The Old English epic poem Beowulf is written in alliterative verse.

In prosody, alliterative verse is any of a number of closely related verse forms that are the common inheritance of the older Germanic languages. Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact name. ... Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact name. ... The first page of Beowulf This article describes Beowulf, the epic poem. ... Prosody may mean several things: Prosody consists of distinctive variations of stress, tone, and timing in spoken language. ... Verse is a writing that uses meter as its primary organisational mode, as opposed to prose, which uses grammatical and discoursal units like sentences and paragraphs. ... Proto-Indo-European Indo-European studies The Germanic languages form one of the branches of the Indo-European (IE) language family, spoken by the Germanic peoples who settled in northern Europe along the borders of the Roman Empire. ...

This was the verse form in which the Old English epic Beowulf was written, as well as most of the other Old English poetry; so were the Bavarian Muspillo and the Old Saxon Heliand. A modified form of alliterative verse is found in the Poetic Edda. Alliterative verse exists from the earliest attested monuments of the Germanic languages; extended passages of alliterative verse are attested in Old English, Old Norse, Old High German, and Old Saxon. Note: This page contains IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. ... EPIC might be an acronym or abbreviation for: Electronic Privacy Information Center Explicitly Parallel Instruction Computing Enhanced Programmable ircII Client El Paso Intelligence Center End Poverty In California European Privatisation and Investment Corporation Sometimes it is also used to refer to Epic Games game development company. ... The first page of Beowulf This article describes Beowulf, the epic poem. ... Old English poetry is based upon one system of verse construction which was used for all poems. ... With an area of 70,553 km² (27,241 square miles) and 12. ... -1... The Heliand (IPA /ˈhɛl iənd/, /ˈhe liand/) is an epic poem in Old Saxon, written about 825. ... The Poetic Edda or Elder Edda is a term applied to two things. ... Old Norse is the Germanic language once spoken by the inhabitants of Scandinavia and their overseas settlements during the Viking Age, until the 13th century. ... Old High German is the earliest recorded form of the modern German language, and was spoken from the middle of the 9th to the end of the 11th century. ... Old Saxon, also known as Old Low German, is a Germanic language. ...

Common features and origins

The basic shape of the inherited form of alliterative verse is that:

• A line of verse is divided into two half-lines by a cæsura.
• Each half-line has two strongly stressed words, or "lifts".
• At least two, usually three, of the lifts in a whole line must alliterate with each other.
• Usually two alliterations occur in the first half-line, so each lift alliterates there;
• One lift alliterates in the second half-line.
• The alliterating lift in the second half-line is almost always the first lift.
• The number of weak syllables between the lifts can vary from zero to three.
  
• Weak syllables may appear before the first lift in anacrusis.

Alliterative verse existed from the earliest monuments of Germanic literature to the present. The Golden horns of Gallehus, discovered in Denmark and likely dating to the fourth century, bears the Runic inscription: A cæsura, in prosody, is an audible pause that breaks up a long line of verse. ... Alliteration is one of the stylistic devices (literary technique) in which successive words (more strictly, stressed syllables) begin with the same sound or with the same letter. ... Anacrusis, in music or poetry, is a word for the lead-in syllables or notes that precede the first full measure. ... Image depicting the copies of the Golden horns found at the National Museum of Denmark. ... (3rd century - 4th century - 5th century - other centuries) As a means of recording the passage of time, the 4th century was that century which lasted from 301 to 400. ... Technical note: Due to technical limitations, some web browsers may not display some special characters in this article. ...

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

 (I, Hlewagastir of the Holtings, made the horn.) 

which forms a line of alliterative verse, alliterating with /h/.

A number of rules evolved in different languages as to what counted as a proper alliteration. Generally, consonant groups like /sk/ and /st/ only alliterated with identical consonant groups. Any vowel alliterated with any other vowel.

All of these verse forms impacted the texts written in them. As they developed, standard images and metaphors called kennings developed, and one of the purposes of these kennings was to allow the poet to substitute a stock image appropriate for his alliterating line. In language, text is something that contains words to express something. ... In language, a metaphor is a rhetorical trope where a comparison is made between two seemingly unrelated subjects. ... This article is about kenning as a poetic notion. ...

