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This makes the caesura arguably more important to the Old English verse than it was to Latin or Greek poetry. In Latin or Greek poetry, the caesura could be suppressed for effect in any line. In the alliterative verse that is shared by most of the oldest Germanic languages, the caesura is an ever-present and necessary part of the verse form itself.
As is typical of Old English verse, the metre of the poem is alliterative and consists of four-stress lines, divided between the second and third stresses by a caesura. Each caesura is indicated in the manuscript by a subtle increase in character spacing and with full stops, but modern print editions render them in a more obvious fashion. It is ...
As mentioned above, the fact that the structure of Old English poetry is so rigid and formulaic is an incredibly useful tool for extrapolating meaning from damaged or poorly transcribed manuscripts. For example, the first part of the “Finnsburg Fragment” is missing, but by using these basic metric ideas, at what some of the words of the ...
A reader might use the tools and techniques of poetry analysis in order to discern all that the work has to offer, and thereby gain a fuller, more rewarding appreciation of the poem. [5] Finally, the full context of the poem might be analyzed in order to shed further light on the text, looking at such aspects as the author's biography and ...
The classical alexandrine was early recognized as having a prose-like effect, for example by Ronsard and Joachim du Bellay. [10] This in part explains the strictness with which its prosodic rules (e.g. medial caesura and end rhyme) were kept; they were felt necessary to preserve its distinction and unity as verse. [15]
The 7th-century work Cædmon's Hymn is often considered as the oldest surviving poem in English, as it appears in an 8th-century copy of Bede's text, the Ecclesiastical History of the English People. [2] Poetry written in the mid 12th century represents some of the latest post-Norman examples of Old English. [3]
Interpreting the text of the poem as a woman's lament, many of the text's central controversies bear a similarity to those around Wulf and Eadwacer.Although it is unclear whether the protagonist's tribulations proceed from relationships with multiple lovers or a single man, Stanley B. Greenfield, in his paper "The Wife's Lament Reconsidered," discredits the claim that the poem involves ...
As with Seneca, a caesura after the 5th element ensures a regular word-accent on the 4th and 6th element. Resolved elements are used sparingly. The iambic distich is the basis of many poems of a genre known as Iambus, in which the poet abuses and censures individuals or even communities, whether real or imaginary. Iambic rhythms were felt to be ...