alliterative verse

{{further|Germanic Heroic Age}}The poetic forms found in the various Germanic languages are not identical, but there is still sufficient similarity to make it clear that they are closely related traditions, stemming from a common Germanic source. Knowledge about that common tradition, however, is based almost entirely on inference from later poetry.{{cite thesis |last1=Simms |first1=Douglas Peter Allen |title=Reconstructing an oral tradition: problems in the comparative metrical analysis of Old English, Old Saxon and Old Norse alliterative verse |date=2003 |hdl=2152/937 |hdl-access=free |oclc=847273745 }}{{page needed|date=December 2023}}

Originally all alliterative poetry was composed and transmitted orally, and much went unrecorded. The degree to which writing may have altered this oral art form remains much in dispute. Nevertheless, there is a broad consensus among scholars that the written verse retains many (and some would argue almost all) of the features of the spoken language.{{cite journal |last1=Pascual |first1=Rafael J. |title=Oral Tradition and the History of English Alliterative Verse |journal=Studia Neophilologica |date=3 July 2017 |volume=89 |issue=2 |pages=250–260 |doi=10.1080/00393274.2017.1369360 |s2cid=164993069 |url=https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:56fdb211-c9f7-40b0-ab71-ee09c875764a }}{{cite book |last1=Wolf |first1=Alois |chapter=Medieval Heroic Traditions and Their Transitions from Orality to Literacy |pages=67–88 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ng-vqCqP8YQC&pg=PA67 |editor1-last=Doane |editor1-first=Alger Nicolaus |editor2-last=Pasternack |editor2-first=Carol Braun |title=Vox Intexta: Orality and Textuality in the Middle Ages |date=1991 |publisher=Univ of Wisconsin Press |isbn=978-0-299-13094-7 }}

One statement we have about the nature of alliterative verse from a practicing alliterative poet is that of Snorri Sturluson in the Prose Edda. He describes metrical patterns and poetic devices used by skaldic poets around the year 1200.{{cite book |last1=Wanner |first1=Kevin J. |title=Snorri Sturluson and the Edda: The Conversion of Cultural Capital in Medieval Scandinavia |date=2008 |publisher=University of Toronto Press |isbn=978-0-8020-9801-6 }}{{page needed|date=December 2023}} Snorri's description has served as the starting point for scholars to reconstruct alliterative meters beyond those of Old Norse.{{cite book |last1=Orchard |first1=Andy |title=A Critical Companion to Beowulf |date=2003 |publisher=Boydell & Brewer Ltd |isbn=978-1-84384-029-9 }}{{page needed|date=December 2023}}{{cite thesis |id={{ProQuest|304689677}} |last1=Carroll |first1=Joseph Robert |date=2001 |title=Snorri Sturluson and 'Beowulf' }}{{page needed|date=December 2023}}

Image:Guldhornene DO-10765 original.jpg]]

Alliterative verse has been found in some of the earliest monuments of Germanic literature. The Golden Horns of Gallehus, discovered in Denmark and likely dating to the 4th century, bear this Runic inscription in Proto-Norse:{{cite book |last1=Price |first1=T. Douglas |title=Ancient Scandinavia: An Archaeological History from the First Humans to the Vikings |date=2015 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-023198-9 |page=313 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=IZ_KBwAAQBAJ&dq=golden+horn+of+gallehus+hartner&pg=PA313 }}

x / x x x / x x / x / x x

ek hlewagastiʀ holtijaʀ || horna tawidō

(I, Hlewagastiʀ [son?] of Holt, made the horn.)

This inscription contains four strongly stressed syllables, the first three of which alliterate on {{angbr|h}} /x/ and the last of which does not alliterate, essentially the same pattern found in much later verse.

The core metrical features of traditional Germanic alliterative verse are as follows; they can be seen in the Gallehus inscription above:{{harvnb|Terasawa|2011|pp=3–26}}

• A long line is divided into two half-lines. Half-lines are also known as 'verses', 'hemistiches', or 'distiches'; the first is called the 'a-verse' (or 'on-verse'), the second the 'b-verse' (or 'off-verse').{{efn|Old Norse poetry is not, traditionally, written as two half-lines with a medial caesura. A half line as described above is written as a whole line in (for example) editions of the Poetic Edda, though scholars such as Andreas Heusler and Eduard Sievers have applied the half-line structure to Eddaic poetry.}} The rhythm of the b-verse is generally more regular than that of the a-verse, helping listeners to perceive where the end of the line falls.
• A heavy pause, or 'cæsura', separates the verses.
• Each verse usually has two heavily stressed syllables, referred to as 'lifts' or 'beats' (other, less heavily stressed syllables, are called 'dips').
• The first and/or second lift in the a-verse alliterates with the first lift in the b-verse.
• The second lift in the b-verse does not alliterate with the first lifts.

Some of these fundamental rules varied in certain traditions over time. For example, in Old English alliterative verse, in some lines the second but not the first lift in the a-verse alliterated with the first lift in the b-verse, for instance line 38 of Beowulf (ne hyrde ic cymlicor ceol gegyrwan).{{Cite web |title=Medieval Sourcebook: Beowulf (in Old English) |url=https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/basis/beowulf-oe.asp |access-date=2023-12-06 |website=sourcebooks.fordham.edu}}

Unlike in post-medieval English accentual verse, in which a syllable is either stressed or unstressed, Germanic poets were sensitive to degrees of stress. These can be thought of at three levels:

1. most stressed ('stress-words'): root syllables of nouns, adjectives, participles, infinitives
2. less stressed ('particles'): root syllables of most finite verbs (i.e. tensed verbs) and adverbs
3. even less stressed ('proclitics'): most pronouns, weakly stressed adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions, parts of the verb to be, word-endings

If a half-line contains one or more stress-words, their root syllables will be the lifts. (This is the case in the Gallehus Horn inscription above, where all the lifts are nouns.) If it contains no stress-words, the root syllables of any particles will be the lift. Rarely, even a proclitic can be the lift, either because there are no more heavily stressed syllables or because it is given extra stress for some particular reason.{{cite book |last1=Gade |first1=Kari Ellen |title=The Structure of Old Norse Dróttkvætt Poetry |date=1995 |publisher=Cornell University Press |isbn=978-0-8014-3023-7 }}{{page needed|date=December 2023}}{{cite journal |last1=Carroll |first1=Benjamin H. |title=Old English Prosody |journal=Journal of English Linguistics |date=June 1996 |volume=24 |issue=2 |pages=93–115 |doi=10.1177/007542429602400203 |s2cid=144142142 }}

Lifts also have to meet an additional requirement, involving what linguists term quantity, which is related to vowel length. A syllable like the li in little, which ends in a short vowel, takes less time to say than a syllable like the ow in growing, which ends in a long vowel or a diphthong. A closed syllable, which ends with one or more consonants, like bird, takes about the same amount of time as a long vowel.{{Citation |last=Tranel |first=Bernard |title=On phonetic evidence for the phonological mora: comments on Hubbard |date=1995-09-14 |work=Phonology and Phonetic Evidence |pages=188–202 |publisher=Cambridge University Press|doi=10.1017/cbo9780511554315.014 |isbn=978-0-521-48259-2 }} In the older Germanic languages, a syllable ending with a short vowel could not be one of the three potentially alliterating lifts by itself. Instead, if a lift was occupied by word with a short root vowel followed by only one consonant followed by an unstressed vowel (i.e. '(-)CVCV(-)) these two syllables were in most circumstances counted as only one syllable. This is called resolution.{{harvnb|Terasawa|2011|pp=31–33}}

The patterns of unstressed syllables vary significantly in the alliterative traditions of different Germanic languages. The rules for these patterns remain imperfectly understood and subject to debate.{{cite journal |last1=Turville-Petre |first1=Thorlac |title=Approaches to the Metres of Alliterative Verse (review) |journal=Journal of English and Germanic Philology |date=2010 |volume=109 |issue=2 |pages=240–242 |doi=10.1353/egp.0.0144 |s2cid=162332950 }}

Alliteration fits naturally with the prosodic patterns of early Germanic languages. Alliteration essentially involves matching the left edges of stressed syllables. Early Germanic languages share a left-prominent prosodic pattern. In other words, stress falls on the root syllable of a word, which is normally the initial syllable (except where the root is preceded by an unstressed prefix, as in past participles, for example). This means that the first sound of a word was particularly salient to listeners.{{cite book |doi=10.1515/9783110643282-005 |chapter=First or best, last not least: Domain edges in the history of English |title=Studies in the History of the English Language VIII |date=2020 |last1=Minkova |first1=Donka |pages=109–134 |isbn=978-3-11-064328-2 |s2cid=234663337 }} Traditional Germanic verse had two particular rules about alliteration:

• All vowels alliterate with each other.{{harvnb|Minkova|2003|loc=ch. 4}} The precise reasons for this are debated. The most common, but not uniformly accepted, theory for vowel-alliteration is that words beginning with vowels all actually began with a glottal stop (as is still the case in some modern Germanic languages).
• The consonant clusters st-, sp- and sc- are treated as separate sounds (so st- only alliterates with st-, not with s- or sp-).{{harvnb|Minkova|2003|loc=chs. 5-7}}

