Article
Licensed
Unlicensed
Requires Authentication
Layers of Versification in Beowulf
-
Patrizia Aziz Hanna Noel
Published/Copyright:
August 26, 2010
Abstract
Beowulf is thought to preserve the oldest Germanic principles of versification and to therefore be an archetype of Germanic metrics. However, it deviates in systematic ways from the metrical patterns expected, a fact which is not only reflected in numerous publications in this field of research but also by irreconcilable results concerning the organisation of the meter. On the basis of epic formulae, different layers of versification in Beowulf are identified. The data are interpreted in terms of both an Old English productive and an older Germanic no-longer-productive linguistic basis. The conservative preservation of an older Germanic pattern in combination with contemporary language led to incongruent principles of versification and thus to the complex metrical organisation of Beowulf. It is claimed on the basis of a corpus that the metrical pattern is tetrametric, with measures and prosodic feet being identical at the oldest Germanic stage. Tetrametricity is kept in Beowulf, which results in positional metrical licences, because of morphonological change from Germanic to Old English. Sievers', Heusler's and Kaluza's approaches are classified with regard to natural versification and how they could have been implemented in practice, i. e. in actual performance. The final section offers a way of reconciling metrical licenses with respect to principles of performance.
Published Online: 2010-08-26
Published in Print: 2010-April
You are currently not able to access this content.
You are currently not able to access this content.
Articles in the same Issue
- Problems in English Historical Phonology: Introduction
- A Historical Typology of the English Obstruent System
- I and U: Glide Accretion in Ubian, English, and Celtic
- Layers of Versification in Beowulf
- Thoughts on the Genesis and the Development of Syllable Cut in English
- Word Accent Position and Language Contact in English and German
- Language in the British Isles, ed. David Britain
- Rajend Mesthrie & Rakesh M. Bhatt, World Englishes: The Study of New Linguistic Varieties
- The Oxford History of English Lexicography. Vol. 1: General-Purpose Dictionaries; Vol. 2: Specialized Dictionaries, ed. A. P. Cowie
- An Analytic Dictionary of English Etymology: An Introduction, ed. Anatoly Liberman, with the assistance of J. Lawrence Mitchell
- Anglo-Norman Dictionary. Second Edition: A–C. D–E. Gen. ed. William Rothwell, ed. Stewart Gregory, William Rothwell & David Trotter, with the assistance of Michael Beddow, Virginie Derrien, Geert De Wilde, Lisa Jefferson & Andrew Rothwell
- Mark Kaunisto, Variation and Change in the Lexicon: A Corpus-based Analysis of Adjectives in English Ending in -ic and -ical
- Beatrix Busse, Vocative Constructions in the Language of Shakespeare
- Elizabeth M. Tyler, Old English Poetics: The Aesthetics of the Familiar in Anglo-Saxon England
- Ute Schwab, Franks Casket: Fünf Studien zum Runenkästchen von Auzon, ed. Hasso C. Heiland
- Chaucer's Boece: A Critical Edition Based on Cambridge University Library, MS Ii.3.21, ff. 9r–180v, ed. Tim William Machan
- Alcuin Blamires, Chaucer, Ethics and Gender; John M. Bowers, Chaucer and Langland: The Antagonistic Tradition
- Virgins and Scholars: A Fifteenth-century Compilation of the Lives of John the Baptist, John the Evangelist, Jerome, and Katherine of Alexandria, ed. Claire M. Waters; Three Women of Liège: A Critical Edition of and Commentary on the Middle English Lives of Elizabeth of Spalbeek, Christina Mirabilis, and Marie d'Oignies, ed. Jennifer N. Brown
- Gattungstheorie und Gattungsgeschichte, ed. Marion Gymnich, Birgit Neumann & Ansgar Nünning
- The Cambridge History of Irish Literature. Vol. I: To 1890; The Cambridge History of Irish Literature. Vol II: 1890 – 2000, ed. Margaret Kelleher & Philip O'Leary
- Fantastic Body Transformations in English Literature, ed. Sabine Coelsch - Foisner
- Tarnya Cooper, Searching for Shakespeare; Hildegard Hammerschmidt - Hummel, Die authentischen Gesichtszüge William Shakespeares: Die Totenmaske des Dichters und Bildnisse aus drei Lebensabschnitten; Hildegard Hammerschmidt - Hummel, The True Face of William Shakespeare: The Poet's Death Mask and Likenesses from Three Periods of his Life
- German Shakespeare Studies at the Turn of the Twenty-first Century, ed. Christa Jansohn
- Axel Goodbody, Nature, Technology and Cultural Change in Twentieth-Century German Literature: The Challenge of Ecocriticism
- Johannes Rüster, All-Macht und Raum-Zeit: Gottesbilder in der englischsprachigen Fantasy und Science Fiction
- Tobias A.J. Quast. “Happiness below”: Funktion und Wandel der Vanitas im Werk von Alexander Pope
- Daniel E. White, Early Romanticism and Religious Dissent
