Poetic Style and Innovation in Old English, Old Norse, and Old Saxon

Megan E. Hartman

• Publisher: Medieval Institute Publications
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781501513558
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Medieval & Early Modern Literary Criticism
• Index: Literature

This book traces the development of hypermetric verse in Old English and compares it to the cognate traditions of Old Norse and Old Saxon. The study illustrates the inherent flexibility of the hypermetric line and shows how poets were able to manipulate this flexibility in different contexts for different practical and rhetorical purposes. This mode of analysis is therefore able to show what degree of control the poets had over the traditional alliterative line, what effects they were able to produce with various stylistic choices, and how attention to poetic style can aid in literary analysis.

Chapter 1: Conservative Old English Hypermetrics: A Basis for Analysis

Introduction

To set a baseline for hypermetric analysis, I will first examine the most metrically conservative poems in the corpus. Logically, these would be the earliest poems, but dating the corpus has always been a controversial issue. Nevertheless, R. D. Fulk (1992) shows that some poems exhibit a higher tendency than others to adhere to certain linguistic and metrical patterns that are more conservative,¹ and several subsequent studies have supported his findings.² Even if these poems were composed later than the cited studies suggest, they all show multiple instances of various archaic features that are structurally required by the meter, and, regardless of the actual dates of composition, the poems that use the most conservative patterns overall should likewise exhibit the most conservative patterns for the hypermetric lines. The poems that are long enough to test reliably and are cited by Fulk as showing consistently early features are Beowulf, Genesis A, Guthlac A, Daniel, and Exodus. According to Bliss (1962), there are a total of 244 hypermetric verses in these five poems.³ While the status of some of the verses as hypermetric has been questioned, in general they present some of the clearest hypermetric patterns in the corpus.

I begin my analysis by examining the structure of the meter, through observing the metrical patterns themselves in terms of the length and arrangement of the line in order to establish what seems to be permissible in hypermetric composition. I then move to other compositional features that take into account the interaction of meter, syntax, and diction in the composition of these lines. My research shows that while freer than normal composition, hypermetric meter is bounded by a clear set of rules and that many of the metrico-syntactic features that govern normal verse are maintained in hypermetric composition. Nevertheless, some features, particularly those related to syntax, show innovation in the hypermetric sections, illustrating that hypermetric composition afforded some significantly different options for the poets.

I set up this baseline in part to provide a point of comparison for the rest of the book. To understand what sort of innovations occurred in different linguistic and historical contexts, we must first understand the norm from which the poets were innovating. At the same time, I also use this close analysis of hypermetric structure to consider why poets might have chosen to switch to hypermetric composition. The combination of consistent and innovative features, together with the restrictions and options that the traditions seem to have imposed on the poets, makes hypermetric composition a unique tool in the poets’ repertoire. Considering what poets could have done with this tool allows scholars to analyze why poets might have switched into hypermetric meter and what particular effects they could be trying to produce by the metrical patterns they create. Ultimately, the standard interpretation proposed by scholars such as Sievers (1887), Pope (1966), and Timmer (1951), that hypermetric meter is for excited, solemn, and rhetorically heightened moments, holds true, but the lines also seem to have some syntactic features that allow poets to create a more natural diction that might have provided additional motivations to use the meter.

Metrical Properties of Conservative Hypermetrics

This section analyzes the actual patterns of stress in the hypermetric line. As I illustrated in the introduction, hypermetric verse consists of an onset plus a normal verse, with two distinct options for onsets. Statistical analysis of these onsets demonstrates that the onset has a greater degree of flexibility than a normal line in terms of the length and filler of the drop, but that the positions are still relatively bounded.

In addition to the arrangement of stressed and unstressed positions in the actual line, hypermetric composition is also governed in terms of how the verses are distributed across the line and how the lines are distributed across the poem. Where the stress patterns seem to be relatively consistent for the different poems, though, the distribution patterns show a greater variety of options and might be a way in which the poets exercised their individual stylistic creativity.

The Structure of the Onset

The hypermetric onset comes in two different forms: the heavy onset (–́×) and the light onset (××). The onsets follow the general principles of verse composition, in that the drop in a heavy onset, which appears verse medially, tends to be relatively short, whereas the light onset, which opens a verse and constitutes the equivalent of two metrical positions, tends to be longer. Within the confines of these general tendencies, however, the hypermetric onsets developed a different set of conventions that make for slightly longer, heavier positions.