Old English poetic forms

Old English poetry is based upon one system of verse construction which was used for all poems. The system consisted of five permutations on a base verse scheme; any one of the five types could be used in any verse. The system is founded upon accent, alliteration, the quantity of vowels, and patterns of syllabic accentuation.

It should be borne in mind that poetry of the time was primarily oral, and much has been lost through time since it went unrecorded. The poet, referred to as a scop, a "shaper" of words, was frequently accompanied by a harp in the process of declamation. SCOP can refer to Structural Classification of Proteins A scop was an Old English poet, the Anglo-Saxon counterpart of the Old Norse skald. ... The harp is a chordophone whose strings are positioned perpendicular to the soundboard. ...

Accent

A line of poetry in Old English consists of two half-lines or verses, distichs, with a pause or caesura in the middle of the line. Each half-line has two accented syllables. The following example from The Battle of Maldon, spoken by the warrior Byrthnoth, shows this: The Battle of Maldon took place in 991 near Maldon beside the River Blackwater in Essex, England, during the reign of Ethelred the Unready. ...

Hige sceal þe heardra, || heorte þe cenre,

mod sceal þe mare, || þe ure mægen lytlað

("Courage must be the greater, heart the bolder, spirit the greater, the more our strength is diminished.")

Alliteration

Alliteration is the principal binding agent of Old English poetry. Two syllables alliterate when they begin with the same sound; all vowels alliterate together, but the consonant clusters st-, sp- and sc- are treated as separate sounds (so st- does not alliterate with s- or sp-). On the other hand, in Old English unpalatized c (pronounced /k/) alliterated with palatized c (pronounced /ch/), and unpalatized g (pronounced /g/) likewise alliterated with palatized g (pronounced /y/).

The first stressed syllable of the off-verse, or second half-line, usually alliterates with one or both of the stressed syllables of the on-verse, or first half-line. The second stressed syllable of the off-verse does not usually alliterate with the others.

Survivals

Just as rhyme was seen in some Anglo-Saxon poems (e.g. The Rhyming Poem, and, to some degree, The Proverbs of Alfred), the use of alliterative verse continued into Middle English. Layamon's Brut, written in about 1215, uses a loose alliterative scheme. The Pearl Poet uses one of the most sophisticated alliterative schemes extant in Pearl, Cleanness, and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Even later, William Langland's Piers Plowman is a major work in English that is written in alliterative verse; it was written between 1360 and 1399. Though a thousand years have passed between this work and the Golden Horn of Gallehus, the poetic form remains much the same: The Rhyming Poem is one of the poems found in the Exeter Book. ... The Proverbs of Alfred is a collection of the putative sayings of Alfred the Great of England in late Anglo-Saxon or early Middle English. ... Middle English is the name given by historical philologists to the diverse forms of the English language spoken in England from around the 12th to the 15th centuries— from after the Norman invasion by William the Conqueror in 1066 to the mid to late 15th century, when the Chancery Standard... Layamon, or Laȝamon (using the archaic letter yogh), was a poet of the early 13th century, whose Brut (c. ... Events June 15 - King John of England forced to put his seal to the Magna Carta, outlining the rights of landowning men (nobles and knights) and restricting the kings power. ... The Pearl Poet is the name given to the author of Pearl, an alliterative poem written in Middle English. ... For other things called pearl, see pearl (disambiguation). ... Cleanness is a poem in alliterative verse in Middle English dating from the first half of the 14th century. ... Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is a late 14th century metrical romance recorded in a manuscript containing three other pieces of an altogether more Christian orientation, which are linked by a commonality of dialect usage. ... William Langland (ca. ... Piers Plowman (1360 - 1399) is the title of a Middle English allegorical narrative, written in unrhymed alliterative verse, generally considered the earliest great work of English literature, and one of a very few Middle English poems that can stand beside Chaucers Canterbury Tales. ... The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ... Events Treaty of Brétigny King Valdemar Atterdag of Denmark seizes Scania (from 1658 a Swedish province). ... Events September 30 - Accession of Henry IV of England October 13 - Coronation of Henry IV of England November 1 - Accession of John VI, Duke of Brittany Births Deaths November 1 - John V, Duke of Brittany Categories: 1399 ...

