ix
General and Theoretical
Introduction	p. 3
Riddles and Their Use	p. 10
Traps of Trans-formation: Theoretical Convergences between Riddle and Ritual	p. 37
"I'll Give You Three Guesses": The Dynamics of Genre in the Riddle Tale	p. 62
Hebrew Riddles
Toward a Theory of the Literary Riddle	p. 81
"Spinning Threads of Sand": Riddles as Images of Loss in the Midrash on Lamentations	p. 109
A King, a Queen, and the Riddle Between: Riddles and Interpretation in a Late Midrashic Text	p. 125
Enigmatic Modes in India
The Yaksa's Questions	p. 151
When Is a Riddle Not a Riddle? Some Comments on Riddling and Related Poetic Devices in Classical Sanskrit	p. 168
Why an Allama Poem Is Not a Riddle: An Anthological Essay	p. 179
Texture and Authority: Telugu Riddles and Enigmas	p. 191
Enigmas of Sexual Masquerade in Hindu Myths and Tales	p. 208
Chinese Riddling
Riddle and Enigma in Chinese Civilization	p. 227
Riddles in The Dream of the Red Chamber	p. 237
Notes from the West
One Voice and Many Legs: Oedipus and the Riddle of the Sphinx	p. 255
Myth as Enigma: Cultural Hermeneutics in Late Antiquity	p. 271
Squaring the Circle	p. 284
Connecting through Riddles, or The Riddle of Connecting	p. 294
Afterword	p. 316
Author Index	p. 321
Subject Index	p. 325
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