Alliterative Patterns in the Hypermetric Lines of Old English Verse

Abstract

tive pattern: of the usual three primary stresses in the on-verse, two almost always alliterate with the primary stress that begins the second measure of the off-verse, the normal position of that verse's one alliterating stress. I also noted that in such lines, where the second stress of the three in the off-verse alliterates, the first stress position is usually filled by primary stress and that the final nonalliterating primary stress sometimes participates in a purely secondary alliterative pattern. A more systematic and detailed examination of the whole body of hypermetric-and possibly hypermetric-lines tends to confirm those basic conclusions about their alliterative patterns, but it also makes it evident that there are other aspects of these verses that are worthy of consideration. To turn first to poems other than those that are suspected of notable corruption, or that present peculiar difficulties,3 the poems that present the most sizable groups of hypermetic lines are, in more or less descending order: Judith, Guthlac I, The Dream of the Rood, Genesis A, Elene, and Beowulf. The total of complete hypermetric lines in these six poems amounts to somewhat under 200,4 of which only around thirty deviate from the basic alliterative pattern a a x / x a x.5 Such a line as Beowulf 1163 is absolutely typical: gan under gyldnum beage, pewr pa godan twegen.6 One line of the eleven Pope counts as hypermetric in Beowulf deviates slightly: 1167, alliterating on the pattern x a a / x a x-paet he haefde mod micel, peah pe he his magum naere. Bliss considers 1167a to be normal, but from a rhythmic point of view the sudden appearance of one normal verse in the midst of a long hypermetric passage would seem unsatisfactory, and it is not really necessary to read it as an intruder when it can be scanned as three measures in exactly the same way as the other hypermetric lines of Beowulf, differing only in the placement of its alliterative stresses.7 This pattern is not unexampled in presumably correct hypermetric lines elsewhere; within the six poems presently under consideration, there