A feir feld full of folk || fond I þer bitwene,

Of alle maner of men, || þe mene and þe riche,

Worchinge and wandringe || as þe world askeþ.

(Among them I found a fair field full of people, all manner of men, the poor and the rich, working and wandering as the world requires.)

Alliteration was often used together with rhyme in Middle English work, as in Pearl. In general, Middle English poets were somewhat loose about the number of stresses; in Sir Gawain, for instance, there are many lines with additional alliterating stresses (e.g. l.2, "the borgh brittened and brent to brondez and askez"), and the medial pause is not always strictly maintained.

After Chaucer, alliterative verse became fairly uncommon, although some alliterative poems, such as Piers the Plowman's Crede (ca. 1400) and William Dunbar's superb Tretis of the Tua Marriit Women and the Wedo (ca. 1500) were written in the form in the 15th century. However, by 1600, the four-beat alliterative line had completely vanished, at least from the written tradition. Chaucer: Illustration from Cassells History of England, circa 1902 Chanticleer the rooster from an outdoor production of Chanticleer and the Fox at Ashby_de_la_Zouch castle Geoffrey Chaucer (ca. ... William Dunbar (c. ...

Alliterative verse is occasionally written by modern authors. J. R. R. Tolkien composed several poems about Middle-earth in Old English alliterative verse; these poems were found among his papers and published posthumously. W. H. Auden also wrote a number of his poems, including The Age of Anxiety , in alliterative verse, modified only slightly to fit the phonetic patterns of modern English. The noun-laden style of the headlines makes the style of alliterative verse particularly apt for Auden's poem: J. R. R. Tolkien in 1916. ... A map of the Northwestern part of Middle-earth at the end of the Third Age, courtesy of the Encyclopedia of Arda. ... Christopher Isherwood and W.H. Auden, photographed by Carl Van Vechten, 1939 Wystan Hugh Auden (February 21, 1907–September 29, 1973) was an English poet. ... The Age of Anxiety: A Baroque Eclogue is an eighty page poem in six parts by the British writer W.H. Auden. ...

Now the news. Night raids on

Five cities. Fires started.

Pressure applied by pincer movement

In threatening thrust. Third Division

Enlarges beachhead. Lucky charm

Saves sniper. Sabotage hinted

In steel-mill stoppage. . . .

Other poets who have experimented with modern alliterative English verse include Ezra Pound, and Richard Wilbur, whose Junk opens with the lines: Ezra Pound in 1913. ... Richard Wilbur (born March 1, 1921, in New York City) is a United States poet. ...

An axe angles

from my neighbor's ashcan;

It is hell's handiwork,

the wood not hickory.

The flow of the grain

not faithfully followed.

The shivered shaft

rises from a shellheap

Of plastic playthings,

paper plates.

Old Norse poetic forms

The inherited form of alliterative verse was modified somewhat in Old Norse poetry. In Old Norse, as a result of phonetic changes from the original common Germanic language, many unstressed syllables were lost. This lent Old Norse verse a characteristic terseness; the lifts tended to be crowded together at the expense of the weak syllables. In some lines, the weak syllables have been entirely suppressed. From the Hávamál: Old Norse poetry encompasses a range of verse forms written in a number of Nordic languages, embraced by the term Old Norse, during the period from the 8th century to as late as the far end of the 13th century. ... This article discusses the unit of speech. ... Hávamál (The Words of the High One), (known also as The Sayings of Har, or the High Song of Odin), a work of Old Norse poetry, is a source document for the study of Norse mythology, being a set of rules for wise living (and survival) purportedly written...

Deyr fé || deyja frændr

("Cattle die; friends die. . .")

The various names of the Old Norse verse forms are given in the Younger Edda by Snorri Sturluson. The Háttatal, or "list of verse forms", contains the names and characteristics of each of the fixed forms of Norse poetry. The Younger Edda, known also as the Prose Edda or Snorris Edda is an Icelandic manual of poetics which also contains many mythological stories. ... Snorri Sturlason (1178 – September 23, 1241) was an Icelandic historian, poet and politician. ... The Háttatal is the third section of the Younger Edda set down by the Icelandic poet and historian Snorri Sturluson. ...