The need to find an appropriate alliterating word gave certain other distinctive features to alliterative verse as well. Alliterative poets drew on a specialized vocabulary of poetic synonyms rarely used in prose texts{{cite journal |last1=Cronan |first1=Dennis |title=Poetic words, conservatism and the dating of Old English poetry |journal=Anglo-Saxon England |date=December 2004 |volume=33 |pages=23–50 |doi=10.1017/s026367510400002x |s2cid=162468385 |doi-access=free }} and used standard images and metaphors called kennings.{{cite book |last1=Scholtz |first1=Hendrik van der Merwe |title=The Kenning in Anglo-Saxon and Old Norse Poetry |date=1927 |publisher=N. V. Dekker & Van de Vegt en J. W. Van Leeuwen |hdl=2027/mdp.39015033650196 |hdl-access=free }}{{cite journal |last1=Fulk |first1=Robert D. |title=Kennings in Old English Verse and in the Poetic Edda |journal=European Journal of Scandinavian Studies |date=26 April 2021 |volume=51 |issue=1 |pages=69–91 |doi=10.1515/ejss-2020-2030 |s2cid=233186171 }}{{cite book |doi=10.1163/ej.9789004179257.i-500.43 |chapter=The Old Norse Kenning as a Mnemonic Figure |title=The Making of Memory in the Middle Ages |date=2010 |last1=Birgisson |first1=Bergsveinn |pages=199–213 |isbn=978-90-474-4160-1 }}

Old Saxon and medieval English attest to the word fitt with the sense of 'a section in a longer poem', and this term is sometimes used today by scholars to refer to sections of alliterative poems.'[https://www.oed.com/view/Entry/70743 fit | fytte, n.1.]', Oxford English Dictionary Online, 1st edn (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1896).{{cite journal |last1=Fulk |first1=R.D. |title=The origin of the numbered sections in Beowulf and in other Old English poems |journal=Anglo-Saxon England |date=December 2006 |volume=35 |pages=91–109 |id={{ProQuest|196661862}} |doi=10.1017/S0263675106000056 |jstor=44510947 |s2cid=163092737 }}

The trochaic tetrametrical meter that characterises the traditional poetry of most Finnic-language cultures, known as Kalevala meter, does not deploy alliteration with the structural regularity of Germanic-language alliterative verse, but Kalevala meter does have a very strong convention that, in each line, two lexically stressed syllables should alliterate. In view of the profound influence of the Germanic languages on other aspects of the Finnic languages and the unusualness of such regular requirements for alliteration, it has been argued that Kalevala meter borrowed both its use of alliteration and possibly other metrical features from Germanic.

Germanic alliterative verse is not the only alliterative verse tradition. It is thus worthwhile briefly to compare Germanic alliterative verse with other alliterative verse traditions, such as Somali and Mongol poetry. Like German alliterative verse, Somali alliterative verse is built around short lines (phrasal units, roughly equal in size to the Germanic half-line) whose strongest stress must alliterate with the strongest stress in another phrase. However, in traditional Somali alliterative verse, alliterating consonants are always word-initial, and the same alliterating consonant must carry through across multiple successive lines within a poem. In Mongol alliterative verse, individual lines are also phrases, with strongest stress on the first word of the phrase.{{cite book |doi=10.21435/sff.25 |title=Rhyme and Rhyming in Verbal Art, Language, and Song |date=2022 |volume=14 |publisher=Finnish Literature Society |isbn=978-951-858-587-2 |editor-last1=Sykäri |editor-last2=Fabb |editor-first1=Venla |editor-first2=Nigel |jstor=j.ctv371cp40 }}{{page needed|date=December 2023}} Lines are grouped into pairs, often parallel in structure, which must alliterate with one another, though alliteration between the head-stress and later words in the line is also allowed, and non-identical alliteration (for example, of voiced and voiceless consonants) is also accepted.{{cite journal |last1=Foley |first1=John Miles |last2=Gejin |first2=Chao |title=Challenges in Comparative Oral Epic |journal=Oral Tradition |date=2012 |volume=27 |issue=2 |doi=10.1353/ort.2012.0018 |s2cid=55908556 |doi-access=free |hdl=10355/65268 |hdl-access=free }} Like Germanic alliterative verse, Somali and Mongol verse both emerge from oral traditions.{{cite journal |last1=de Ridder |first1=Rob |last2=Finnegan |first2=Ruth |title=Oral Poetry: Its Nature, Significance and Social Context |journal=Man |date=December 1994 |volume=29 |issue=4 |pages=995 |doi=10.2307/3033992 |jstor=3033992 }} Mongol poetry, but not Somali poetry, resembles Germanic verse in its emphasis on heroic epic.{{cite book |doi=10.4324/9781003258001-16 |chapter=Mongolian oral epic poetry |title=Oral Epic Traditions in China and Beyond |date=2021 |last1=Gejin |first1=Chao |pages=121–129 |isbn=978-1-00-325800-1 |s2cid=244653496 }}

The Old High German and Old Saxon corpus of Stabreim or alliterative verse is small. Fewer than 200 Old High German lines survive, in four works: the Hildebrandslied, Muspilli, the Merseburg charms and the Wessobrunn Prayer. All four are preserved in forms that are clearly to some extent corrupt, suggesting that the scribes may themselves not have been entirely familiar with the poetic tradition.

Two Old Saxon alliterative poems survive. One is the reworking of the four gospels into the epic Heliand (nearly 6000 lines), where Jesus and his disciples are portrayed in a Saxon warrior culture. The other is the fragmentary Genesis (337 lines in 3 unconnected fragments), created as a reworking of Biblical content based on Latin sources.

In more recent times, Richard Wagner sought to evoke these old German models and what he considered a more natural and less over-civilised style by writing his Ring poems in Stabreim.{{cite book |last1=Millington |first1=Barry |title=The Sorcerer of Bayreuth: Richard Wagner, his Work and his World |date=2012 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-998695-8 }}{{page needed|date=December 2023}}

Both German traditions show one common feature which is much less common elsewhere: a proliferation of unaccented syllables. Generally these are parts of speech which would naturally be unstressed — pronouns, prepositions, articles, modal auxiliaries — but in the Old Saxon works there are also adjectives and lexical verbs. The unaccented syllables typically occur before the first stress in the half-line, and most often in the b-verse.{{citation needed|date=December 2023}}

The Hildebrandslied, lines 4–5:

{{Verse translation|lang=goh|

Garutun se iro guðhamun, {{pad|1em}} gurtun sih iro suert ana,

helidos, ubar hringa, {{pad|1em}} do sie to dero hiltiu ritun.

|

They prepared their fighting outfits, {{pad|1em}} girded their swords on,

the heroes, over ringmail {{pad|1em}} when they to that fight rode.}}

The Heliand, line 3062 (Matthew 16:17):

{{lang|osx|Sâlig bist thu Sîmon, quað he, sunu Ionases; {{pad|1em}} ni mahtes thu that selbo gehuggean}}

blessed are you Simon, he said, son of Jonah; {{pad|1em}} for you did not see that yourself

This leads to a less dense style, no doubt closer to everyday language, which has been interpreted both as a sign of decadent technique from ill-tutored poets and as an artistic innovation giving scope for additional poetic effects. Either way, it signifies a break with the strict Sievers typology.

{{main article|Old Norse poetry|Icelandic Literature}}

Essentially all Old Norse poetry was written in some form of alliterative verse. It falls into two main categories: Eddaic and Skaldic poetry. Eddaic poetry was anonymous, originally orally transmitted, and mostly consisted or legends, mythological stories, wise sayings and proverbs.{{cite book |doi=10.1002/9780470776063 |title=Old Norse-Icelandic Literature |date=2004 |last1=O'Donoghue |first1=Heather |isbn=978-0-631-23625-2 }}{{page needed|date=December 2023}} A majority of the Eddaic poetry appears in the Poetic Edda. Skaldic poetry was associated with individual poets or skalds, typically employed by a king or other ruler, who primarily wrote poems praising their patron or criticizing their patron's enemies. It thus tends to be more elaborate and poetically ambitious than Eddaic poetry.{{cite journal |last1=Ross |first1=Margaret Clunies |title=Style and Authorial Presence in Skaldic Mythological Poetry |journal=Saga-Book |date=1978 |volume=20 |pages=276–304 |jstor=48612121 }}

The inherited form of alliterative verse was modified somewhat in Old Norse poetry. In Old Norse, as a result of phonetic changes from the original common Germanic language, many unstressed syllables were lost. This lent Old Norse verse a characteristic terseness; the lifts tended to be crowded together at the expense of the weak syllables. In some lines, the weak syllables have been entirely suppressed. As a result, while we still have the base pattern of paired half-lines joined by alliteration, it is very rare to have multiple-syllable dips. The following example from the Hávamál illustrates this basic pattern:{{citation needed|date=December 2023}}

{{Verse translation|

{{lang|non|Deyr fé

{{pad|1em}} deyja frændr}}

|

Cattle die;

