In prosody, alliterative verse is a form of verse that uses alliteration as the principal structuring device to unify lines of poetry, as opposed to other devices such as rhyme or syllables. The most commonly studied traditions of alliterative verse are those found in the oldest literature of many Germanic languages. The Old English epic Beowulf, as well as most other Old English poetry, the Old High German Muspilli, the Old Saxon Heliand, the Old Norse Poetic Edda, and many Middle-English poems (such as the Morte Arthur, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Piers Plowman, Brut - only to name a few) all use alliterative verse.
Alliterative verse can be found in many other languages as well, although rarely with the systematic rigor of Germanic forms. The Finnish Kalevala and the Estonian Kalevipoeg both use alliterative forms derived from folk tradition. Traditional Turkic verse, for example that of the Uyghur, is also alliterative.
Read more about Alliterative Verse: Common Germanic Origins and Features, Old English Poetic Forms, Old Norse Poetic Forms, German Forms
Famous quotes containing the word verse:
“But there’s another knowledge that my heart destroys
As the fox in the old fable destroyed the Spartan boy’s
Because it proves that things both can and cannot be;
That the swordsmen and the ladies can still keep company;
Can pay the poet for a verse and hear the fiddle sound,
That I am still their servant though all are underground.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)