English nursery rhymes combine both alliteration and rhyme: Jack and Jill || Went up the hill or Hickory dickory dock || The mouse ran up the clock. Perhaps that is why these rhymes have endured for so long.
Your fluency is amazing! You sound like I imagine a native would, not like someone usually sounds speaking a "dead" language with their own accent superimposed. Just curious if you're a musician, as well as a linguist?
Great post. I really like how you show the historical reach of the alliterative tradition, moving to the Gawain poet’s revival of the form and then to the great company of Hopkins and Tolkien and Auden and Nabokov. Annie Dillard also alliterates beautifully.
I didn’t understand what a treasure “Beowulf” was until I came to it backwards through other writers, and it took me years after that to see how flexible and powerful alliterative verse could be. It can be clever as well as heroic. What hits even harder may be the elegiac.
I enjoyed the recordings as well. They make me want to study Old English.
Thank you, Joseph! I agree with you — the elegiac poetry is among the best in the Old English corpus. I always save "The Wanderer" and "The Seafarer" for last when I teach my Old English poetry survey course for just that reason!
‘This type of poetry wasn't merely one literary style among many, but the very skeleton of Anglo-Saxon cultural memory. Before literature was written down, these patterns of repeated sounds made stories easier to remember and recite in a largely oral culture’.
really loved this! I kept thinking, as I was reading, of Homeric verse, the oral tradition, the culture of memory, where the the patterns of dactylic hexameter and the employent of set verbal expressions
Even though I've been through the Siever's types several times, I still get lost when trying to apply them in practice. I seriously doubt it's really the way Scops were trained.
The basics are fine: a syllable is a vowel (and diphthongs are counted as one vowel) plus any consonants that are attached. A. There are two half-lines. B. The basic half-line consists of 4 syllables. Except...when they contain more, and you have to apply "metrical rules" where they still count as four for the sake of rhythm.
C. Resolution rules:
That's what gets me, I think. All the "Resolution" rules where a stressed syllable plus an unstressed syllables are counted as one stressed. syllable.
1. the stressed syllable must have a short vowel or diphthong
2. the stressed syllable must be followed by only one consonant, and then by an unstressed vowel that’s part of the same word.
3. if the syllable before the word was heavily stressed, resolution does not take place
Well, one can muddle through these, sure...but there's more to it...
D. Expansion of the first unstressed
The poet can add up to four extra unstressed syllables without them counting in making up the 4 stressed syllables.
(Also, add to this the non-rule, but still allowed practice where one may add in one or two extra unstressed syllables at the beginning of line).
I suppose one can compose poetry this way, but it would let the poetic spirit be "under sceadu bregdan."
This was a fascinating read thank you. I regret not having been taught Beowulf in the original language, my understanding of the pronunciation is sketchy, but I agree we English speakers do still respond, consciously or unconsciously, to the power of this alliterative verse. And it was my reading of Tolkien LOTR that first made my senses tingle, with the Ride of the Rohirrim speech - "Arise, arise, Riders of Théoden! Fell deeds awake: fire and slaughter! spear shall be shaken, shield be splintered, a sword-day, a red day, ere the sun rises!". When that alliterative battle cry was given by King Théoden in the Peter Jackson ROTK film, I wanted to ride upon the orcs myself! It's probably the Anglo-Saxon blood.
Churchill was a master of rhetorical and poetic technique, and his speeches often use alliteration and powerful, monosyllabic words of Anglo Saxon origin. After his famous "We shall fight them on the beaches" speech he turned to a colleague and muttered, "And we'll fight them with the butt ends of broken beer bottles because that's bloody well all we've got!" The word "surrender" stands out as a word that is not of Anglo Saxon origin, indication that it is a foreign and alien concept to the British people.
That's it, I'm sold. I shall have to learn Old English well enough to read the left-side of Heaney's Beowulf as well as the Paris Psalter I got for Christmas.
Having composed a sonnet this morning, I shall have to try my hand at the alliterative approach with intent. It appears infrequently as a secondary feature in my compositions, but I am curious to see if I can figure out how to make it primary.
The major issue I see with this article is that you're too quick to assume that alliterative verse is dead. It isn't, really. Check out my site Forgotten Ground Regained (alliteration.net) for the evidence to the contrary!
Is that not the point? The way political rhetoric uses language to underpin its cause - whether you like or not. Perhaps from another political angle you could consider Always was; always will be , where the was and the will are the heart of the message
Build Back Better, Strong and Stable, are phrases coined by the UK Conservative Party who enforced poverty and austerity and destroyed the lives and futures of many. That's the point. Get out your yank-centric hole and touch some grass please
I love writing and reading alliterative verse! Great post.
Thank you, Jacob!
English nursery rhymes combine both alliteration and rhyme: Jack and Jill || Went up the hill or Hickory dickory dock || The mouse ran up the clock. Perhaps that is why these rhymes have endured for so long.
They've doubled up on mnemonic devices! Actually, they have three — rhyme, metre, and alliteration.