Fornyrðislag

A verse form close to that of Beowulf existed in runestones and in the Old Norse Eddas; in Norse, it was called fornyrðislag, which means "past-words-made" or "way of ancient words". The Norse poets tended to break up their verses into stanzas of from two to eight lines (or more), rather than writing continuous verse after the Old English model. The loss of unstressed syllables made these verses seem denser and more emphatic. The Norse poets, unlike the Old English poets, tended to make each line a complete syntactic unit, avoiding enjambement where a thought begun on one line continues through the following lines; only seldom do they begin a new sentence in the second half-line. This example is from the Waking of Angantyr: A rune stone Rune stones are somewhat flat standing stones with runic stone carvings from the Iron Age (Viking Age) and early middle ages found in most parts of Scandinavia. ... For Edda great-grandmother as the ancestress of serfs see Ríg. ... In poetry, a stanza is a unit within a larger poem. ... Enjambement is the breaking of a linguistic unit (phrase, clause or sentence) by the end of a line or between two verses. ...

Vaki, Angantýr! || vekr þik Hervǫr,

eingadóttir || ykkr Tófu!

Selðu ór haugi || hvassan mæki

þann's Svafrlama || slógu dvergar.

(Awaken, Angantýr! It is Hervør who awakens you, your only daughter by Tófa! Yield up from your grave the mighty sword that the dwarves forged for Svafrlami.")

Fornyrðislag had a variant form called málaháttr ("speech meter"), which adds an extra lift to each half-lines, making six lifts per line.

Ljóðaháttr

Change in form came with the development of ljóðaháttr, which means "song" or "ballad metre", a stanzaic verse form that created four line stanzas. The odd numbered lines were almost standard lines of alliterative verse with four lifts and two or three alliterations, with cæsura; the even numbered lines had three lifts and two alliterations, and no cæsura. This example is from Freyr's lament in Skírnismál: A ballad is a story in song, usually a narrative song or poem. ... In poetry, a stanza is a unit within a larger poem. ... Freyr is a very important god in Old Norse religion; not so much in Norse mythology as one might suppose, for there he actually appears in only one surviving story, but very much in the cult. ... Skirnismal (The Lay of Skírnir), also known as Skírnirs Ride is a poem in the Elder Edda. ...

Lǫng es nótt, || lǫng es ǫnnur,

hvé mega ek þreyja þrjár?

Opt mér mánaðr || minni þótti

en sjá halfa hýnótt.

(Long is one night, long is the next; how can I bear three? A month has often seemed less to me than this half "hynott" (word of unclear meaning)).

A number of variants occurred in ljóðaháttr, including galdraháttr or kviðuháttr ("incantation meter"), which adds a fifth short (three-lift) line to the end of the stanza; in this form, usually the fifth line echoes the fourth one.

Dróttkvætt

Box of copper from Sigtuna with a Dróttkvætt verse written with the Runic alphabet

These verse forms were elaborated even more into the skaldic poetic form called the dróttkvætt, meaning "lordly verse", which added internal rhymes and other forms of assonance that go well beyond the requirements of Germanic alliterative verse. The dróttkvætt stanza had eight lines, each having three lifts. In addition to two or three alliterations, the odd numbered lines had partial rhyme of consonants (which was called skothending) with dissimilar vowels, not necessarily at the beginning of the word; the even lines contained internal rhyme (aðalhending) in the syllables, not necessarily at the end of the word. The form was subject to further restrictions: each half-line must have exactly six syllables, and each line must always end in a trochee. This article treats the town and municipality of Sigtuna. ... Technical note: Due to technical limitations, some web browsers may not display some special characters in this article. ... The skald was a member of a group of courtly poets, whose poetry is associated with the courts of Scandinavian and Icelandic leaders during the Viking age, who composed and performed renditions of aspects of what we now characterise as Old Norse poetry. ... A lord is one who has power and authority. ... Assonance is the repetition of vowel sounds within a short passage of verse or prose. ... A rhyme is the association of words with similar sounds, a technique most often used in poetry. ... A trochee is a metrical foot used in formal poetry. ...

