Anglo-Saxon Poetry

2006-05-11T14:38:18Z

71.96.88.111: /* Other Poetic Elements */

The entire body of '''Anglo-Saxon poetry''' consists of little more than 30 000 lines. It is by nature alliterative rather than rhyming. It catches the [[Anglo-Saxon]] people either side of their conversion to [[Christianity]], and so includes both devout Christian works and a darker [[Pagan]] worldview.

==[[poetic meter|Meter]]==

Every line of Anglo-Saxon poetry was split into two half-lines. Most of these contained at least four syllables, two of which were stressed. There was always [[alliteration]] between the one of the stressed syllables of the first half-line and the first stressed syllable of the second half line. The second stressed syllable of the second half line sometimes alliterated with the other stressed syllable of the first half-line.

Some lines contained four stressed syllables per half line. These are called ''hypermetric'' lines, and were used either for dramatic effect, or simply to add variety.

i am going to get it like blow blow kapow

==Performance==

Anglo-Saxon poetry appears to have been performed accompanied by a [[harp]]. A passage from [[Beowulf]] seems to indicate that it was perfectly valid to make up sections of an established poem on the spot.

==Manuscript Sources==

Most Anglo-Saxon poetry appears in one of four manuscripts:

# [[Beowulf manuscript]]
# [[MS Junius XI]]
# [[The Exeter Book]]
# [[The Vercelli Book]]

===Specific examples===

* [[Battle of Brunnanburh]]
* [[Battle of Maldon]]
* [[Beowulf]]
* [[Dream of the Rood]]

==Related Links==

* [ftp://ftp.std.com/WWW/obi/Anglo-Saxon/aspr/contents.html The Complete Corpus of Anglo-Saxon Poetry]

[[Category:Poetry]]

Cunnan - User contributions [en]

Anglo-Saxon Poetry