Epic of Beowulf Essay - Prosody of Beowulf

Prosody of Beowulf

The prosody of Beowulf is the art of Old English versification, made to be chanted orally, not read silently. Therefore it uses alliteration and accent to achieve the poetic effect which Modern English poetry achieves through the use of poetic feet, each having the same number of syllables and the same pattern of accent (Wilkie 1271). Theory on the prosody of Beowulf is evolving.

In the manuscript version of the poem, alliteration is employed in almost every line (or two half-lines); in most modern translations of the poem this is not so. In lines 4 and 5 of the poem we find:

Oft Scyld Scefing sceapena preatum

monegum maegpum meodo-setla ofteah

The repetition of the “s” sound in line 4 and of the “m” sound in line 5 illustrate alliteration, and this occurs throughout the poem, providing to the listener an aesthetic sense of rightness or pleasure. In 1958 two language scholars, Lehmann nd Tabusa, produced an alphabetized list of every alliterated word in the poem. One translator, Kevin Crossley-Holland, in his rendition of the poem in Literature of the Western World, actually includes considerable alliteration (Wilkie 1271). The Old English poet would “tie” the two half-lines together by their stressed alliteration (Chickering 4). The first half-line is called the on-verse, which is followed by the off-verse. Each line of poetry ideally contains four principal stresses, two on each side of a strong medial caesura, or pause, and a variable number of less-heavily stressed or unstressed ones. “At least one of the two stressed words in the first half-line, and usually both of them, begin with the same sound as t...

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