{{pad|1em}} kinsmen die...}}

The terseness of the Norse form may be linked to another feature of Norse poetry that differentiates it from common Germanic patterns: In Old Norse poetry, syllable count sometimes matters, and not just the number of lifts and dips.{{cite book |last1=Poole |first1=Russell |chapter=Metre and Metrics |pages=265–284 |editor1-last=McTurk |editor1-first=Rory |title=A Companion to Old Norse-Icelandic Literature and Culture |date=2005 |publisher=Wiley |isbn=978-0-631-23502-6 }} That depends upon the specific verse form used, of which Old Norse poetry had many. The base, Common Germanic alliterative meter is what Old Norse poets termed fornyrðislag ("old story meter"). More complex verse forms imposed an extra layer of structure in which syllable count, stress, alliteration (and sometimes, assonance and rhyme) worked together to define line or stanza structures. For example, in kviðuhattr ("lay form"), the first half line had to contain four, and the second half-line, three syllables, while in ljóðaháttr ("song" or "ballad" meter), there were no specific syllable counts, but the lines were arranged into four-line stanzas alternating between four- and three-lift lines. More complex stanza forms imposed additional constraints. The various names of the Old Norse verse forms are given in the Prose Edda by Snorri Sturluson.{{Cite book |title=Prose Edda |publisher=Penguin books |year=2005 |isbn=978-0-140-44755-2 |language=Old Norse |translator-last=Byock |translator-first=Jesse}} The Háttatal, or "list of verse forms", contains the names and characteristics of each of the fixed forms of Norse poetry.Nordal, Guðrún, and Nordal Guðrún. Tools of literacy: the role of skaldic verse in Icelandic textual culture of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. University of Toronto Press, 2001.{{page needed|date=December 2023}}

Old Norse followed the general Germanic rules for alliteration, but imposed specific alliteration patterns on specific verse forms, and sometimes rules for assonance and internal rhyme. For example, drottkvætt ("courtly meter") not only required alliteration between adjacent half-lines, but imposed requirements for consonance and internal rhyme at specific points in each stanza.

Old Norse was rich in poetic synonyms and kennings, where it closely resembled Old English.Townend, Matthew. Antiquity of diction in Old English and Old Norse poetry. University of Cambridge, Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse & Celtic, 2015.{{page needed|date=December 2023}} Norse poets were sometimes described as creating "riddling" kennings whose meaning was not necessarily self-evident to the audience, perhaps reflecting competition among skalds.{{cite journal |last1=Burrows |first1=Hannah |title=Riddles and Kennings |journal=European Journal of Scandinavian Studies |date=26 April 2021 |volume=51 |issue=1 |pages=46–68 |doi=10.1515/ejss-2020-2017 |s2cid=233186205 }}

The following poem from Egil's Saga illustrates the basic principles of Old Norse alliterative verse. For convenience, the 'b' verses (the lines containing the critical last alliteration in the line, or headstave) are indented and alliterating consonants are bolded and underlined.

{{Verse translation|

{{lang|is|

Nús hersis hefnd{{pad|1em}}

{{pad|1em}}{{pad|1em}}við hilmi efnd;{{pad|1em}}

gengr ulfr ok örn{{pad|1em}}

{{pad|1em}}{{pad|1em}}of ynglings börn;{{pad|1em}}

flugu höggvin hræ{{pad|1em}}

{{pad|1em}}{{pad|1em}}Hallvarðs á sæ;{{pad|1em}}

grár slítr undir{{pad|1em}}

{{pad|1em}}{{pad|1em}}ari Snarfara.{{Cite news |title=Egil's Saga - Icelandic Saga Database |language=en |work=Icelandic Saga Database |url=https://www.sagadb.org/egils_saga.is |access-date=2023-12-02}}}}

|

'For a noble warrior slain{{pad|1em}}

{{pad|1em}}{{pad|1em}}Vengeance now on king is ta'en:{{pad|1em}}

Wolf and eagle tread as prey{{pad|1em}}

{{pad|1em}}{{pad|1em}}Princes born to sovereign sway.{{pad|1em}}

Hallvard's body cloven through{{pad|1em}}

{{pad|1em}}{{pad|1em}}Headlong in the billows flew;{{pad|1em}}

Wounds of wight once swift to fare{{pad|1em}}

{{pad|1em}}{{pad|1em}}Swooping vulture's beak doth tear.'{{Cite news |title=Egil's Saga - Icelandic Saga Database |language=en |work=Icelandic Saga Database |url=https://www.sagadb.org/egils_saga.en |access-date=2023-12-02}}}}

Further details about Old Norse versification can be found in the companion article, Old Norse Poetry.

Icelandic is not only descended from Old Norse, it is so conservative that Old Norse literature is still read in Iceland.{{Cite book |last1=Karlsson |first1=Stefán |title=The Icelandic Language |last2=McTurk |first2=Rory W. |publisher=Viking Society for Northern Research |year=2004}} Traditional Icelandic poetry, however, follows somewhat different rules than Old Norse, both for rhythm and alliteration. The following brief description captures the basic rules of modern Icelandic alliterative verse,{{Cite web |title=Jónas Hallgrímsson: Selected Poetry and Prose |url=https://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/Jonas/Jonas.html |access-date=2023-12-02 |website=digicoll.library.wisc.edu}} which was the dominant form of Icelandic poetry until recent decades, and is still a living cultural tradition.{{cite thesis |last1=Kass |first1=Sophie Antonia |title='Svá sem naglar halda skipi saman': Attitudes to Alliteration in Poetry and Lyrics in Iceland |url=https://skemman.is/handle/1946/37940 |date=May 2021}}{{page needed|date=December 2023}}

Icelandic alliterative verse contains lines that typically contain eight to ten syllables.{{Cite web |title=Formal Features of Jónas Hallgrímsson's Poetry: Appendix A. The Scansion of Lines of Modern Icelandic Stanzaic Verse |url=https://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/Jonas/Prosody/Prosody-AppA.html |access-date=2023-12-02 |website=digicoll.library.wisc.edu}} They are traditionally analyzed into feet, one per stress, with typically falling rhythm. The first foot in a line is considered a heavy foot, the second, a light foot, and so on, with the third and fifth foot counting as heavy, and the second and fourth as light.{{Cite web |title=Formal Features of Jónas Hallgrímsson's Poetry: Appendix B. The Rules for Alliterant-Placement in the Odd Lines of Modern Icelandic Stanzaic Verse |url=https://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/Jonas/Prosody/Prosody-AppB.html |access-date=2023-12-02 |website=digicoll.library.wisc.edu}} Icelandic lines are basically Germanic half-lines; they come in pairs. The head-stave is the first stressed syllable in the second line in each pair, which must alliterate with at least one stress in the preceding line. The alliterating stresses in the first line in each pair are called props, or studlar, following the usual Germanic rules about which consonants alliterate. They are subject to the following rules:

• at least one prop must stand in a heavy foot
• if both props are in heavy feet, no more than one light foot can separate them.
• A prop can only appear in a light foot if it is immediately adjacent to a prop in a heavy foot.
• If the second prop appears in a light foot, only one foot can separate it from the head-stave in the next line
• If the second prop appears in a heavy foot, one or two feet can separate it from the head-stave in the next line.

This system allows considerable rhythmic flexibility.Adalsteinsson, R. I. (2014). Traditions and Continuities: Alliteration in old and modern Icelandic verse. Torossa.{{page needed|date=December 2023}}

Icelandic keeps some Old Norse forms, such as fornyrðislag, ljóðaháttur, and dróttkvætt.{{Cite web |title=Formal Features of Jónas Hallgrímsson's Poetry: I. Strophic Forms |url=https://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/Jonas/Prosody/Prosody-I.html |access-date=2023-12-02 |website=digicoll.library.wisc.edu}} It also has a wide variety of stanzaic forms that combine the alliterative structure described above with rhyme (rimur), including quatrain structures like ferskeytla that rhyme ABAB, couplet structures (stafhenduætt), tercet structures like baksneidd braghenda, and longer patterns, in which rhyming and alliteration patterns run either in parallel or in counterpoint.{{Cite web |title=Formal Features of Jónas Hallgrímsson's Poetry: Stanzaic Forms |url=https://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/Jonas/Prosody/Prosody-II.html |access-date=2023-12-02 |website=digicoll.library.wisc.edu}}

Traditional poetic synonyms and kennings persisted in Icelandic rimur as late as the 18th Century, but were criticized by modernizing poets such as Jonas Hallgrimsson, and dropped out of later usage.{{cite book |doi=10.1163/9789004648982_003 |chapter=Introduction |title=The Reception of German Literature in Iceland, 1775-1850 |date=1985 |last1=Senner |first1=W.M. |pages=v-xii |isbn=978-90-04-64898-2 }}

The following poem in kviðuhattr meter by Jónas Hallgrímsson with translation by Dick Ringler{{Cite web |title=Jónas Hallgrímsson: A Toast to Iceland |url=https://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/Jonas/Minni/Minni.html |access-date=2023-12-02 |website=digicoll.library.wisc.edu}} illustrates how the rules for Icelandic alliterative verse work. For convenience, lines starting with a head stave are indented and both props and headstave are bolded and underlined.

{{Verse translation|

{{lang|is|

Íslands minni{{pad|1em}}

{{pad|1em}}

Þið þekkið fold með blíðri brá,{{pad|1em}}

{{pad|1em}}{{pad|1em}}og bláum tindi fjalla,{{pad|1em}}

og svanahljómi, silungsá,{{pad|1em}}

{{pad|1em}}{{pad|1em}}og sælu blómi valla,{{pad|1em}}

og bröttum fossi, björtum sjá{{pad|1em}}

{{pad|1em}}{{pad|1em}}og breiðum jökulskalla —{{pad|1em}}

drjúpi' hana blessun drottins á{{pad|1em}}

{{pad|1em}}{{pad|1em}}um daga heimsins alla.

