Rhyme in dróttkvaett, from Old Germanic Inheritance to Contemporary Poetic Ecology II: Rhyme as an Inherited Device of Old Germanic Verse (original) (raw)
Related papers
Studia Metrica et Poetica, 2023
This paper is the first in a three-part series or tryptic that argues for the Old Germanic origins of rhyme in the Old Norse dróttkvaett meter. This meter requires rhymes on the stressed syllables of two words within a six-position line, irrespective of the syllables that follow. This first instalment introduces both the Old Germanic poetic form and the dróttkvaett meter. It outlines the background of the discussion and presents the basic argument. The second instalment presents a portrait of rhyme in Old Germanic meters outside of Old Norse, providing foundations for viewing rhyme as an inherited part of the Old Germanic poetic system. That portrait highlights the use of rhymes including the stressed vowel within a short line and the tendency to use such rhymes in the b-line, corresponding to the rhymes in even lines of dróttkvaett. The third instalment turns to dróttkvaett within its poetic ecology, beginning with a portrayal of rhyme in Old Norse eddic poetries, followed by dróttkvaett in relation to its contemporary poetic ecology and unravelling its impacts on that ecology, gradually working backward to a perspective on the ecology in which it emerged.
Studia Metrica et Poetica 11(1): 7–43, 2024
This paper is the third in a three-part series that develops a model for the background of rhyme in Old Norse dróttkvætt poetry as a formalization of the same form of rhyme found across Old Germanic poetries. The first paper in this series outlined the argument and its background. The second paper explored rhyme in Old Germanic poetries outside of Old Norse. The present paper introduces rhyme in Old Norse eddic poetries in relation to what was found in other Old Germanic traditions. It then turns to dróttkvætt, discussed in relation to the broader poetic ecology in which it emerged and developed, and considers how dróttkvætt impacted that ecology and uses of rhyme in eddic poetry. Although the ultimate origin of dróttkvætt remains obscure, the discussion of rhyme in dróttkvætt requires a discussion of the history of the meter, here situated in relation to other developments in the poetic ecology that point to greater attention to cadence and rhyme under conditions conducive to formalizing a stanzaic structure. However, this exploration of the history of the poetic form highlights that rhyme may have been a secondary development of the basic meter, formalizing what began as an optional added feature that may have had only a marginal metrical role.
The alliterative, rhythmic and stanzaic constraints on verbs in dróttkvaett lines
Approaches to Nordic and Germanic Poetry,pages, 257–278, 2016
The dróttkvaett meter in poetry from the 9 th to the 13 th century places a constraint on alliteration by verbs. The rigidity of this constraint has gone unnoticed. It complements two laws set forth by Hans Kuhn (1933/1969) for verbs and rhythm in clauses. I show that the alliterative constraint enables a reformulation of Kuhn's two laws into one rigid constraint on verbs and rhythm. In the process, I also separate from Kuhn's second law a constraint for verbs at the beginning of stanzas, which gives an effect that Kuhn saw as reflecting different requirements for verbs in main clauses and subordinate clauses in Old-Norse. These three constraints refer
Listening to Poetry in a Dead Language: Could dróttkvætt Have Been Trochaic?
RMN Newsletter [1]: 23–28, 2010
This short paper returns briefly to the old question of whether the Old Norse dróttkvætt meter could have been trochaic. The purpose of the paper is not to demonstrate the proposition as either true or false, but rather to situate it in analogical comparison with the culturally adjacent Finnic trochaic tetrameter. Comparison is of interest because the conventions of metrical stress in the Finnic meter are counter-intuitive to modern ideas about poetic meters, with the possibility that the elocution of dróttkvætt may have been as well. The article concludes with observations concerning Finnic and Germanic cultural exchange at the level of lexicon, folklore genres, folklore narratives and mythology, and its probable relationship to initial stress in Germanic and alliteration being a central metrical feature of vernacular poetries of precisely these groups in Europe. Within this context, the article suggests that it may not be accidental that dróttkvætt (which differs from the common Germanic epic tetrameter) and the Finnic tetrameter are both alliterative, syllable-counting meters with rules governing the syllabic quantity of lexically stressed syllables, and therefore the possibility that long-term cultural adjacence has also impacted other aspects of the metrics of one or both cultures poetic systems in addition to alliteration.
