15 Facts About Alliterative verse

In prosody, alliterative verse is a form of verse that uses alliteration as the principal ornamental device to help indicate the underlying metrical structure, as opposed to other devices such as rhyme.

The most commonly studied traditions of alliterative verse are those found in the oldest literature of the Germanic languages, where scholars use the term 'alliterative poetry' rather broadly to indicate a tradition which not only shares alliteration as its primary ornament but certain metrical characteristics.

Alliterative verse describes metrical patterns and poetic devices used by skaldic poets around the year 1200.

Alliterative verse has been found in some of the earliest monuments of Germanic literature.

Nevertheless, there is a broad consensus among scholars that the written Alliterative verse retains many of the features of the spoken language.

Related searches

Core metrical features of traditional Germanic alliterative verse are as follows; they can be seen in the Gallehus inscription above:.

Alliterative verse poets drew on a specialized vocabulary of poetic synonyms rarely used in prose texts and used standard images and metaphors called kennings.

Some patterns of classical Old English Alliterative verse begin to break down at the end of the Old English period.

Tolkien wrote alliterative verse based on other traditions, such as the Volsungasaga and Atlakviða, in The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrun, and The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth Beorhthelm's Son describing the aftermath of the Battle of Maldon .

Alliterative verse wrote a variety of pieces of alliterative verse in Old English, including parts of The Seafarer.

Alliterative verse made translations including about 600 lines of Beowulf in verse.

Various names of the Old Norse Alliterative verse forms are given in the Prose Edda by Snorri Sturluson.

The Hattatal, or "list of Alliterative verse forms", contains the names and characteristics of each of the fixed forms of Norse poetry.

Requirements of this Alliterative verse form were so demanding that occasionally the text of the poems had to run parallel, with one thread of syntax running through the on-side of the half-lines, and another running through the off-side.

Alliterative verse poetry is still practiced in Iceland in an unbroken tradition since the settlement, most commonly in the form of rimur.