Alliterative verse: Encyclopedia II - Alliterative verse - Common Germanic origins and features

Alliterative verse - Common Germanic origins and features

The poetic forms found in the various Germanic languages are not identical, but there is sufficient similarity to make it clear that they are closely related traditions, stemming from a common Germanic source. Our knowledge about that common tradition, however, is based almost entirely on inference from surviving poetry.

One statement we have about the nature of alliterative verse from a practicing alliterative poet is that of Snorri Sturluson in the Prose Edda. He describes metrical patterns and poetic devices used by skaldic poets around the year 1200. Snorri's description has served as the starting point for scholars to reconstruct alliterative meters beyond those of Old Norse. There have been many different metrical theories proposed, all of them attended with controversy. Looked at broadly, however, certain basic features are common from the earliest to the latest poetry.

Alliterative verse has been found in some of the earliest monuments of Germanic literature. The Golden horns of Gallehus, discovered in Denmark and likely dating to the fourth century, bears this Runic inscription in Proto-Norse:

x    / x x  x   /  x x      /  x  / x x
ek hlewagastiʀ holtijaʀ || horna tawidô

(I, Hlewagastir son of Holti, made the horn.)

This inscription contains four strongly stressed syllables, the first three of which alliterate on /h/, essentially the same pattern found in much latter verse.

Most alliterative poetry was composed and transmitted orally, and much has been lost through time since it went unrecorded. The degree to which writing may have altered this oral artform remains much in dispute. Nevertheless, there is a broad consensus among scholars that the written verse retains many (and some would argue almost all) of the features of the spoken language.

Alliteration fits naturally with the prosodic patterns of Germanic languages. Alliteration essentially involves matching the left edges of stressed syllables. Early Germanic languages share a left-prominent prosodic patterns. In other words, stress generally falls on the initial syllables of words, apart from some prefixes.

The core metrical features of traditional Germanic alliterative verse are as follows:

• A long-line is divided into two half-lines. Half-lines are also known as verses; the first is called the a-verse (or on-verse), the second the b-verse (or off-verse).
• A heavy pause, or cæsura, separates the verses.
• Each verse usually has two strongly stressed syllables, or "lifts".
• The first lift in the a- and b-verse must alliterate with each other.
• The second lift in the a-verse often alliterates, but is not required to do so.
• The second lift in the b-verse does not alliterate with the first lifts.

The patterns of unstressed syllables vary significantly in the alliterative traditions of different Germanic languages. The rules for these patterns remain controversial and imperfectly understood.

The need to find an appropriate alliterating word gave certain other distinctive features to alliterative verse as well. Alliterative poets drew on a specialized vocabulary of poetic synonyms rarely used in prose texts and used standard images and metaphors called kennings.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Common Germanic origins and features", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki