The sixth type of Germanic alliterative verse : the case of Old English Beowulf (Part II)

概要

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According to Sievers (1885, 1893), there are five metrical types of Germanic alliterative poetry based on two stressed positions and two unstressed positions. With S and W representing a strong position and a weak position, respectively, these five are SWSW (Type A), WSWS (Type B), WSSW (Type C), SSWW (Type D), and SWWS (Type E), with the sixth possible combination WWSS lacking from the inventory. However, critical evaluation of earlier metrical analyses reveals that this sixth type is in fact present in Old English Beowulf. The two patterns of this type WWSS are verses with a disyllabic compound, as Me pone waelraes '... me for the murderous onslaught', and verses with a 'contracted' vowel (i.e. a vowel that has arisen from hiatus) as the second lift, as Swa sceal man don 'as a man should do'. Previous analyses subsumed the above verses under the basic five by stipulation of metrical stress and by an interpretive device that 'decontracts' a monosyllabic word form into the stem syllable and the ending syllable (cf. Sievers 1885, 1893, Bliss 1967, Fulk 1992, Hutcheson 1995, Suzuki 1996 among others). However, not only is metrical stress relative by nature, but also 'decontraction' as a metrical device presupposes Sievers's scansion and lacks independent motivation. Arranging strong and week positions in alliterative verse is not restricted in the way in which WWSS pattern is prohibited.
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