The Talking Dead: Resounding Voices in Old English Riddles

Abstract

This article examines subaudial voiced reading in selected Old English riddles of The Exeter Book. In these texts, objects that are normally silent "speak" when the reader ventriloquizes their words and, more importantly, those of the written text. These riddles reflect a desire to recuperate an elusive author figure, present at the scene of reading through his voice, which, as the medieval notion of authorial voces paginarum implies, was contained in the written page. This practice of voiced reading has deeper implications in riddles narrated by holy objects that represent Christ. Voiced reading of Christ's words provides a means of evoking his enigmatic presence in the Bible and the Eucharist, a curious notion that nonetheless suggests the long-standing affiliation of the voice and soul that Aristotle proposed.