}}

|

A Toast to Iceland{{pad|1em}}

{{pad|1em}}

Our land of lakes forever fair{{pad|1em}}

{{pad|1em}}{{pad|1em}}below blue mountain summits,{{pad|1em}}

of swans, of salmon leaping where{{pad|1em}}

{{pad|1em}}{{pad|1em}}the silver water plummets,{{pad|1em}}

of glaciers swelling broad and bare{{pad|1em}}

{{pad|1em}}{{pad|1em}}above earth's fiery sinews —{{pad|1em}}

the Lord pour out his largess there{{pad|1em}}

{{pad|1em}}{{pad|1em}}as long as earth continues!

}}

Alliterative verse appears to have been the dominant poetic tradition in Iceland until well after World War II. In the last generation, or so, a split appears to have developed between avant garde and traditionalist approaches to Icelandic poetry, with alliteration remaining frequent in all forms of Icelandic poetry, but playing a structural, defining role only in more traditional forms.

{{further|Old English literature|Old English metre}}

Old English classical poetry, epitomised by Beowulf, follows the rules of traditional Germanic poetry outlined above, and is indeed a major source for reconstructing them. J.R.R. Tolkien's essay "On Translating Beowulf{{-"}} analyses the rules as used in the poem.{{cite book | last=Tolkien |first=J. R. R. |author-link=J. R. R. Tolkien |title=The Monsters and the Critics, and other Essays | year=1983 | publisher=George Allen and Unwin |chapter=On Translating Beowulf | orig-year=1940}} Old English poetry, even after the introduction of Christianity, was uniformly written in alliterative verse, and much of the literature written in Old English, such as the Dream of the Rood, is explicitly Christian,{{cite book |doi=10.1515/9783110866414 |title=Ingeld and Christ |date=1972 |last1=Cherniss |first1=Michael D. |isbn=978-3-11-086641-4 }}{{page needed|date=December 2023}} though poems like Beowulf demonstrate continuing cultural memory for the pagan past.{{cite book |doi=10.1163/9789004305816_007 |chapter=Looking Back to a Troubled Past: Beowulf and Anglo-Saxon Historical Consciousness |title=Writing the Barbarian Past: Studies in Early Medieval Historical Narrative |date=2016 |last1=Ghosh |first1=Shami |pages=184–221 |isbn=978-90-04-30522-9 }} Alliterative verse was so strongly entrenched in Old English society that English monks, writing in Latin, would sometimes create Latin approximations to alliterative verse.{{cite journal |last1=Abram |first1=Christopher |title=Aldhelm and the Two Cultures of Anglo-Saxon Poetry |journal=Literature Compass |date=September 2007 |volume=4 |issue=5 |pages=1354–1377 |doi=10.1111/j.1741-4113.2007.00483.x }}

Old English alliterative verse comes in a variety of forms. It includes heroic poetry like Beowulf, The Battle of Brunanburh, or The Battle of Maldon; elegiac or "wisdom" Poetry like The Ruin or The Wanderer, riddles, translations of classical and Latin poetry, saints' lives, poetic Biblical paraphrases, original Christian poems, charms, mnemonic poems used to memorize information, and the like.{{cite book |doi=10.1002/9781118441138 |title=A History of Old English Literature |date=2013 |isbn=978-1-118-45323-0 |editor-last1=Fulk |editor-last2=Cain |editor-first1=R. D. |editor-first2=Christopher M. }}{{page needed|date=December 2023}}

As described above for the Germanic tradition as a whole, each line of poetry in Old English consists of two half-lines or verses with a pause or caesura in the middle of the line. Each half-line usually has two accented syllables, although the first may only have one. The following example from the poem The Battle of Maldon, spoken by the warrior Beorhtwold, shows the usual pattern:

{{Verse translation|

{{lang|ang|Hige sceal þe heardra, {{pad|1em}} heorte þe cēnre,

mōd sceal þe māre, {{pad|1em}} swā ūre mægen lȳtlað

Her lið ure ealdor    eall forheawen,}}

|

Will must be the harder, courage the bolder,

spirit must be the greater, as our might lessens.

Here our leader lies all overthrown ...}}

Note the single alliteration per half-line in the third line. Clear indications of Modern English meanings can be heard in the original, using phonetic approximations of the Old English sound-letter system:

High [courage] shall the harder, {{pad|1em}} heart the keener,

mood shall the more, {{pad|1em}} as our main [might] littleth

here lies our elder {{pad|1em}} all for-heaved

Single 'half-lines' are sometimes found in Old English verse; scholars debate how far these were a characteristic of Old English poetic tradition and how far they arise from defective copying of poems by scribes.{{cite journal |first1=A. J. |last1=Bliss |title=Single Half-Lines in Old English Poetry |journal=Notes and Queries |volume=18 |issue=12 |date=1971 |pages=442–449 |doi=10.1093/nq/18-12-442b }}{{cite journal |last1=Knapp |first1=Mona |title=Hybrid prosody and single half-lines in Old English and Serbo-Croatian poetry |journal=Neophilologus |date=1 April 1980 |volume=64 |issue=2 |pages=284–289 |id={{ProQuest|1301899784}} |doi=10.1007/BF01531480 |s2cid=162116959 }}

Old English follows the general rules for Germanic alliteration. The first stressed syllable of the off-verse, or second half-line, usually alliterates with one or both of the stressed syllables of the on-verse, or first half-line. The second stressed syllable of the off-verse does not usually alliterate with the others. Note that Old English only requires one alliteration in each half-line, unlike Middle English, which normally requires both lifts in the on-verse to be alliterated.{{sfn|Terasawa|2011|p=60}}{{cite book |doi=10.1515/9783110198515.1.63 |chapter=Evolution of the a-verse in English alliterative meter |title=Studies in the History of the English Language III |date=2007 |last1=Russom |first1=Geoffrey |pages=63–88 |isbn=978-3-11-019089-2 }}

Old English was rich in poetic synonyms and kennings.{{cite book |doi=10.1007/978-1-349-24561-1_4 |chapter=Old English Poetic Diction |title=The Language of Old and Middle English Poetry |date=1996 |last1=Lester |first1=G. A. |pages=47–66 |isbn=978-0-333-48847-8 }} For instance, the Old English poet could deploy a wide array of synonyms and kennings to refer to the sea: sæ, mere, deop wæter, seat wæter, hæf, geofon, windgeard, yða ful, wæteres hrycg, garsecg, holm, wægholm, brim, sund, floð, ganotes bæð, swanrad, seglrad, among others. This ranges from synonyms surviving in English, like sea and mere, to rarer poetic words and compounds, to full-on kennings like "gannet's bath", "whale-road", or "seal-road".{{Cite journal |last1=Hill |first1=Archibald A. |last2=Lind |first2=L. R. |date=1953 |title=Studies in Honor of Albert Morey Sturtevant |journal=Language |volume=29 |issue=4 |pages=547 |doi=10.2307/409975 |jstor=409975 |hdl=1808/6336 |hdl-access=free }}

Further details about Old English versification can be found in the companion article, Old English metre.

{{main|Alliterative Revival}}

Just as rhyme was seen in some Anglo-Saxon poems (e.g. The Rhyming Poem, and, to some degree, The Proverbs of Alfred), the use of alliterative verse continued (or was revived) in Middle English, though which it was—continuation, or revival—is a matter of some debate.{{cite journal |last1=Cornelius |first1=Ian |title=Review Essay: Alliterative Revival: Retrospect and Prospect |journal=The Yearbook of Langland Studies |date=January 2012 |volume=26 |pages=261–276 |doi=10.1484/J.YLS.1.103211 }}{{Cite journal |last=Salter |first=Elizabeth |date=1978 |title=Review of The Alliterative Revival |journal=The Review of English Studies |volume=29 |issue=116 |pages=462–464 |doi=10.1093/res/XXIX.116.462 |jstor=514837 }}{{cite journal |last1=Feulner |first1=Anna Helene |title=Eric Weiskott. 2016. English Alliterative Verse: Poetic Tradition and Literary History. Cambridge Studies in Medieval Literature 96. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, xiv + 236 pp., 6 figures, £ 64.99 |journal=Anglia |date=11 November 2019 |volume=137 |issue=4 |pages=670–678 |doi=10.1515/ang-2019-0060 |s2cid=208140633 |url=http://edoc.hu-berlin.de/18452/27975 }} Layamon's Brut, written in about 1215, uses what seems like a loose alliterative meter in comparison with pre-Conquest alliterative verse.{{cite journal |last1=Brehe |first1=S. K. |title=Rhyme and the Alliterative Standard in LaƷamon's Brut |journal=Parergon |date=2000 |volume=18 |issue=1 |pages=11–25 |doi=10.1353/pgn.2000.0004 |s2cid=143059624 }} Starting in the mid-14th century, alliterative verse became popular in the English North, the West Midlands, and a little later in Scotland.{{Cite book |last=Weiskott |first=Eric |title=English Alliterative Verse |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=2016}} The Pearl Poet uses a complex scheme of alliteration, rhyme, and iambic metre in his Pearl; a more conventional alliterative metre in Cleanness and Patience, and alliterative verse alternating with rhymed quatrains in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.{{Cite book |last=Prior |first=Sandra Pierson |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1vUK08NjQdYC&dq=%22pearl+poet%22+%22verse+forms%22&pg=PA14 |title=The Fayre Formez of the Pearl Poet |date=2012-01-01 |publisher=MSU Press |isbn=978-0-87013-945-1 |language=en}} William Langland's Piers Plowman is another important English alliterative poem; it was written between c. 1370 and 1390.{{cite book |doi=10.1525/9780520908314 |jstor=jj.2711592 |title=A Companion to Piers Plowman |date=1988 |publisher=University of California Press |isbn=978-0-520-90831-4 |editor-last1=Alford |editor-first1=John A. }}{{page needed|date=December 2023}}