The recordings of the Old English verse are thrilling to hear – a thrumming call through the ages!
Thank you, Kate! It's great fun to recite too!
Your fluency is amazing! You sound like I imagine a native would, not like someone usually sounds speaking a "dead" language with their own accent superimposed. Just curious if you're a musician, as well as a linguist?
Great post. I really like how you show the historical reach of the alliterative tradition, moving to the Gawain poet’s revival of the form and then to the great company of Hopkins and Tolkien and Auden and Nabokov. Annie Dillard also alliterates beautifully.
I didn’t understand what a treasure “Beowulf” was until I came to it backwards through other writers, and it took me years after that to see how flexible and powerful alliterative verse could be. It can be clever as well as heroic. What hits even harder may be the elegiac.
I enjoyed the recordings as well. They make me want to study Old English.
Thank you, Joseph! I agree with you — the elegiac poetry is among the best in the Old English corpus. I always save "The Wanderer" and "The Seafarer" for last when I teach my Old English poetry survey course for just that reason!
‘This type of poetry wasn't merely one literary style among many, but the very skeleton of Anglo-Saxon cultural memory. Before literature was written down, these patterns of repeated sounds made stories easier to remember and recite in a largely oral culture’.
really loved this! I kept thinking, as I was reading, of Homeric verse, the oral tradition, the culture of memory, where the the patterns of dactylic hexameter and the employent of set verbal expressions
That's a perfect parallel! Old English poetry arises from that same kind of oral tradition, complete with the use of poetic formulae.
Wonderful. Thank you
Thank you for the recordings?
You're welcome!
Even though I've been through the Siever's types several times, I still get lost when trying to apply them in practice. I seriously doubt it's really the way Scops were trained.
The basics are fine: a syllable is a vowel (and diphthongs are counted as one vowel) plus any consonants that are attached. A. There are two half-lines. B. The basic half-line consists of 4 syllables. Except...when they contain more, and you have to apply "metrical rules" where they still count as four for the sake of rhythm.
C. Resolution rules:
That's what gets me, I think. All the "Resolution" rules where a stressed syllable plus an unstressed syllables are counted as one stressed. syllable.
1. the stressed syllable must have a short vowel or diphthong
2. the stressed syllable must be followed by only one consonant, and then by an unstressed vowel that’s part of the same word.
3. if the syllable before the word was heavily stressed, resolution does not take place
Well, one can muddle through these, sure...but there's more to it...
D. Expansion of the first unstressed
The poet can add up to four extra unstressed syllables without them counting in making up the 4 stressed syllables.
(Also, add to this the non-rule, but still allowed practice where one may add in one or two extra unstressed syllables at the beginning of line).
I suppose one can compose poetry this way, but it would let the poetic spirit be "under sceadu bregdan."
This was a fascinating read thank you. I regret not having been taught Beowulf in the original language, my understanding of the pronunciation is sketchy, but I agree we English speakers do still respond, consciously or unconsciously, to the power of this alliterative verse. And it was my reading of Tolkien LOTR that first made my senses tingle, with the Ride of the Rohirrim speech - "Arise, arise, Riders of Théoden! Fell deeds awake: fire and slaughter! spear shall be shaken, shield be splintered, a sword-day, a red day, ere the sun rises!". When that alliterative battle cry was given by King Théoden in the Peter Jackson ROTK film, I wanted to ride upon the orcs myself! It's probably the Anglo-Saxon blood.
Churchill was a master of rhetorical and poetic technique, and his speeches often use alliteration and powerful, monosyllabic words of Anglo Saxon origin. After his famous "We shall fight them on the beaches" speech he turned to a colleague and muttered, "And we'll fight them with the butt ends of broken beer bottles because that's bloody well all we've got!" The word "surrender" stands out as a word that is not of Anglo Saxon origin, indication that it is a foreign and alien concept to the British people.
This is absolutely fascinating, and the post itself is one of the best I’ve read on this platform. Thank you for taking the time to write it.
Do you know anything about how closely related Germanic alliteration patterns are to other ancient European traditions (like the Ancient Greek)?
That's it, I'm sold. I shall have to learn Old English well enough to read the left-side of Heaney's Beowulf as well as the Paris Psalter I got for Christmas.
Having composed a sonnet this morning, I shall have to try my hand at the alliterative approach with intent. It appears infrequently as a secondary feature in my compositions, but I am curious to see if I can figure out how to make it primary.
Fascinating post! Thank you.
The major issue I see with this article is that you're too quick to assume that alliterative verse is dead. It isn't, really. Check out my site Forgotten Ground Regained (alliteration.net) for the evidence to the contrary!
Is that not the point? The way political rhetoric uses language to underpin its cause - whether you like or not. Perhaps from another political angle you could consider Always was; always will be , where the was and the will are the heart of the message
Yes, whatever the politics, the slogan really works
Oh, buzz off.
Build Back Better, Strong and Stable, are phrases coined by the UK Conservative Party who enforced poverty and austerity and destroyed the lives and futures of many. That's the point. Get out your yank-centric hole and touch some grass please