- Patrick R. O'Malley, Catholicism, Sexual Deviance and Gothic Culture
- Marina McKay, Modernism and World War II
- Gesa Schubert, Die Kunst des Scheiterns: Die Entwicklung der kunsttheoretischen Ideen Samuel Becketts; Der unbekannte Beckett: Samuel Beckett und die deutsche Kultur, ed. Therese Fischer-Seidel & Marion Fries - Dieckmann; Marion Fries - Dieckmann, Samuel Beckett und die deutsche Sprache – Eine Untersuchung der deutschen Übersetzungen des dramatischen Werks
- Günter U. Beck, Defending Dreamer's Rock: Geschichte, Geschichtsbewusstsein und Geschichtskultur im Native Drama der USA und Kanadas
- Monika Pietrzak - Franger, The Male Body and Masculinity: Representations of Men in British Visual Culture of the 1990s
- Christina Wald, Hysteria, Trauma and Melancholia: Performative Maladies in Contemporary Anglophone Drama
- Eingegangene Schriften
- Corrigendum
Articles in the same Issue
- Problems in English Historical Phonology: Introduction
- A Historical Typology of the English Obstruent System
- I and U: Glide Accretion in Ubian, English, and Celtic
- Layers of Versification in Beowulf
- Thoughts on the Genesis and the Development of Syllable Cut in English
- Word Accent Position and Language Contact in English and German
- Language in the British Isles, ed. David Britain
- Rajend Mesthrie & Rakesh M. Bhatt, World Englishes: The Study of New Linguistic Varieties
- The Oxford History of English Lexicography. Vol. 1: General-Purpose Dictionaries; Vol. 2: Specialized Dictionaries, ed. A. P. Cowie
- An Analytic Dictionary of English Etymology: An Introduction, ed. Anatoly Liberman, with the assistance of J. Lawrence Mitchell
- Anglo-Norman Dictionary. Second Edition: A–C. D–E. Gen. ed. William Rothwell, ed. Stewart Gregory, William Rothwell & David Trotter, with the assistance of Michael Beddow, Virginie Derrien, Geert De Wilde, Lisa Jefferson & Andrew Rothwell
- Mark Kaunisto, Variation and Change in the Lexicon: A Corpus-based Analysis of Adjectives in English Ending in -ic and -ical
- Beatrix Busse, Vocative Constructions in the Language of Shakespeare
- Elizabeth M. Tyler, Old English Poetics: The Aesthetics of the Familiar in Anglo-Saxon England
- Ute Schwab, Franks Casket: Fünf Studien zum Runenkästchen von Auzon, ed. Hasso C. Heiland
- Chaucer's Boece: A Critical Edition Based on Cambridge University Library, MS Ii.3.21, ff. 9r–180v, ed. Tim William Machan
- Alcuin Blamires, Chaucer, Ethics and Gender; John M. Bowers, Chaucer and Langland: The Antagonistic Tradition
- Virgins and Scholars: A Fifteenth-century Compilation of the Lives of John the Baptist, John the Evangelist, Jerome, and Katherine of Alexandria, ed. Claire M. Waters; Three Women of Liège: A Critical Edition of and Commentary on the Middle English Lives of Elizabeth of Spalbeek, Christina Mirabilis, and Marie d'Oignies, ed. Jennifer N. Brown
- Gattungstheorie und Gattungsgeschichte, ed. Marion Gymnich, Birgit Neumann & Ansgar Nünning
- The Cambridge History of Irish Literature. Vol. I: To 1890; The Cambridge History of Irish Literature. Vol II: 1890 – 2000, ed. Margaret Kelleher & Philip O'Leary
- Fantastic Body Transformations in English Literature, ed. Sabine Coelsch - Foisner
- Tarnya Cooper, Searching for Shakespeare; Hildegard Hammerschmidt - Hummel, Die authentischen Gesichtszüge William Shakespeares: Die Totenmaske des Dichters und Bildnisse aus drei Lebensabschnitten; Hildegard Hammerschmidt - Hummel, The True Face of William Shakespeare: The Poet's Death Mask and Likenesses from Three Periods of his Life
- German Shakespeare Studies at the Turn of the Twenty-first Century, ed. Christa Jansohn
- Axel Goodbody, Nature, Technology and Cultural Change in Twentieth-Century German Literature: The Challenge of Ecocriticism
- Johannes Rüster, All-Macht und Raum-Zeit: Gottesbilder in der englischsprachigen Fantasy und Science Fiction
- Tobias A.J. Quast. “Happiness below”: Funktion und Wandel der Vanitas im Werk von Alexander Pope
- Daniel E. White, Early Romanticism and Religious Dissent
- Patrick R. O'Malley, Catholicism, Sexual Deviance and Gothic Culture
- Marina McKay, Modernism and World War II
- Gesa Schubert, Die Kunst des Scheiterns: Die Entwicklung der kunsttheoretischen Ideen Samuel Becketts; Der unbekannte Beckett: Samuel Beckett und die deutsche Kultur, ed. Therese Fischer-Seidel & Marion Fries - Dieckmann; Marion Fries - Dieckmann, Samuel Beckett und die deutsche Sprache – Eine Untersuchung der deutschen Übersetzungen des dramatischen Werks
- Günter U. Beck, Defending Dreamer's Rock: Geschichte, Geschichtsbewusstsein und Geschichtskultur im Native Drama der USA und Kanadas
- Monika Pietrzak - Franger, The Male Body and Masculinity: Representations of Men in British Visual Culture of the 1990s
- Christina Wald, Hysteria, Trauma and Melancholia: Performative Maladies in Contemporary Anglophone Drama
- Eingegangene Schriften
- Corrigendum