The survival—or revival—of alliterative verse in 14th Century England makes it, like Iceland, an outlier in medieval Christian culture, which came to be dominated by Latin and Romance verse forms and literary traditions.{{cite journal |last1=Pearsall |first1=Derek |last2=Burrow |first2=J. A. |title=Medieval Writers and Their Work: Middle English Literature and Its Background 1100-1500 |journal=The Modern Language Review |date=January 1986 |volume=81 |issue=1 |pages=164 |doi=10.2307/3728781 |jstor=3728781 }} Alliterative verse in post-Conquest England had to compete with imported, often French-derived forms in rhyming stanzas, reflecting what must have seemed like the common practice of the rest of Christendom.{{cite book |doi=10.1093/oso/9780198827429.001.0001 |title=The Oxford History of Poetry in English |date=2023 |isbn=978-0-19-882742-9 |editor-last1=Cooper |editor-last2=Edwards |editor-first1=Helen |editor-first2=Robert R. }}{{page needed|date=December 2023}} Despite these disadvantages, alliterative verse became the preferred English meter for historical romances, especially those concerned with the so-called Arthurian "Matter of Britain",{{cite journal |last1=Kossick |first1=Shirley |title=Epic and the Middle English Alliterative Revival |journal=English Studies in Africa |date=September 1979 |volume=22 |issue=2 |pages=71–82 |doi=10.1080/00138397908690761 }}{{cite book |doi=10.1515/9783110432466-005 |chapter=Text-Types and Formal Features |title=Handbook of Arthurian Romance |date=2017 |last1=Moran |first1=Patrick |pages=59–78 |isbn=978-3-11-043246-6 }} and to be a common mode for political protest, through Piers Plowman and a variety of allegories, satires, and political prophesies.{{cite journal |last1=Weiskott |first1=Eric |title=Political Prophecy and the Form of Piers Plowman |journal=Viator |date=January 2019 |volume=50 |issue=1 |pages=207–247 |doi=10.1484/j.viator.5.121362 |s2cid=225004957 }}{{cite book |doi=10.4324/9780203392737_chapter_xv |chapter=Piers Plowman and Other Alliterative Poems |title=The Middle Ages |series=A Literary History of England |date=1967 |pages=240–248 |isbn=978-0-203-39651-3 |editor1-first=Albert C. |editor1-last=Baugh |editor2-first=Kemp |editor2-last=Malone }} However, as with Icelandic rimur, many 14th-Century poems combine alliteration with rhyming stanzas.{{cite journal |last1=Duggan |first1=Hoyt N. |title=Strophic Patterns in Middle English Alliterative Poetry |journal=Modern Philology |date=February 1977 |volume=74 |issue=3 |pages=223–247 |doi=10.1086/390723 |s2cid=161856195 }} Increasingly, however, the alliterative verse tradition was marginalized relative to other English verse traditions, most notably the metrical, rhyming tradition associated with Geoffrey Chaucer.{{Cite book |last=Weiskott |first=Eric |title=Meter and Modernity in English Verse, 1350-1650 |publisher=University of Pennsylvania Press |year=2021}}{{page needed|date=December 2023}}

Middle English (and Scots) alliterative verse fell into several typical categories. There were the Arthurian romances, such as Layamon's Brut, the Alliterative Morte Arthur, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Awyntyrs off Arthure, The Avowing of Arthur, Sir Gawain and the Carle of Carlisle, The Knightly Tale of Gologras and Gawain, and Charlemagne and Ralph the Collier. There were accounts of warfare, like the Siege of Jerusalem and Scotish Feilde. There were poems devoted to Biblical stories, Christian virtues, and religious allegory, and religious instruction, like Cleanness, Patience, Pearl, The Three Dead Kings, The Castle of Perseverance, the York, Chester, and other municipal mystery plays, St. Erkenwald, the Pistil of Swete Susan, or Pater Noster. And there were a variety of poems falling in a space that ranged from allegory to satire to political commentary, including Piers Plowman, Winnere and Wastoure, Mum and the Sothsegger, The Parlement of Three Ages, The Buke of the Howlat, Richard the Redeless, Jack Upland, Friar Daw's Reply, Jack Uplands Rejoinder, The Blacksmiths, The Tournament of Tottenham, Sum Practysis of Medecyne, and The Tretis of the Twa Mariit Women and the Wedo.{{Cite web |title=Middle English Alliterative Poetry |url=https://mediakron.bc.edu/alliterativepoetry/timeline-of-poems |access-date=2024-01-25 |website=mediakron.bc.edu}}{{Cite journal |last=McClure |first=J. Derrick |date=January 2008 |title=The Prosody of the Middle Scots Alliterative Poems |url=https://utpjournals.press/doi/10.3138/flor.25.009 |journal=Florilegium |language=en |volume=25 |issue=1 |pages=193–216 |doi=10.3138/flor.25.009 |issn=0709-5201|url-access=subscription }}

The form of alliterative verse changed gradually over time.{{cite book |last=Eric|first=Weiskott |title=English Alliterative Verse: Poetic Tradition and Literary History |date=9 November 2016 |isbn=978-1316718674 |location=Cambridge |oclc=968234809 }}{{page needed|date=January 2021}} Layamon's Brut retained many features of Old English verse, along with significant changes in meter. By the 14th Century, the Middle English alliterative long line had emerged, which was rhythmically very different from the Old English meter. In Old English, the first half-line (the on-verse, or a-verse) was not very different rhythmically from the second half-line (the off-verse, or b-verse). In Middle English, the a-verse had great rhythmic flexibility (so long as it contained two clear strong stresses), whereas the b-verse could only contain one "long dip" (sequence of two or more unstressed or weakly stressed syllables).{{cite journal |last1=Cable |first1=Thomas |title=Progress in Middle English Alliterative Metrics |journal=The Yearbook of Langland Studies |date=January 2009 |volume=23 |pages=243–264 |doi=10.1484/J.YLS.1.100478 }}{{cite journal |last1=Inoue |first1=Noriko |last2=Stokes |first2=Myra |title=Restrictions on Dip Length in the Alliterative Line: The A-Verse and the B-Verse |journal=The Yearbook of Langland Studies |date=January 2012 |volume=26 |pages=231–260 |doi=10.1484/J.YLS.1.103210 }} These rules applied to unrhymed alliterative long lines, typical of longer alliterative poems. Rhyming alliterative poems, such as Pearl and the densely structured poem The Three Dead Kings, were generally built, like later English rhyming verse, on patterns of alternating stresses.{{Cite book |last=Cole |first=Kristin Lynn |title=Rum, ram, ruf, and rym: Middle English alliterative meters |publisher=The University of Texas at Austin |year=2007}}{{page needed|date=December 2023}}

The following lines from Piers Plowman illustrate the basic rhythmic patterns of the Middle English alliterative long line:

{{lang|enm|

A feir feld full of folk {{pad|1em}} fond I þer bitwene,

Of alle maner of men, {{pad|1em}} þe mene and þe riche,

Worchinge and wandringe {{pad|1em}} as þe world askeþ.

In modern spelling:

A fair field full of folk {{pad|1em}} found I there between,

Of all manner of men {{pad|1em}} the mean and the rich,

Working and wandering {{pad|1em}} as the world asketh.

In modern translation:

Among them I found a fair field full of people

All manner of men, the poor and the rich

Working and wandering as the world requires.

The 'a' verses contain multiple unstressed or weakly stressed syllables before, between, and after the two main stresses. In the 'b' verses, the long dip falls immediately before or after the first strong stress in that half-line.{{Cite journal |last=Duggan |first=Hoyt N. |date=1986 |title=The Shape of the B-Verse in Middle English Alliterative Poetry |journal=Speculum |volume=61 |issue=3 |pages=564–592 |doi=10.2307/2851596 |jstor=2851596 |s2cid=162879708 }}

In the Middle-English 'a'-verse, the two main stresses alliterate with one another and with the first stressed syllable in the 'b'-verse. There are thus a minimum of three alliterations in the Middle English long line, a fact that is implicitly recognized by the comment made by the parson in the Parson's Prologue in the Canterbury Tales that he did not know how to "rum, ram, ruf, by letter".{{cite journal |last1=Sutherland |first1=A. |title=Review: Alliterative Revivals |journal=The Review of English Studies |date=November 2004 |volume=55 |issue=222 |pages=787–788 |doi=10.1093/res/55.222.787 }} In the 'a'-verse, additional, secondary stresses can also alliterate, as seen in the line quoted above from Piers Plowman ('a fair field full of folk', with four alliterations in the 'a'-verse), or in Sir Gawain l.2, "the borgh brittened and brent" with three alliterations in the 'a'-verse). Only the first stress in the 'b'-verse normally alliterates,in line with the general Germanic rule that the last stress in the line does not alliterate. However, in Middle English alliterative poems, the final stress occasionally alliterates with other strong stresses in the line (as in the first line of Piers Plowman: "In a somer seson, whan softe was þe sonne,").

