Form-Meaning Systematicity in Old English Alliterative Verse

Neophilologus ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nataliia Drozhashchikh
Keyword(s):  
Old English ◽  
Alliterative Verse

An Anthology of Old English Poetry. Translated into Alliterative Verse

1961 ◽  
Vol 56 (4) ◽  
pp. 571
Author(s):  
Phyllis Hodgson ◽  
Charles W. Kennedy
Keyword(s):  
Old English ◽  
English Poetry ◽  
Old English Poetry ◽  
Alliterative Verse

scholarly journals TREASURE AND SPIRITUAL EXILE IN OLD ENGLISH JULIANA: HEROIC DICTION AND ALLEGORY OF READING IN CYNEWULF’S ART OF ADAPTATION

2013 ◽  
Vol 48 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 55-70
Author(s):  
Jacek Olesiejko
Keyword(s):  
Old English ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Alliterative Verse ◽  
Secular World ◽  
Heroic Style ◽  
The Stability ◽  
Material Values ◽  
Poetic Creation ◽  
Kinship Bonds ◽  
The Church

ABSTRACT The present article studies Cynewulf’s creative manipulation of heroic style in his hagiographic poem Juliana written around the 9th century A.D. The four poems now attributed to Cynewulf, on the strength of his runic autographs appended to each, Christ II, Elene, The Fates of the Apostles, and Juliana are written in the Anglo-Saxon tradition of heroic alliterative verse that Anglo- Saxons had inherited from their continental Germanic ancestors. In Juliana, the theme of treasure and exile reinforces the allegorical structure of Cynewulf’s poetic creation. In such poems like Beowulf and Seafarer treasure signifies the stability of bonds between people and tribes. The exchange of treasure and ritualistic treasure-giving confirms bonds between kings and their subjects. In Juliana, however, treasure is identified with heathen culture and idolatry. The traditional imagery of treasure, so central to Old English poetic lore, is inverted in the poem, as wealth and gold embody vice and corruption. The rejection of treasure and renunciation of kinship bonds indicate piety and chastity. Also, while in other Old English secular poems exile is cast in terms of deprivation of human company and material values, in Juliana the possession of and preoccupation with treasure indicates spiritual exile and damnation. This article argues that the inverted representations of treasure and exile in the poem lend additional strength to its allegorical elements and sharpen the contrast between secular world and Juliana, who is an allegorical representation of the Church.

scholarly journals “Scealcas of sceaðum scirmæled swyrd”: Analysing Judith’s Language and style in translation through a key sample case (161b-166a) and a twin coda (23 & 230)

2013 ◽  
pp. 213
Author(s):  
Jorge Luis Bueno Alonso
Keyword(s):  
Old English ◽  
Alliterative Verse ◽  
Sample Case ◽  
Poetic Style

Among the extant texts from the Old English poetic corpus that have survived up till now –Beowulf aside–, Judith constitutes a poem in which the poet “wrinkles up” the text outstandingly in order to, as Griffith (1997: 85) stated, show a new purpose for commonplace aspects of Old English poetic style. By considering a key sample case (lines 161b-166a) and a further two specific examples (lines 23 & 230), the aim of this article is to revise and analyze how Judith’s poetic and textual wrinkles –especially those affecting language and style, so important to explain the poem’s singular status– have been dealt with in several translations into English that cover a wide array of translation types: pioneer/philological [Cook 1889, through Barber 2008, and Gordon 1926], classic/academic [Hamer 1970 & Bradley 1982], recent/updated both complete [North, Allard and Gillies 2011 & Treharne 2010] and fragmentary [Constantine 2011]. I will always offer my own solutions to the problems raised by the text as presented in my alliterative verse translation into Spanish (Bueno & Torrado 2012).

