Alliterative verse

• 1. Golden Horns And Proto-Norse Roots

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  The Golden Horns of Gallehus, discovered in Denmark and likely dating to the 4th century, bear a Runic inscription that serves as one of the earliest surviving examples of alliterative verse. The text reads ek hlewagasti r holtija r || horna tawid o, which translates to I, Hlewagastir son of Holt, made the horn. This short inscription contains four strongly stressed syllables where the first three alliterate on the sound /h/ while the final syllable does not. Scholars view this pattern as essentially identical to the structure found in much later Germanic poetry. Knowledge about the common tradition from which these forms emerged relies almost entirely on inference from later written works since most early alliterative poetry was composed and transmitted orally without recording. Writing may have altered the oral art form but scholars generally agree that written verse retains many features of spoken language. Snorri Sturluson described metrical patterns used by skaldic poets around the year 1200 in his Prose Edda. His description has served as the starting point for reconstructing alliterative meters beyond those of Old Norse.

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• 2. Half-Lines Lifts And Dips Defined

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  A long line is divided into two half-lines known as verses or hemistiches with the first called the a-verse and the second the b-verse. A heavy pause or caesura separates these verses helping listeners perceive where the end of the line falls. Each verse usually has two heavily stressed syllables referred to as lifts or beats while other less heavily stressed syllables are called dips. The first and/or second lift in the a-verse alliterates with the first lift in the b-verse while the second lift in the b-verse does not alliterate with the first lifts. Some fundamental rules varied over time within certain traditions. For instance in Old English alliterative verse some lines show the second but not the first lift in the a-verse alliterating with the first lift in the b-verse as seen in line 38 of Beowulf. Germanic poets were sensitive to degrees of stress falling into three levels: most stressed root syllables of nouns adjectives participles and infinitives; less stressed root syllables of finite verbs and adverbs; and even less stressed pronouns weakly stressed adverbs prepositions conjunctions and word endings. If a half-line contains one or more stress words their root syllables become the lifts. In older Germanic languages a syllable ending with a short vowel could not be one of the potentially alliterating lifts by itself unless resolution occurred.

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• 3. Icelandic Rímur And Modern Continuity

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  After the 14th Century Icelandic alliterative poetry mostly consisted of rímur a verse form which combines alliteration with rhyme. The most common alliterative ríma form is ferskeytt a kind of quatrain. Examples include Disneyrímur by Þórarinn Eldjárn and Unndórs rímur by an anonymous author. From 19th century poets like Jonas Halgrimsson to 21st-century poets like Valdimar Tómasson alliteration has remained a prominent feature of modern Icelandic literature though contemporary Icelandic poets vary in their adherence to traditional forms. Alliterative verse appears to have been the dominant poetic tradition in Iceland until well after World War II. In the last generation a split appears to have developed between avant garde and traditionalist approaches to Icelandic poetry. Alliteration remains frequent in all forms of Icelandic poetry but plays a structural defining role only in more traditional forms. Traditional poetic synonyms and kennings persisted in Icelandic rimur as late as the 18th Century before being criticized by modernizing poets such as Jonas Hallgrimsson and dropped out of later usage. Icelandic lines typically contain eight to ten syllables analyzed into feet one per stress with falling rhythm.

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• 4. Fourteenth Century English Revival

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  Starting in the mid-14th century alliterative verse became popular in the English North the West Midlands and a little later in Scotland. Layamon's Brut written in about 1215 uses what seems like a loose alliterative meter in comparison with pre-Conquest alliterative verse. The Pearl Poet employs a complex scheme of alliteration rhyme and iambic metre in his Pearl while using a more conventional alliterative metre in Cleanness and Patience. William Langland's Piers Plowman was written between c. 1370 and 1390. The survival or revival of alliterative verse in 14th Century England makes it an outlier in medieval Christian culture which came to be dominated by Latin and Romance verse forms. Alliterative verse became the preferred English meter for historical romances especially those concerned with the so-called Arthurian Matter of Britain. It also served as a common mode for political protest through Piers Plowman and a variety of allegories satires and political prophesies. However as with Icelandic rimur many 14th-Century poems combine alliteration with rhyming stanzas. Increasingly the alliterative verse tradition was marginalized relative to other English verse traditions most notably the metrical rhyming tradition associated with Geoffrey Chaucer.

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• 5. Tolkien Lewis And Modern Translations

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  J.R.R. Tolkien used alliterative verse extensively in both translations and original poetry with some poems embedded in the text of his fantasy novel The Lord of the Rings. His longest modern English works in Old English alliterative meter include an alliterative verse play The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth Beorhthelm's Son published in 1953 and his 2276-line The Lay of the Children of Húrin published in 1985. He also wrote a thousand-line fragment on the Matter of Britain titled The Fall of Arthur published in 2013. C.S. Lewis taught at Oxford University where he was Fellow and Tutor in English Literature at Magdalen College before becoming a full Professor at Cambridge University. His alliterative poetry includes Sweet Desire and The Planets in his collected Poems and the 742-line poem The Nameless Isle in his Narrative Poems. The late twentieth and early 21st century saw multiple serious efforts by renowned poets to render prominent Old and Middle English poems in modern English alliterative verse. These include Alan Sullivan and Timothy Murphy's translation of Beowulf, Simon Armitage's translations of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and Pearl, and Tony Harrison's translation of the York Mystery Plays.

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• 6. Speculative Fiction And SCA Revival

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  During the latter part of the 20th and early 21st Century alliterative verse enjoyed a revival in speculative fiction and associated social spaces including historical reenactment fan fiction and related social movements. This revival was associated with the American fantasy and science fiction author Poul Anderson who embedded alliterative verse in many of his science fiction and fantasy novels. Their work largely circulated in fanzines and small speculative poetry journals like Star*Line though after the foundation of the Society for Creative Anachronism in the 1960s it found a new home in occasional verse written for SCA events. Alliterative verse can be found wherever speculative fiction fans gather including fanfiction sites and even in materials written for roleplaying games. During the 21st century there has also been an increase in the number of original English poems in alliterative verse included in poetry journals and in collections published by practicing poets. This increase included the publication of a number of long poems in alliterative verse and even children's verse in the form of Zach Weinersmith's humorous alliterative epic Bea Wolf. A recent book on the subject includes one hundred and fifty poems by fifty-five poets more original English alliterative verse by more poets between two covers than anything that has been published since before Gutenberg invented the printing press.

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