Middle English alliterative verse maintained a stock of poetic synonyms, many of them inherited from Old English, though it was no longer characterized by the rich use of kennings.{{cite book |doi=10.1515/9783110525328-014 |chapter=Literary Language |title=Middle English |date=2017 |last1=Arnovick |first1=Leslie K. |pages=261–291 |isbn=978-3-11-052532-8 }} For example, a Middle English alliterative poem could refer to men by such a variety of terms as were, churl, shalk, gome, here, rink, segge, freke, man, carman, mother's son, heme, hind, piece, buck, bourne, groom, sire, harlot, guest, tailard, tulk, sergeant, fellow, or horse.{{cite journal |last1=Ciszek |first1=Ewa |title=The Middle English Suffix -Ish: Reasons for Decline in Productivity |journal=Stap |date=June 2012 |volume=47 |issue=2–3 |pages=27–39 |doi=10.2478/v10121-012-0002-z |s2cid=170790181 |doi-access=free }}

After the fifteenth century, alliterative verse became fairly uncommon; possibly the last major poem in the tradition is William Dunbar's Tretis of the Tua Marriit Wemen and the Wedo (c. 1500). By the middle of the sixteenth century, the four-beat alliterative line had completely vanished, at least from the written tradition: the last poem using the form that has survived, Scotish Feilde, was written in or soon after 1515 for the circle of Thomas Stanley, 2nd Earl of Derby in commemoration of the Battle of Flodden.

The late 18th and early 19th century rediscovery of the deep past set the stage for the revival of English alliterative verse. In 1786, Sir William, in a speech to the Asiatic Society of Calcutta, demonstrated that Sanskrit, the holy language of India, was related to Latin, Greek, and most of the European languages, which must therefore all be descended from a common ancestor.{{cite book |doi=10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199532001.001.0001 |title=Orientalist Jones: Sir William Jones, Poet, Lawyer, and Linguist, 1746-1794 |date=2011 |last1=Franklin |first1=Michael J. |isbn=978-0-19-953200-1 }} Between 1780 and 1840, scholars rediscovered long-forgotten manuscripts in monasteries and private libraries, leading to the rediscovery of forgotten literatures and the worlds they were associated with—for example, Beowulf, the Poetic Edda, the Nibelungenlied, and the oral traditions compiled in the Kalevala.{{cite journal |last1=Leerssen |first1=Joep |title=Literary Historicism: Romanticism, Philologists, and the Presence of the Past |journal=Modern Language Quarterly |date=1 June 2004 |volume=65 |issue=2 |pages=221–244 |doi=10.1215/00267929-65-2-221 |s2cid=116955875 |url=https://dare.uva.nl/personal/pure/en/publications/literary-historicism-romanticism-philologistst-and-the-presence-of-the-past(edcea901-bddd-4039-a225-32b244482358).html }} These discoveries had a huge impact, not only literary, but political, as the recovery of national literatures helped to support emergent nationalism, in Germany, Finland, and elsewhere.{{cite book |doi=10.1515/9781845458652-008 |chapter=The Institutionalisation and Nationalisation of Literature in Nineteenth-century Europe |title=Narrating the Nation |date=2022 |last1=Neubauer |first1=John |pages=97–116 |isbn=978-1-84545-865-2 }} This led, in turn, to the self-conscious revival of ancient forms, most notably in William Morris' romantic fantasies and Wagner's use of stabreim, or alliterative verse, in the libretto for his opera series, the Ring of the Nibelungs.{{cite journal |last1=Lindenberger |first1=Herbert |title=Wagner's Ring as Nineteenth-Century Artifact |journal=Comparative Drama |date=1994 |volume=28 |issue=3 |pages=285–310 |doi=10.1353/cdr.1994.0025 |s2cid=190285747 }} Wagner's Ring electrified a generation—including budding scholars like C. S. Lewis{{cite journal |last1=Karchmer |first1=Sylvan N. |last2=DiGaetani |first2=John Louis |title=Penetrating Wagner's Ring: An Anthology |journal=The South Central Bulletin |date=1979 |volume=39 |issue=2 |pages=43 |doi=10.2307/3187174 |jstor=3187174 }}{{cite journal |last1=Feinendegen |first1=Norbert |title=Which Image Triggered C. S. Lewis's Enthusiasm for Wagner's Ring Cycle? |journal=Sehnsucht |date=May 2023 |volume=16 |issue=1 |doi=10.55221/1940-5537.1264 |s2cid=258546387 |doi-access=free }} The romantic view of the ancient North, expressed not only by Wagner but by Morris and other English romantics, led to an increasing interest in alliterative verse.{{cite journal |last1=Johnson |first1=Jeffrey C. |title=Michael Ferber , Romanticism: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), pp. xvi + 148. £7.99/$11.95 paperback. 9780199568918 |journal=Romanticism |date=April 2012 |volume=18 |issue=1 |pages=121–122 |doi=10.3366/rom.2012.0073 }}

The rediscovery of alliterative verse played a role in the modernist rebellion against traditional poetic forms,{{cite thesis |last=Shapiro |first=Michael Marc |title=Buried rhythm: The alliterative tradition in 19th and 20th century poetry |year=1998 |id={{ProQuest|304426484}} |oclc=40517594 }}{{page needed|date=December 2023}} most notably in Ezra Pound's Cantos (e.g., Canto I).{{cite book |last1=Byron |first1=Mark |chapter=Bibliographic Technography: Ezra Pound's Cantos as Philological Machine |pages=153–165 |editor1-last=Trotter |editor1-first=David |editor2-last=Pryor |editor2-first=Sean |editor3-last=Trorrer |editor3-first=David |title=Writing, Medium, Machine: Modern Technographies |date=2016 |publisher=Open Humanities Press |isbn=978-1-78542-018-4 |url=http://www.openhumanitiespress.org/books/titles/writing-medium-machine/ }} Multiple modernist poets experimented with alliterative verse, including W.H. Auden in The Age of Anxiety,{{Cite journal |last=Phelpstead |first=Carl |date=2004 |title=Auden and the Inklings: An Alliterative Revival |journal=The Journal of English and Germanic Philology |volume=103 |issue=4 |pages=433–457 |jstor=27712458 }} Richard Eberhart in Brotherhood of Men,{{cite journal |last1=Mizener |first1=Arthur |title=The White Cliffs of Dover Revisited |journal=Poetry |date=1949 |volume=74 |issue=3 |pages=172–174 |jstor=20590908 }} and later, Richard Wilbur and Ted Hughes. However, these experiments are experiments more with the idea of alliterative verse than with traditional alliterative meters.{{cite journal |last1=Brooke-Rose |first1=Christine |title=Notes on the Metre of Auden's 'The Age of Anxiety' |journal=Essays in Criticism |date=1963 |volume=XIII |issue=3 |pages=253–264 |doi=10.1093/eic/xiii.3.253 }} For instance, many of the following lines from The Age of Anxiety violate basic principles of alliterative meter, such as placing stress and alliteration on grammatical function words like "yes" and "you":

Deep in my dark. {{pad|1em}} the dream shines

Yes, of you {{pad|1em}} you dear always;

My cause to cry, {{pad|1em}} cold but my

Story still, {{pad|1em}} still my music.

Mild rose the moon, {{pad|1em}} moving through our

Naked nights: {{pad|1em}} tonight it rains;

Black umbrellas: {{pad|1em}} blossom out;

Gone the gold, {{pad|1em}} my golden ball.

...

Richard Wilbur's Junk comes closer to matching alliterative rhythms, but freely alliterates on the fourth stress, sometimes alliterating all four stresses in the same line (which an Old English poet would not, and a Middle English poet only rarely do), as in the poem's opening lines:

An axe angles {{pad|1em}} from my neighbor's ashcan;

It is hell's handiwork, {{pad|1em}} the wood not hickory.

The flow of the grain {{pad|1em}} not faithfully followed.

The shivered shaft {{pad|1em}} rises from a shellheap

Of plastic playthings, {{pad|1em}} paper plates.

...

