Rhyme in dróttkvætt, from Old Germanic Inheritance to Contemporary Poetic Ecology III: The Old Norse Poetic Ecology (original) (raw)
Related papers
Studia Metrica et Poetica 10(2): 32–60, 2023
This paper is the second in a three-part series on the distinctive type of rhyme in the Old Norse dróttkvaett meter, argued to have emerged through the metricalization of uses of rhyme within a short line found across Old Germanic poetries. Whereas the first paper outlined the argument and its background, this paper explores uses of rhyme in Old Germanic poetries other than Old Norse. Rhyme involving the stressed syllable or word stem irrespective of subsequent syllables is shown to be a device of these poetic systems. Especially in Old English, such rhyme is used to support and reinforce the basic meter and may even fill a metrical function in the place of additional alliteration. The type of rhyme is argued to be an inherited feature of the poetic system, an argument also supported by the metricalized use of rhyme in Old Norse dróttkvaett poetry. Because some theories of the Old Germanic poetic form require viewing rhyme as competing and interfering with its rhythm, the rhymecompatible model used here is outlined.
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.
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.
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.
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 Uses of Norse Loanwords in Middle English Poems: From Historical Fact to Historical Fiction
Interdisciplinary Journal for Germanic Linguistics and Semiotic Analysis
The few Norse loanwords attested in late Old English poetry can be shown to have added factual plausibility to poems in praise of prominent contemporaries. Why did such loans remain part of the vocabulary of poems after the Norman Conquest? And how did Norse loans attested in late Old English and early Middle English prose likewise become part of the Middle English poetic vocabulary? This paper shows that the uses of the Norse loans erl, dreng, swain, and gersum in post-Conquest poems reflect a partial loss of their connection with the real world. They had turned into means of poetic colouring applied to a prehistoric , largely fictional subject matter, mostly by poets who addressed audiences in regions that had come under strong Danelaw influence before the Norman Conquest.
The Use of Norse Loanwords in Late Old English Historical Poems
The use of Norse loanwords in Old English poetry seems to be restricted to historical poems in praise of prominent contemporaries. It is demonstrated that the few Norse loans in these poems neither contribute to the laudatory character of such texts nor serve as new, additional means of stylistic enrichment. Instead, the Norse loans in these late Old English historical poems can be shown to have been used to add factual plausibility to such poems as historical texts. This contrasts with the use of Norse loanwords in Middle English poems.
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
How poetic is phonology? Studies in Old and Middle Icelandic poetry
This is the detailed English summary of my thesis, in a separate file for convenience. The subject is historical phonology and the relationship between poetry and phonology. The most extensively treated diachronic problem is the poetic evidence for a tonal distinction in Icelandic, present in poetry up to the 16th century.