IMC 2014: Sessions

Session 301: New Perspectives on Beowulf: Text, Translation, and Rhythm

Moderator/Chair:	Alaric Hall, Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies, University of Helsinki
Paper 301-a	The Rhythm of Beowulf Unbound?: Some Performative and 'Musicalistic' Proposals Regarding the Prosody of Medieval Verse (Language: English) Michael George Gibson, Independent Scholar, Knutsford Index terms: Language and Literature - Old English, Language and Literature - Middle English
Abstract	Paper -a: His 'musicalistic' approach to the performance of alliterative poetry in the original language and in his own translations suggests to the author of this paper that no wholly persuasive metrical explanation of its rhythms has been arrived at by Pope, Bliss, Cable, and more contemporary prosodists. This is in part because analysis of verses into many 'types' of 'half-lines' can obscure the verses' simple core-structure. Pope and others have used sorts of musicalistic approaches; but no-one would appear to have apprehended the basic, flexible metre of O.E. and M.E. alliterative verse and pointed up its true musical measures and rhythm. This paper will make some proposals in theory and through performance.