Enigmas and Riddles in Literature

Eleanor Cook is Professor Emerita, Department of English, University of Toronto. She writes mainly on poetry and poetics, especially modern, as well as on questions of allusion, the English Bible and literature, and the riddle. Her books include studies of Robert Browning and Wallace Stevens, as well as a collection of essays, Against Coercion: Games Poets Play (1998). Her essays have appeared in many books and journals, including American Literature, Daedalus, ELH, Essays in Criticism, and Philosophy and Literature. She has served as President of the Association of Literary Scholars and Critics, and is a Guggenheim Fellow, a Senior Killam Research Fellow (Canada Council), and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.

• Introduction; 1. Enigma personified: the riddling beasts, Sphinx and griffin; 2. Enigma as trope: history, function, fortunes; 3. What is the shape of the riddle? Enigma as masterplot; 4. Case study I. Enigma in Dante's Eden (Purgatorio 27-33); 5. Questions of riddle and genre; 6. Riddle as scheme: a case for a new griph-class; 7. Case study II. Mapping riddles: Lewis Carroll and the Alice books; 8. Figures for enigma; 9. Case study III. The structure of reality: enigma in Wallace Steven's later work; 10. From protection to innocent amusement: some other functions of enigma; Afterword: enigma, the boundary figure; Appendix: Enigma, riddle and friends among the lexicographers.

'This is an extraordinary book. … [It] is a feast for the ear, eye, and mind.' Judith Scherer Herz, University of Toronto Quarterly