scholarly journals Przepisywanie Beowulfa: J.R.R. Tolkiena meandry przekładu

2018 ◽  
Vol 24 (40) ◽  
pp. 47-63
Author(s):  
Tomasz Markiewka
Keyword(s):  
Old English ◽  
Short Story ◽  
Initial Phase ◽  
Vladimir Nabokov ◽  
Close Reading ◽  
Source Text ◽  
Alliterative Verse ◽  
Back Translation ◽  
Creative Writer ◽  
The Ideal

Rewriting Boewulf: J.R.R. Tolkien’s Meandering Translation J.R.R. Tolkien’s works related to translation include both translations and adaptations in the form of pastiche. All of them have been published as posthumous editions, equipped with detailed critical commentaries and edited by the writer’s son, Christopher Tolkien. Among recent publications in English and Polish, one that deserves particular attention is a 1926 prose translation of the Old English poem Beowulf (2014, Polish ed. 2015). This edition presents Tolkien performing a few roles, acting as a translator, translation critic, editor, commentator, literary scholar, linguist, and creative writer. In fact, “translation” becomes a textual hybrid in which one can observe the work of a translator from the initial phase of close reading of a source text through three variants of prose translation (two from 1926 and one from 1942); alternative fragmentar translations in alliterative verse; a detailed philological and cultural commentary composed of lecture notes; original literary works inspired by Beowulf, which include the short story Sellic Spell (in two English versions and as a back translation into Old English); and two versions of the original poem The Lay of Beowulf. As a result, the 2014 edition of Tolkien’s Beowulf realizes the ideal of a translation once described by Vladimir Nabokov: the text of translation emerges from multilayered commentary, which, in Tolkien’s work, crosses the boundaries of languages and genres.

scholarly journals Alliteration in Modern and Middle English: “Piers Plowman”

2014 ◽  
Vol 10 (1-2 (12)) ◽  
pp. 54-62
Author(s):  
Peter Sutton
Keyword(s):  
Middle English ◽  
Old English ◽  
Fourteenth Century ◽  
English Language ◽  
Piers Plowman ◽  
Alliterative Verse ◽  
Vernacular English ◽  
Rhyme Scheme

William Langland’s 8000-line fourteenth-century poem Piers Plowman uses an alliterative rhyme scheme inherited from Old English in which, instead of a rhyme at the end of a line, at least three out of the four stressed syllables in each line begin with the same sound, and this is combined with a caesura at the mid-point of the line. Examples show that Langland does not obey the rules exactly, but he is nevertheless thought to be at the forefront of a revival of alliterative verse. Further examples demonstrate that alliteration was never entirely replaced by end-rhyme and remains a feature of presentday vernacular English and poetry, even though the rhyme scheme is obsolete. It is deeply embedded in the structure and psyche of the English language.

scholarly journals A CONSTRAINT ON THE WELL-FORMEDNESS OF OLD ENGLISH ALLITERATIVE VERSE

1998 ◽  
Vol 15 (0) ◽  
pp. 243-280
Author(s):  
MASAO OKAZAKI
Keyword(s):  
Old English ◽  
Alliterative Verse

Old English and the Germanic languages

2020 ◽  
pp. 99-132
Author(s):  
Coulter H. George
Keyword(s):  
Old English ◽  
Alliterative Verse ◽  
Compound Nouns ◽  
The Creation ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Germanic Languages ◽  
European Family ◽  
Weak Verbs

First, an account of two main features that set all the Germanic languages off against the rest of the Indo-European family (Grimm’s Law, and the creation of a system of strong and weak verbs) gives readers a chance to see how linguists group languages together on the basis of shared innovations. The chapter then turns to Old English in particular, discussing first how Old English, with its greater number of grammatical endings, is still a bit more like its sister languages Greek and Latin than is its modern descendant, before considering the individual words of a verse of the Old English Bible to see in detail what causes it to look so different to the contemporary anglophone. Finally, it works through six lines of Beowulf, not only as a continued illustration of what makes Old English different but also to show how it exploits features like compound nouns and alliterative verse for poetic effect.

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