In his 1978 article on the potential of alliterative meter as a form in modern English, John D. Niles characterizes these experiments as essentially one-offs, rather than as part of an ongoing tradition.{{cite journal |last1=Niles |first1=John D. |title=The Old Alliterative Verse Form as a Medium for Poetry |journal=Mosaic |date=1978 |volume=11 |issue=4 |pages=19–33 |id={{ProQuest|1300045168}} |jstor=24777593 }}

A rather different approach to reviving alliterative verse appears in the work of the so-called Inklings, specifically, J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis. Both were medievalist scholars, and as such, were familiar with alliterative metrics. Both of them made serious attempts to use and advocate the use of traditional alliterative forms in modern English (though many of Tolkien's alliterative poems were not published until long after his death).{{cite journal |last1=Phelpstead |first1=Carl |title=Auden and the Inklings: An Alliterative Revival |journal=The Journal of English and Germanic Philology |date=2004 |volume=103 |issue=4 |pages=433–457 |id={{Gale|A406902282}} |jstor=27712458 }}{{cite journal |last1=Wise |first1=Dennis Wilson |title=A Tale of Two Essays: The Inklings on the Alliterative Meter |journal=Notes and Queries |date=26 August 2023 |volume=70 |issue=4 |pages=310–312 |doi=10.1093/notesj/gjad066 }}{{cite journal |last1=Goering |first1=Nelson |title=The Fall of Arthur and The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrún: A Metrical Review of Three Modern English Alliterative Poems |journal=Journal of Inklings Studies |date=2015 |volume=5 |issue=2 |pages=3–56 |doi=10.3366/ink.2015.5.2.2 |jstor=45387203 }}{{cite thesis |last1=Gupta |first1=Rahul |title='The Tale of the Tribe': The Twentieth-Century Alliterative Revival |date=September 2014 |url=https://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/8521/ }}{{page needed|date=December 2023}}{{cite journal |last1=Wise |first1=Dennis Wilson |title=Dating 'Sweet Desire': C. S. Lewis's education in alliterative poetics |journal=English Text Construction |date=17 November 2023 |volume=16 |issue=1 |pages=82–108 |doi=10.1075/etc.22017.wis |s2cid=265289279 }}

{{further|List of Tolkien's alliterative verse|Poetry in The Lord of the Rings}}

J. R. R. Tolkien (1892–1973) was a scholar of Old and Middle English as well as a fantasy author{{cite book |last=Carpenter |first=Humphrey |author-link=Humphrey Carpenter |title=Tolkien: A Biography |title-link=J. R. R. Tolkien: A Biography |publisher=Ballantine Books |location=New York |year=1977 |isbn=978-0-04928-037-3 |pages=111, 200, 266 and throughout}} and used alliterative verse extensively in both translations and original poetry; some of his poems are embedded in the text of his fantasy novel The Lord of the Rings. Most of his alliterative verse is in modern English, in a variety of styles. Tolkien's longest modern English works in Old English alliterative meter are an alliterative verse play, The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth Beorhthelm's Son describing the aftermath of the Battle of Maldon, published in 1953, his 2276-line The Lay of the Children of Húrin (c. 1918–1925), published in 1985, and his thousand-line fragment on the Matter of Britain, The Fall of Arthur,Tolkien, John Ronald Reuel. The Fall of Arthur. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2013.{{page needed|date=December 2023}} published in 2013.{{cite journal |last1=Smol |first1=Anna |last2=Foster |first2=Rebecca |year=2021 |title=J.R.R. Tolkien's 'Homecoming' and Modern Alliterative Metre |journal=Journal of Tolkien Research |volume=12 |issue=1 |at=Article 3 |url=https://scholar.valpo.edu/journaloftolkienresearch/vol12/iss1/3 }}{{cite book |last=Clark |first=George |title=J. R. R. Tolkien and His Literary Resonances: Views of Middle-earth |date=2000 |publisher=Greenwood Press |location=Westport, CT |pages=39–51 |editor=George Clark and Daniel Timmons}}{{cite book |last=Shippey |first=Tom A. |title=Roots and Branches: Selected Papers on Tolkien |date=2007 |publisher=Walking Tree Publishers |location=Zurich and Berne |pages=323–339 |author-link=Tom Shippey}} He also experimented with alliterative verse based on the Poetic Edda (e.g., the Völsungasaga and Atlakviða) in The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrun (2009).{{cite book |last1=Tolkien |first1=J. R. R. |last2=Tolkien |first2=Christopher |title=The legend of Sigurd and Gudrún |publisher=Houghton Mifflin Harcourt |publication-place=Boston |date=2009 |isbn=978-0-547-27342-6 |oclc=310224953}} His Gothic poem Bagme Bloma ("Flower of the Trees") uses a trochaic metre, with irregular end-rhymes and irregular alliteration in each line; it was published in the 1936 Songs for the Philologists.Tolkien, J. R. R. Songs for the Philologists. Privately printed in the Department of English, University College London, 1936.{{page needed|date=December 2023}} He also wrote a variety of alliterative poems in Old English. A version of these appears in "The Notion Club Papers".{{ME-ref|SD}}, "The Notion Club Papers" His alliterative verse translations of Old English and Middle English alliterative poems include some 600 lines of Beowulf,{{cite magazine |last=Acocella |first=Joan |date=2 June 2014 |title=Slaying Monsters: Tolkien's 'Beowulf' |url=http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/books/2014/06/02/140602crbo_books_acocella?currentPage=all |magazine=The New Yorker |access-date=2 June 2014}} portions of The Seafarer,{{cite book |doi=10.1002/9781119691457.ch3 |chapter=Tolkien as Editor |title=A Companion to J. R. R. Tolkien |date=2022 |last1=Shippey |first1=Tom |pages=34–47 |isbn=978-1-119-69140-2 }} and a complete translation of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.{{cite report |last1=Volkonskaya |first1=M. A. |title=Translator and Language Change: On J.R.R. Tolkien's Translation of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight |date=2015 |url=https://publications.hse.ru/en/preprints/163150386 |doi=10.2139/ssrn.2674100 |ssrn=2674100 |s2cid=54805306 |url-access=subscription }}

Tolkien's original alliterative verse follows the rules for Old English alliterative verse, as can be seen in the following lines from The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth Beorhthelm's Son:{{cite journal |last1=Smol |first1=Anna |last2=Foster |first2=Rebecca |title=J.R.R. Tolkien's "Homecoming" and Modern Alliterative Metre |journal=Journal of Tolkien Research |date=21 May 2021 |volume=12 |issue=1 |id={{Gale|A666511744}} |url=https://scholar.valpo.edu/journaloftolkienresearch/vol12/iss1/3/ }}

{{pad|1em}}{{pad|1em}}{{pad|1em}}{{pad|1em}}{{pad|1em}}{{pad|1em}}{{pad|1em}}{{pad|1em}}{{pad|1em}}{{pad|1em}} To the left yonder

There's a shade creeping, {{pad|1em}} a shadow darker

than the western sky, {{pad|1em}} there walking crouched!

Two now together! {{pad|1em}} Troll-shapes, I guess

or hell-walkers. {{pad|1em}} They've a halting gait,

groping groundwards {{pad|1em}} with grisly arms.

Like Tolkien, C. S. Lewis (1898–1963) taught at Oxford University, where he was Fellow and Tutor in English Literature at Magdalen College. He was later a full Professor at Cambridge University. He is best known for his work as a literary criticWalsh, Chad. The literary legacy of CS Lewis. Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2008.{{page needed|date=December 2023}} and Christian apologist,Cunningham, Richard B. CS Lewis: Defender of the Faith: Defender of the Faith. Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2008.{{page needed|date=December 2023}} but he also wrote a variety of modern English poems in Old English alliterative meter. His alliterative poetry includes "Sweet Desire" and "The Planets" in his collected Poems{{Cite book |last=Lewis |first=Clive Staples |title=Poems |publisher=Houghton Mifflin Harcourt |year=2002}} and the 742-line poem "The Nameless Isle" in his Narrative Poems.{{Cite book |last=Lewis |first=Clive Staples |title=Narrative Poems |publisher=Harper Collins |year=1972}} He also wrote an article on the use of alliterative meter in modern English.{{cite book |last1=Lewis |first1=C. S. |chapter=The Alliterative Metre |pages=15–26 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=T-clBgAAQBAJ&pg=PA15 |editor1-first=Walter |editor1-last=Hooper |title=Selected Literary Essays |date=2013 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-1-107-68538-3 }} Like Tolkien, his poems follow the rules of Old English alliterative verse, while maintaining modern English diction and syntax,{{Cite book |last=Jones |first=Chris |title=Strange likeness: the use of Old English in twentieth-century poetry |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2010 |location=Oxford}}{{page needed|date=December 2023}} as can be seen from lines 562-67 of The Nameless Isle:

The marble maid, {{pad|1em}} under mask of stone

shook and shuddered. {{pad|1em}} As a shadow streams

Over the wheat waving, {{pad|1em}} over the woman's face

Life came lingering. {{pad|1em}} Nor was it long after

Down its blue pathways, {{pad|1em}} blood returning

Moved, and mounted {{pad|1em}} to her maiden cheek.

The late twentieth and early 21st century saw multiple serious efforts by renowned poets to render prominent Old and Middle English poems in modern English alliterative verse. These include Allan Sullivan and Timothy Murphy's translations of Beowulf,{{Cite book |title=Beowulf |publisher=W.W. Norton & Co. |year=2000 |isbn=0-393-32097-9 |location=New York |language=Old English |translator-last=Heaney |translator-first=Seamus}}Sullivan, Allan, and Timothy Murphy. "translators. Beowulf. Edited by Sarah Anderson." (2004).{{page needed|date=December 2023}} Simon Armitage's translations of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and Pearl,{{Cite book |title=Sir Gawain and the Green Knight |publisher=W.W. Norton & Co. |year=2004 |location=New York |language=Middle English |translator-last=Armitage |translator-first=Simon}}{{Cite book |title=Pearl |publisher=Faber & Faber |year=2016 |location=London |language=Middle English |translator-last=Armitage |translator-first=Simon}} and Tony Harrison's translation of the York Mystery Plays.{{Cite book |title=Plays I: The Mysteries |publisher=Faber & Faber |location=London |language=Middle English |translator-last=Harrison |translator-first=Tony}} In combination with the posthumous publication of J.R.R. Tolkien's alliterative poems, this has resulted in modern alliterative renderings of alliterative verse becoming much more accessible to the general public.

