Witty, verbally dexterous, and urbane, Symphosius is regarded as the father of the Literary Riddle. His sole surviving work, the

Symphosii Scholastici Aenigmata

[Riddles of the Scholar Symphosius], became the model for medieval riddle collections, especially in England where it provoked a literary vogue and was used as a school text. The

Aenigmata

, included in the

Codex Salmasianus

, comprises one hundred tristich hexameter riddles each solved by its own title. The collection is accompanied by a brief preface in which Symphosius claims, rather implausibly in view of the polished and schematized nature of the

Aenigmata

, to have improvised the riddles at the feast of the Saturnalia. These riddles, which take the form of enigmatic prosopoetic descriptions, treat a range of topics from the…

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Citation: Sebo, Erin. "Symphosius". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 20 May 2009 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=12550, accessed 09 December 2024.]

12550 Symphosius 1 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

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