The heavy onset often looks similar to the opening two positions of a type-A verse; very frequently, it consists of a single word with a stressed root syllable followed by an unstressed syllable, as in gyrde grǣgan sweorde (HA1: –́×–́×–́) “girt with a silvery sword” (Genesis A 2866a); specifically, such verses occur in 50.4% of the heavy onsets (this number includes seven verses with secondary stress instead of zero stress in the drop). However, the onset is expanded beyond this most simple version more frequently than a type-A verse, often through the addition of unstressed words. In total, 58.95% of the onsets have at least one independent word in the drop, and 11.58% have more than one. These words are generally clitics, but particles are also acceptable and occur in 31.37% of the drops. In terms of length, longer verses are not the preference, but they occur more often than in a type-A verse, on average: 28.4% of the onsets have two syllables in the drop and 11.6% have three. In spite of this general tendency toward longer and heavier verses, though, the heavy onset does not accede the limits to a medial drop overall: the longest drop is only four syllables long and only one such verse occurs in the conservative poems (Daniel 237a). Therefore, it would appear that conservative poets can expand the drop of the heavy onset beyond what is typical of a verse-medial drop, particularly by adding heavy material to the drop, but that they nevertheless keep these drops relatively short.

One question that has come up about the heavy onset is whether it can have no drop at all: five verses exist with no drop between the onset and the cadence:

men mid sīðian (HD2: –́–́–́̀͜×) (Genesis A 2869)

“depart with men”

to cwale cnihta fēorum (×́́͜͜×–́×–́×) (Daniel 225a)

“for the destruction of the lives of the young men”

in fæðm fȳres līge (×–́–́×–́×) (Daniel 233a)

“in the power of the flame of the fire”

ne feax fȳre beswǣled (×–́–́××–́×) (Daniel 437a)

“nor [was] hair burned by the fire”

ealle him brimu blōdige þūhton (×××́͜͜×–́××–́×) (Exodus 573a)

“the seas seemed all bloody to them”

Sievers uses the first as an example of an onset with only one syllable, but Pope (1966: 103), following Schmitz (1910) and Holthausen (1914), emends the verse to mannan mid siðian, so it is more likely a perfectly regular verse. Significantly, the rest of the verses all open with a drop. This drop could be anacrusis, which does occur on eight other heavy hypermetric verses,⁴ but Sievers argues instead that they should be considered inverted hypermetric patterns (1887: 468–69)

With so few examples, it is impossible to tell which analysis is better. As anacrustic verses, these four would be irregular because anacrusis normally consists only of a verbal prefix or the negative clitic ne (see Cable 1974: 32–44, Suzuki 1995: 148–50). Nevertheless, other words do occur infrequently in anacrusis, and two examples of such exist among the anacrustic hypermetric verses: æt fōtum sæt frēan Scyldinga (aHD1: ×–́××–́–́–̀×) “sat at the feet of the lord of the Scyldings” (Beowulf 1166a), which contains a preposition in anacrusis, and þa wearð yrre ānmōd cyning (aHA2k: ××–́×–́–̀́͜×) “then the proud king became angry” (Daniel 224a), which contains two particles.⁵ A third possibility is that the four verses are corrupt. Perhaps the best conclusion, then, is to say that the vast majority of heavy onsets takes the form of a lift plus a drop, with the possibility of anacrusis. Given the flexibility inherent in the onset, some variants in this regular pattern exist, but poets limit the difference by continuing to include two positions, and these are rare and should not be considered standard.

The relative flexibility seems to be the most important feature of these onsets, given that it is the feature that distinguishes them from normal composition. The poets mostly use the extra two positions of the onset to add an additional lexical word to the verse, which frequently leads to a more descriptive verse. In normal verse, a verse often consists of either a noun and a verb or a noun and its modifiers. There are, of course, many variations on these word patterns, but these are the most common. By adding an extra lexical word, the poets can include a modifier with a noun even if there is a verb in the passage, as is often the case in Guthlac A. Other poems do not have verbs in as many verses, so the passage can have a noun and two modifiers—mostly adjectives or another noun in the genitive—making it particularly descriptive. Again, the pattern of three stress words is not absolute, but it is the most common, especially for the more regular hypermetric verses. The drop in the onset leaves a convenient space for function words, which the poets use frequently, while still keeping the drop relatively short and straightforward.

The light onset creates a comparatively simple structure that conforms to what one might expect. Because it opens with an extended unstressed position that takes the place of two positions, the structure should be similar to that of the opening drop of a type-A3 verse, which does the same. In a type A3, the opening is always polysyllabic, so that its length can distinguish it from anacrusis (see Russom 1987: 35–36). It also has heavier words to compensate for the lack of stress (see Suzuki 1996: 54–59). These features allow the opening to be more easily distinguished from anacrusis or a normal drop.

The light onset does likewise. Of the 149 verses that begin with a light onset, 16.11% have two syllables, 32.25% have three, 35.57% have four, and 14.09% have five. This seems to be the preferred range for the light opening, although there are two examples of a verse with six syllables and one with seven.⁶ The li...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgement
• Introduction
• Chapter 1: Conservative Old English Hypermetrics: A Basis for Analysis
• Chapter 2: Old English Wisdom Poetry: The Influence of Formulaic Diction
• Chapter 3: Old Norse Ljóðaháttr and Málaháttr: Dividing Hypermetrics
• Chapter 4: The Old Saxon Heliand: Working through Ambiguity
• Chapter 5: Late Old English Hypermetrics: Linguistic Change and Stylistic Adaptation in the Old English Judith
• Conclusion
• Index