A New Theory of Triple Rhythm in the Hypermetric Lines of Old English Verse

Abstract

PROFESSOR Robert P. Creed, in his article New Approach to the Rhythm of Beowulf,' says that his system of scanning Old English poetry is both radically simple and completely consistent, leaving loose ends, . . . no nagging percentage of verses which do not fit the categories. If he is correct in his claim that all Old English verses, without appreciable exception, can be thus scanned, with violence done to the phonemic and stress patterns of the language,2 his method should be of great help in clarifying the basic metrical pattern.3 With one possibly significant exception, the simplicity and consistency of Creed's method are easily demonstrable. A group of my students, none of whom had any prior knowledge of Old English poetry or the theories concerning its versification, were introduced to the system briefly in class, studied short-in fact, somewhat simplified-mimeographed presentation of Creed's procedure, and were thereafter in essential agreement on the scansion of most lines. In scanning normal lines, we found only negligible individual variations from scansions agreed upon by the majority of the group. However, difficulties arose when we came across group of hypermetric lines, which thus appeared to remain a nagging percentage of verses which do not fit the categories, problem Creed did not touch upon. An attempt to harmonize Creed's methods with J. C. Pope's double measures4 did not seem to work very well. While two measures of 4/8 time are certainly equivalent to one measure of 4/4, the measures themselves are not then the same