The requirements of this verse form were so demanding that occasionally the text of the poems had to run parallel, with one thread of syntax running through the on-side of the half-lines, and another running through the off-side. According to the Fagrskinna collection of sagas, King Harald III of Norway uttered these lines of dróttkvætt at the Battle of Stamford Bridge; the internal assonances and the alliteration are bolded: In linguistics, syntax is the study of the rules, or patterned relations, that govern the way the words in a sentence come together. ... The Norse sagas or Viking sagas (Icelandic: Íslendingasögur), are stories about ancient Scandinavian and Germanic history, about early Viking voyages, about migration to Iceland, and of feuds between Icelandic families. ... Harald III Haardraade (1015 — September 25, 1066) was the king of Norway from around 1040 together with the son of Olav Haroldsson (St. ... The Battle of Stamford Bridge in England is generally considered to mark the end of the Viking era. ...

Krjúpum vér fyr vápna,

(valteigs), brǫkun eigi,

(svá bauð Hildr), at hjaldri,

(haldorð), í bug skjaldar.

(Hátt bað mik), þar's mœttusk,

(menskorð bera forðum),

hlakkar íss ok hausar,

(hjalmstall í gný malma).

(In battle, we do not creep behind a shield before the din of weapons [so said the goddess of hawk-land {a valkyrja} true of words.] She who wore the necklace bade me to bear my head high in battle, when the battle-ice [a gleaming sword] seeks to shatter skulls.)

The bracketed words in the poem ("so said the goddess of hawk-land, true of words") are syntactically separate, but interspersed within the text of the rest of the verse. The elaborate kennings manifested here are also practically necessary in this complex and demanding form, as much to solve metrical difficulties as for the sake of vivid imagery. Intriguingly, the saga claims that Harald improvised these lines after he gave a lesser performance (in ljóðaháttr); Harald judged that verse bad, and then offered this one in the more demanding form. While the exchange may be fictionalized, the scene illustrates the regard in which the form was held. This article is about the Valkyries, figures of Norse mythology. ...

Most dróttkvætt poems that survive appear in one or another of the Norse Sagas; several of the sagas are biographies of skaldic poets. The Norse sagas or Viking sagas (Icelandic: Íslendingasögur), are stories about ancient Scandinavian and Germanic history, about early Viking voyages, about migration to Iceland, and of feuds between Icelandic families. ... Sir Thomas Malory wrote the most famous fictional biography of the Middle Ages with Le Morte dArthur about the life of King Arthur. ...

Hrynhenda

Hrynhenda is a later development of dróttkvætt with eight syllables per line instead of six, but with the same rules for rhyme and alliteration. It is first attested around 985 in the so-called Hafgerðingadrápa of which four lines survive (alliterants and rhymes bolded): Events Barcelona sacked by Al-Mansur Greenland colonized by Icelandic Viking Erik the Red (the date is according to legend but has been established as at least approximately correct – see History of Greenland) Lady Wulfruna founded the town that later became the city of Wolverhampton Births Al-Hakim bi-Amr...

Mínar biðk at munka reyni

meinalausan farar beina;

heiðis haldi hárar foldar

hallar dróttinn of mér stalli.

I ask the tester of monks (God) for a safe journey; the lord of the palace of the high ground (God — here we have a kenning in four parts) keep the seat of the falcon (hand) over me.

The author was said to be a Christian from the Hebrides, who composed the poem asking God to keep him safe at sea. (Note: The third line is, in fact, over-alliterated. There should be exactly two alliterants in the odd-numbered lines.) The metre gained some popularity in courtly poetry, as the rhythm may sound more majestic than dróttkvætt. The term Christian means belonging to Christ and is derived from the Greek noun Χριστός Khristós which means anointed one, which is itself a translation of the Hebrew word Moshiach (Hebrew: משיח, also written Messiah), (and in Arabic it is pronounced Maseeh مسيح). ... This article is about the Hebrides islands in Scotland. ...

Alliterative poetry is still practiced in Iceland in an unbroken tradition since the settlement.

