Re: Poetry: alliteration

FFlores scripsit:

> I'd like to know what alliterative verse is. I have a
> nebulous idea of sounds being echoed throughout a
> poem, but what are the rules? When does this 'echo'
> stop being a simple poetic device to become a genre?
"Alliteration" as such just means "agreement in the initial sounds of words",
just as "rhyme" means "agreement in the final sounds of words".
Usually all vowels are taken to alliterate with each other: "old English art"
is good alliteration, and sometimes there are language-specific rules about
which consonant clusters alliterate: in Old English "st" alliterates
only with "st" and "sp" only with "sp", whereas other clusters in
"s" alliterate with each other and with plain "s" freely -- no such
rule prevails in Old High German alliterative verse, though.

Old English alliterative *verse*, as used in _Beowulf_ and other poetry,
and as late as _Sir Gawain and the Green Knight_, is the English version
of the common Germanic verse tradition, before rhyme and foot-verse
took over under Romance influence.  This is the kind that JRRT uses.
Formally, OE verse lines have four stressed syllables with a pause
between the second and the third.  The number of unstressed syllables
is not important, although there is a tendency to keep them to a minimum
in the right half of the line.

It is essential that the third stressed syllable alliterates with either
the first or the second stressed syllables, and sometimes with both (this
is called "double alliteration").  It is essential that the the fourth
stressed syllable *not* alliterate with the third.  Crossed alliteration
patterns like A - B - A - B and A - B - B - A are sometimes found.

Certain rhythmic patterns of stressed and unstressed syllables are also
characteristic of OE verse half lines; they are labeled by letters A-E,
but I forget which is which.

Chaucer is the first well-known English poet to make use of the new
metric schemes derived from French, but he was aware of the old system,
and even has one of his characters in the "Canterbury Tales" parody it:

        I can ne singen "rim ram ruf" by lettre.

Of course, alliteration like rhyme depends on sounds, not on written
forms.

> All this is because of an alliterative poem I read, in
> Tolkien's _Unfinished Tales_, 'The Istari':
>
>   Wilt thou learn the lore / that was long secret
>   of the Five that came / from a far country?
Note how this fits the rules: the stressed syllables of the first line
are "learn", "lore", "long", "sec", showing double alliteration,
and "Five", "came", "far", "coun", showing crossed alliteration.
Also, most of the unstressed syllables are in the left half.  The / represents
the pause.

> I understand that OE poetry was based on alliteration, am
> I right? I'm trying to produce some of this in Draseléq, since
> sheer metrics and/or rhyme don't favour my muse...
Alliteration is still used in English verse, but as a grace-note,
not a structural principle.  Pope (the poet, not the Vicar of Christ)
parodied its over-use by third-rate poets as "apt alliteration's artful aid",
though as JRRT points out, "alliteration" alliterates on "lit".

You can see a translation of _Beowulf_ into Modern English alliterative
verse at ftp://metalab.unc.edu/pub/docs/books/gutenberg/etext97/bwulf10.txt .
>   http://www.geocities.com/pablo-david/draseleq.html

--
John Cowan                                   cowan@ccil.org
       I am a member of a civilization. --David Brin