A.M. Juster talks about his fantastic UTP title, Saint Aldhelm’s ‘Riddles’
How did you become involved in your area of research?
I taught for a few years as an adjunct at Boston University and Emerson College, but my career was a busy one outside of academia: http://www.firstthings.com/article/2010/06/regard-the-scuttlebutt-as-true. There are many disadvantages to being an independent scholar, but I do have the freedom to work on whatever I choose without any pressures from colleagues or administrators.
For my first two books of translated Latin poetry, The Satires of Horace (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008) and Tibullus’ Elegies (Oxford University Press, 2012), I chose important texts that I felt needed a more compelling translation, but I came to feel that there were not many texts of that profile from the classical period.
I started reading widely in the Latin poetry of what my teachers used to call “The Dark Ages” back when I was an adolescent involuntary Latin student, but which we now more properly call “Late Antiquity.” This literature is critical to the history of Christianity and the fascinating political transition from the Roman Empire to medieval Europe. Moreover, much Late Antique poetry stands on its own merits.
Saint Aldhelm (ca. 640-709 AD) is one of the important and overlooked writers of this period. Aside from being an important figure in the re-evangelization of Britain and the slow consolidation of many warring kingdoms into one nation, he arguably wrote the first modern European poem—one that had both accentual meter and regular end-rhyme. The Aenigmata influenced poets for centuries, and the opening six riddles have a unique lyricism closer in spirit to Shelley and Keats than to Virgil and Horace.
How long did it take you to write your latest book?
I wrote this book from 2008-2010, but I tinkered with it regularly after UTP accepted it for publication in 2010.
What do you find most interesting about your area of research?
I particularly enjoyed rummaging through eclectic material to understand and explain Aldhelm’s references. That material included: badly written and largely forgotten travel poems, medical treatises, idiosyncratic verse from isolated Ireland, grammars, hymns, and an archeology article that tested DNA from garbage to ascertain the diet of monks.
The most surprising fact that I discovered is that the literary consensus that there was only very limited travel and commerce in Aldhelm’s time has been disproven by important work in other fields. For instance, the top Aldhelm scholars have been adamant that the ivory mentioned in Riddle 96 had to be walrus or whale ivory even though the answer to the riddle is “elephant.” Fifteen years ago, however, DNA testing proved that much of the gorgeously carved ivory found in Anglo-Saxon graves is, in fact, elephant ivory.
What do you like to read for pleasure? What are you currently reading?
I read a lot of poetry, but also literary criticism, histories, and biographies. I recently became a regular reviewer for The Claremont Review of Books. Right now I am working on a review for them of a collection of essays edited by Ralph Wood called Tolkien among the Moderns (University of Notre Dame Press, 2015). I also overtweet at: @amjuster.
What is your favourite book?
My favorite book most days is Joseph Heller’s Catch-22, an indispensable guide to coping with the dysfunctions of any organization. I go regularly to Richard Wilbur’s Collected Poems for comfort and inspiration.