During the latter part of the 20th and early 21st Century, alliterative verse enjoyed a revival in speculative fiction and associated social spaces, including historical reenactment, fan fiction, and related social movements.{{Cite journal |last=Wilson Wise |first=Dennis |date=2021 |title=Antiquarianism Underground: The Twentieth-century Alliterative Revival in American Genre Poetry |url=https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/235/article/801959 |journal=Studies in the Fantastic |volume=11 |issue=1 |pages=22–54 |doi=10.1353/sif.2021.0001 |s2cid=238935463 |issn=2470-3486|url-access=subscription }} This revival was associated with the American fantasy and science fiction author Poul Anderson, who embedded alliterative verse in many of his science fiction and fantasy novels,{{Cite journal |last=Wise |first=Dennis |date=Summer 2021 |title=Poul Anderson and the American Alliterative Revival |url=https://hcommons.org/deposits/item/hc:41549/ |journal=Extrapolation |language=en-US |volume=62 |issue=2 |pages=157–180 |doi=10.3828/extr.2021.9 |s2cid=242510584 |issn=2047-7708|url-access=subscription }} and with younger authors like Paul Edwin Zimmer who belonged to the same social circles.{{cite book |doi=10.1016/b978-0-12-813810-6.00007-0 |chapter=Optical sensors |title=Sensors for Mechatronics |date=2018 |last1=Regtien |first1=Paul |last2=Dertien |first2=Edwin |pages=183–243 |isbn=978-0-12-813810-6 }} Their work largely circulated in fanzines and small speculative poetry journals like Star*Line, though after the foundation of the Society for Creative Anachronism (SCA) in the 1960s, it found a new home in occasional verse written for SCA events,{{cite book |doi=10.1017/9781316562925.001 |chapter=General Principles of Poetic Form |title=The Evolution of Verse Structure in Old and Middle English Poetry |date=2017 |pages=1–34 |isbn=978-1-316-56292-5 }} where fantasy and science fiction authors and fans were likely to rub shoulders with medievalist scholars and neopagan devotees of the old Germanic gods.{{Cite book |last=Wise |first=Dennis Wilson |title=Speculative Poetry and the Modern Alliterative Revival: A Critical Anthology |publisher=Fairleigh Dickinson University Press |year=2023 |isbn=978-1683933298}} Alliterative verse can be found wherever speculative fiction fans gather, including fanfiction sites{{Cite web |title=The Speculative Fiction Community |url=https://alliteration.net/community/speculative-fiction |access-date=2023-12-01 |website=Forgotten Ground Regained |language=en}} and even in materials written for roleplaying games (RPGs).{{Citation |title=Write Radio interview with Dan Sumption - 18th February 2022 - Sheffield Live |url=https://soundcloud.com/dansumption/write-radio-interview-with-dan-sumption-18th-february-2022-sheffield-live |access-date=2023-12-01 |language=en}}

During the 21st century there has also been an increase in the number of original English poems in alliterative verse included in poetry journals and in collections published by practicing poets.{{Cite web |title=Poets and Writers: Going Alliterative |url=https://alliteration.net/community/poetswriters |access-date=2023-12-01 |website=Forgotten Ground Regained |language=en}} This increase included the publication of a number of long poems in alliterative verse,{{Cite web |title=Long Poems in Allitative Verse: Epics, Ecogues, and Other Book-Length Publicationsh |url=https://alliteration.net/books/long-poems |access-date=2023-12-01 |website=Forgotten Ground Regained |language=en}} and even children's verse, in the form of Zach Weinersmith's humorous alliterative epic, Bea Wolf.{{Cite book |last=Weinersmith |first=Zach |title=Bea Wolf |publisher=MacMillan |year=2023 |isbn=978-1-250-32363-7 |location=New York, NY}} A recent book on the subject by Dennis Wilson Wisehttps://rowman.com/ISBN/9781683933304/Speculative-Poetry-and-the-Modern-Alliterative-Revival-A-Critical-Anthology Speculative Poetry and the Modern Alliterative Revival: A Critical Anthology] includes one hundred and fifty poems by fifty-five poets, more original (as opposed to translated) English alliterative verse by more poets between two covers than anything that has been published since before Gutenberg invented the printing press.{{efn|This is not, in fact, a particularly hard bar to surpass, as Speculative Poetry and the Modern Alliterative Revival appears to be the first anthology of original alliterative verse (as opposed to translations) published in the modern era.}} The index of published authors on Forgotten Ground Regained,[https://alliteration.net Forgotten Ground Regained] a website devoted to tracking modern English alliterative verse, includes more than one hundred forty individual poets, and links to works by more than one hundred and twenty five other individuals posted on blogs, social media posts, fan fiction sites, and other online channels for informal communication.{{Cite web |title=Published Authors of Alliterative Verse |url=https://alliteration.net/authors |access-date=2023-12-01 |website=Forgotten Ground Regained |language=en}}

{{notelist}}

{{reflist|28em}}

• {{cite book |last=Clunies Ross |first=Margaret |year=2005 |title=A History of Old Norse Poetry and Poetics |publisher=D. S. Brewer |isbn=978-1843842798}}
• {{cite book |last=Minkova |first=Donka |title=Alliteration and Sound Change in Early English |series=Cambridge Studies in Linguistics, 101 |location=Cambridge |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=2003 |isbn=978-0521573177}}
• {{cite book |last=Terasawa |first=Jun |title=Old English Metre: An Introduction |location=Toronto |publisher=University of Toronto Press |year=2011 |isbn=978-1442611290}}

• {{cite book |last=Bostock |first=J. K. |editor1=K.C.King |editor2=D.R.McLintock | title=A Handbook on Old High German Literature | chapter=Appendix on Old Saxon and Old High German Metre | publisher=Oxford University Press | year=1976 |ref=none}}
• {{cite book | last=Cable |first=Thomas | title=The English Alliterative Tradition | url=https://archive.org/details/englishalliterat00cabl | url-access=registration | publisher=University of Pennsylvania Press | year=1991 |isbn=9780812230635 |ref=none}}
• {{cite book | last=Fulk |first=Robert D. | title=A History of Old English Meter | publisher=University of Pennsylvania Press | year=1992 |ref=none}}
• {{cite book | last=Godden |first=Malcolm R. | year=1992 | chapter=Literary Language | editor=Hogg, Richard M. | title=The Cambridge History of the English Language | pages=490–535 | publisher=Cambridge University Press |ref=none}}
• {{cite book | last=Russom |first=Geoffrey |author-link=Geoffrey Russom | title=Beowulf and Old Germanic Metre | url=https://archive.org/details/beowulfoldgerman0000russ | url-access=registration | publisher=Cambridge University Press | year=1998 |isbn=9780521593403 |ref=none}}
• {{cite book | last=Sievers |first=Eduard | title=Altgermanische Metrik | url=https://archive.org/details/altgermanischem00sievgoog | publisher=Niemeyer | year=1893 |ref=none}}
• {{cite book | last=Terasawa |first=Jun | title=Old English Metre: An Introduction | publisher =University of Toronto Press | year=2011 |ref=none}}
• {{cite book | last=Weiskott |first=Eric |year=2016 |title=English Alliterative Verse: Poetic Tradition and Literary History |publisher=Cambridge University Press |ref=none}}

{{Portal|Poetry}}

{{Wikisource|Bright's Anglo-Saxon Reader/Anglo-Saxon Versification}}

{{Spoken Wikipedia|En-Alliterative_verse-article.ogg|date=2008-06-29}}

• [http://wayback.vefsafn.is/wayback/20070508133730/http%3A//www.heimskringla.no/original/skaldekvad/index.php Carmina Scaldica] a selection of Norse and Icelandic skaldic poetry, ed. Finnur Jónsson, 1929
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20091202062340/http://www3.hi.is/~eybjorn/ugm/jormun.html Jörmungrund] An extensive resource for Old Norse poetry
• [http://library.wisc.edu/etext/Jonas/Prosody/Prosody.html Jónas Hallgrímsson: Selected Poetry and Prose, ed. and trans. by Dick Ringler (1998), ch. 3] Probably the most accessible discussion in English of alliterant placement in modern Icelandic (also mostly applicable to Old Norse).
• [http://alliteration.net/ Forgotten ground regained] A site dedicated to alliterative and accentual poetry.
• [http://www.alarichall.org.uk/teaching/alliteration/index.php An interactive guide to Old and Middle English alliterative verse by Alaric Hall.]

{{Germanic peoples}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Alliterative Verse}}

Category:Poetic devices

Category:Medieval poetry

Category:Old Norse poetry

Category:Icelandic literature

Category:Early Germanic literature