ENGLISH

The Metrical Grammar of Beowulf

By Calvin B. Kendall

Book information

Publisher
Cambridge University Press
Year
1991
ISBN
0521393256, 9780521393256, 0521031214, 9780521031219, 9780511470349
LCC
PR1588 .K4 1991
Language
english
Format
PDF
Filesize
8 MB (8051290 bytes)
Series
Cambridge Studies in Anglo-Saxon England
Pages
336\334
Topic
Education
Time added
2011-06-04 13:46:07

Description

This book argues that the formal art of the Old English epic Beowulf is shaped and determined by the poetic language that the poet inherited from the traditional, oral culture of Anglo-Saxon England. The patterns of meter and alliteration exhibited in the poem were not imposed by the poet on his language, but were part of the language that he spoke, the rules of which constituted his metrical grammar. Professor Kendall investigates the constraints of syntax, meter and alliteration that govern the formal art of Beowulf. He shows how the half-lines of the poem, which are the basic units of composition, are marked by the metrical grammar for placement in the verse clause; he also establishes conditions for the presence or absence of alliteration, which enable him to say whether in any given instance the alliterative device is a mandatory function of the rules of the metrical grammar or an option exercised by the poet.

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