Sievers's theory of Anglo-Saxon meter (original) (raw)

Eduard Sievers developed a theory of the meter of Anglo-Saxon alliterative verse. This most likely would have been the theory of Anglo-Saxon prosody that Ezra Pound would have been familiar with. A line of Anglo-Saxon verse is made up of two half-lines. Each of these half-lines contains two main stresses (or 'lifts'). Sievers categorized three basic types of half-line that were used. Here a stressed syllable is represented by the symbol '/' and an unstressed syllable by the symbol 'x'. He also noted that three possible types of half-line were not used: * / x x / * / / x x * x x / /