Old English Poetic Forms
Old English poetry appears to be based upon one system of verse construction, a system which remained remarkably consistent for centuries, although some patterns of classical Old English verse begin to break down at the end of the Old English period.
The most widely used system of classification is based on that developed by Eduard Sievers. Sievers' system is a method of categorization rather than a full theory of meter. It does not, in other words, purport to describe the system the scops actually used to compose their verse, nor does it explain why certain patterns are favored or avoided. Sievers divided verses into five basic types, labeled A-E. The system is founded upon accent, alliteration, the quantity of vowels, and patterns of syllabic accentuation.
Read more about this topic: Alliterative Verse
Famous quotes containing the words english, poetic and/or forms:
“When a Jamaican is born of a black woman and some English or Scotsman, the black mother is literally and figuratively kept out of sight as far as possible, but no one is allowed to forget that white father, however questionable the circumstances of birth.”
—Zora Neale Hurston (18911960)
“No poetic phantasy
but a biological reality,
a fact: I am an entity
like bird, insect, plant
or sea-plant cell;
I live; I am alive.”
—Hilda Doolittle (18861961)
“Pervading nationalism imposes its dominion on man today in many different forms and with an aggressiveness that spares no one.... The challenge that is already with us is the temptation to accept as true freedom what in reality is only a new form of slavery.”
—Pope John Paul II (b. 1920)