In Old High German and Old Saxon

In Old High German and Old Saxon alliterative verse (e. g. Hildebrandslied and Heliand), phonetic and grammatical changes caused the inherited form of the line to be altered in a direction opposite to the Old Norse development. In verse in these languages, weak syllables tend to proliferate, to accommodate the mandatory articles and particles these languages used. The famous lines 4 and 5 of the Hildebrandslied, where four or five weak syllables seem to be used as a poetic device (mind especially the last half-line!) show that: Old High German is the earliest recorded form of the modern German language, and was spoken from the middle of the 9th to the end of the 11th century. ... Old Saxon, also known as Old Low German, is a Germanic language. ... The Heliand (IPA /ˈhɛl iənd/, /ˈhe liand/) is an epic poem in Old Saxon, written about 825. ... Grammar is the study of the rules governing the use of a language. ... An article is a word that is put next to a noun to indicate the type of reference being made to the noun. ... In linguistics, the term particle is often employed as a useful catch-all lacking a strict definition. ...

Garutun se iro gûdhamun, gurtun sih iro suert ana,
helidos, ubar hringâ, dô sie tô dero hiltiu ritun.

(They) prepared / made ready (for them) their fighting outfits / garments / equipments, girded their swords on,
the heroes, over rings (of armour), as / when / before they to that fight rode.

See also

A common problem when researching things Norse is that the spelling of names varies much depending on one's country of origin. In the articles presented here, several common forms of the names will be presented. For more information see:

• Old Norse orthography
  
  

• Norse mythology
• The Nine Worlds of Norse Mythology
• List of Norse gods
• List of Norse mythological people, items and places
  
  

• Rune stones
• Rök Stone
• Temple at Uppsala
• Tollund Man
  
  

• Numbers in Norse mythology
• Norse mythological influences on later literature
• skald

The orthography of the Old Norse language since the introduction of the Latin alphabet in Iceland is a thorny subject. ... Norse mythology, Viking mythology or Scandinavian mythology refer to the pre-Christian religion, beliefs and legends of the Scandinavian people, including those who settled on Iceland, where the written sources for Norse mythology were assembled. ... Yggdrasil (Beneath its roots are the nine worlds of the universe, plus three magic wells) Hvergelmir Mímisbrunnr Urdarbrunnr Highest level Álfheim Asgard Valhalla Vanaheim Middle level Jotunheim Gastropnir Thrymheim Utgard Midgard Nidavellir and Svartalfheim (may be the same) Lower level Helheim Muspelheim Ginnungagap (Former gap between Muspelheim and Niflheim... Norse gods Divided between the Æsir and the Vanir, and sometimes including Jotun, the dividing line between these groups is less than clear. ... Places Asgard Bifrost Bridge Bilskirnir Breidablik Elivagar Fyris Wolds Gandvik Ginnungagap Helgardh Hlidskjalf Hvergelmir Jotunheim Leipter River Kormet Midgard Muspelheim Nastrond Nidavellir Niflheim Ormet Reidgotaland Slidr River Svartalfheim Utgard Valhalla Vanaheim Vimur Yggdrasil Events Fimbulwinter Ragnarok Artifacts Balmung Brisingamen Draupnir Dromi Skithblathnir Gram Gungnir Tyrfing Well of Urd Humans Adils... A rune stone Rune stones are standing stones with runic inscriptions dating from the Iron Age (Viking Age) and early Middle Ages. ... A black-and-white rendition of the text on one side of the Rök Stone. ... The Temple at Uppsala was a Temple in Gamla Uppsala (Old Uppsala), near modern Uppsala, Sweden, created to worship the Norse gods of ancient times. ... The Tollund Man lived during the late 5th century BC and/or early 4th century BC, about 2,400 years ago. ... Numbers are significant in Norse mythology although not to the extent which they are in some traditions e. ... Norse mythology provides a rich and diverse source which many later writers have borrowed from or built upon. ... The skald was a member of a group of courtly poets, whose poetry is associated with the courts of Scandinavian and Icelandic leaders during the Viking age, who composed and performed renditions of aspects of what we now characterise as Old Norse poetry. ...

External links

• Jörmungrund (http://www.hi.is/~eybjorn/ugm/jormun.html) A truly great resource for Old Norse poetry
• Selected Poetry and Prose of Jónas Hallgrímsson (http://www.library.wisc.edu/etext/Jonas) A good site altogether, but see in particular Appendix B for probably the most accessible discussion in English of alliterant placement in modern Icelandic.
• [1] (http://alliteration.net/) Forgotten ground regained - dedicated site.