The Little Garden of Walahfrid Strabo. Dieser Artikel ist nicht verfügbar.The Little Garden of Walahfrid Strabo

“The Little Garden of Walahfrid Strabo is a treasure-trove of wisdom and allegory. This facing-page edition and translation renders the text into poetry that finally enables the medieval garden to flourish in English.”
- Henrike Lähnemann, University of Oxford

“Walahfrid’s little garden poem is a genuinely charming text of the early Middle Ages, which in our ecologically conscious times deserves to be read by poets and gardeners alike. Sypeck’s fluent and elegant rendering allows us to appreciate its sense and style.”
- Brian Murdoch, University of Stirling

“The Little Garden is an intimate, diligent, and often charming verse description of medieval garden-lore. Sypeck’s fresh translation honors the original and yet stands on its own merits as a lively and inventive modern text.”
- Stephen Pollington, author of Woden: A Historical Companion

Composed in the tumultuous decades following the reign of Charlemagne, the garden poem of Carolingian monk Walahfrid Strabo (c.809–849) has long charmed readers with its timeless descriptions of late-winter labors and its suggestions for the medicinal uses of various plants. This new translation, rendered in engaging metrical verse printed alongside the original Latin text, makes Walahfrid’s best known work fully accessible in English for scholars and casual readers alike. A concise introduction provides background and context, while extensive notes offer interpretation and commentary for those who wish to explore the poem further. A glimpse into the mind of a monk who was deeply entangled in the politics of his day, Walahfrid’s Little Garden may be tantalizingly brief, but as a trove of classical learning, Christian allegory, ninth-century plant lore, and charming personal observations, it overflows with the great human complexity of its era.

Jeff Sypeck taught medieval literature at the University of Maryland University College from 1999 to 2009. He is the author of Becoming Charlemagne: Europe, Baghdad, and the Empires of A.D. 800.

Jeff Sypeck taught medieval literature at the University of Maryland University College from 1999 to 2009. He is the author of Becoming Charlemagne: Europe, Baghdad, and the Empires of A.D. 800.