2023
Scientific Commitee: Letizia Vezzosi; Adele Cipolla; Ian Cornelius; Carla Cucina; Loredana Teresi; Editorial Board: Patrizia Lendinara; Alessandro Zironi; Maria Grazia Cammarota; Rosella Tinaburri. INDICE / CONTENTS CLAUDIO CATALDI A Study of the Alfredian verse prefaces and epilogues (pp. 1-22) IAN CORNELIUS Some corrections to the notation of verse structure in two recent editions of Middle English alliterative poems (pp. 23-41) ROBERT D. FULK Metrical and formal considerations in the textual criticism of the Vercelli Book (pp. 43-65) NELSON GOERING Atlakviða, reversal, and theories of Germanic alliterative metre (pp. 67-93) NORIKO INOUE Eurhythmic dips in Middle English alliterative verse (pp. 95-119) MIKAEL M. MALES The earliest Old Norse metrics (pp. 121-144) NICHOLAS MYKLEBUST Counting time in Old English meter (pp. 145-170) DAVID O’NEIL Syntax and metrical evolution in the medieval English Alliterative tradition (pp. 171-191) BIANCA PATRIA The many virtues of the strange Type Eε. Metre, Semantics and intertextuality in dróttkvætt (pp. 193-221) MICHAEL SCHULTE Runica Metrica. Die Metrische Gestalt der älteren Runeninschriften und ihre Grundeinheit der Proto-Langzeile (pp. 223-248) GJERTRUD STENBRENDEN The emergence of affricates in English: alliterative and other verse evidence (pp. 249-278) ELENCO DEGLI AUTORI / LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS (pp. 279-280) VOLUMI PRECEDENTI / PREVIOUS VOLUMES (pp. 281-282)
How inaccurate rhymes reveal Old Norse vowel phonemes
Mål og Minne, 2023
This article discusses so-called inaccurate rhymes in Old Norse dróttkvaett poetry and their bearing on the phoneme structure of Old Norse. Inaccurate rhymes between /ǫ/ and /a/ do occur, but were to some extent avoided in Old Norse poems in the eleventh and the twelfth century. The same applies to rhymes between /ǫ/ and /á/ in the second half of the twelfth century.
The Medieval Review 11 June, 2021
Old English meter is a richly enigmatic research topic. There is a usual form, with four metrical positions per verse supporting a range of accentual contours, which are schematized as five "types" (G Typen) in the influential theory of Eduard Sievers. Then there are eccentricities whose raison d'être has not been adequately explained. Chief among these is so-called hypermetric verse (G Schwellvers), verses of five positions or more that tend to cluster in passages of
The role of syllable structure in Old English poetry
Lingua 67, 97–119, 1985
On the basis of Germanic languages, Lass (1983) proposed a multi-layered model of syllabic internal structure. Most importantly, he assigned different * This is an enlarged version of Suzuki (forthcoming (a)). I am deeply indebted to Professor Winfred P. Lehmann in preparing this paper. I am also grateful to anonymous readers of Lingua for their helpful comments. 0024-3841/85/$3.30 © 1985, Elsevier Science Publishers B.V. (North-Holland)
Oral Poetry as Language Practice: A Perspective on Old Norse dróttkvætt Composition
In Song and Emergent Poetics – Laulu ja runo – Песня и видоизменяющаяся поэтика. Ed. Pekka Huttu-Hilttunen et al. Runolaulu-Akatemian Julkaisuja 18. Juminkeon Julkaisuja 119. Kuhmo: Juminkeko. Pp. 279–307., 2014
This is a paper from conference proceedings that offers an overview and introduction to how kennings in Old Norse skaldic poetry can become interfaced with the dróttkvætt meter as semantic formulae, their development of associations with lexical material for completing a line, and considerations of how this was related to social practice and internalizing the tradition.