alliterative rank in old english poetry

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Alliterative rank in Old English poetryDennis Cronan aa 45 Franklin Street, East Providence, RI, 02915, USAPublished online: 21 Jul 2008.

To cite this article: Dennis Cronan (1986) Alliterative rank in Old English poetry, StudiaNeophilologica, 58:2, 145-158, DOI: 10.1080/00393278608587940

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Studia Neophilologica 58: 145-158, 1986

Alliterative Rank in Old English Poetry

DENNIS CRONAN

Alliteration, the most striking feature of Old English verse, has the important structuraltask of binding together the two half-lines, which are otherwise metrically independent.Each half-line must have one alliterating word, and the a-verse often has two. In order tocompose in this alliterative meter, the Old English poets needed a stock of synonyms, eachbeginning with a different sound, for important concepts, objects and classes of people.But these synonyms do not alliterate at a uniform rate. This difference in the alliterativefrequency of synonyms, known as alliterative "rank," has never been thoroughly ex-plored in Old English, although it has been studied in Middle English alliterative poetry.Drawing on the research of August Brink, and focusing mainly on the words for "man,warrior" in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Marie Borroff has concluded that archaicwords of high alliterative frequency such as burne, freke and gome were used and passedon from poet to poet because they were a technical aid in the composition of the verse, andnot because of any intrinsic stylistic value. Despite her conclusions about the reasonbehind the use of these words, Borroff acknowledges that their use produces certaineffects, and that they therefore must be "explained" as elements of style as well astechnical tools.1

In a brief discussion of some of the words for "lord" (cyning, dryhten, frea and hlaford)and a few of the words for "man" (secg, guma, leod, mann and cempa) in Beowulf, T. A.Shippey fails to perceive any difference between "higher" and "lower" alliterating words,apart from their alliterative frequency. He connects the system of alliterative rank with thedevelopment of formulaic technique and the need for synonyms, and concludes that rankis functional but meaningless.2

The technical usefulness of frequently alliterating words is undeniable. But it is amistake to isolate, as Marie Borroff has done, the technical aspect of these words as thecause of their use, while limiting their stylistic role to their effect. Words such as burneand freke would not have survived from Old English verse into Middle English alliterativepoetry if they were not useful in meeting the alliterative demands of the line. However, theperception of the stylistic effects created by their use is not limited to the audience oftoday. This stylistic dimension must have been apparent to each new generation of poetswho learned their craft by listening to and/or reading the compositions of their predeces-sors. The impression made upon them by the use of these words would have contributed tothe way they in turn utilized them. Thus effect becomes cause, and a technical toolbecomes a stylistic element, inextricably mixing function and style.

In Old English, as in Middle English, the distinction between words of high alliterativefrequency and those of low frequency largely coincides with the division of the vocabularyinto poetic and non-poetic words.3 This conjunction was missed by Shippey, probablybecause the sample of words he examined was small, and because this conjunction is notalways consistent in Old English. For example, hlaford, which is a non-poetic word,alliterates at a slightly higher rate than frea, which is poetic. The majority of poetic words,however, can be said to be marked by both their restriction to poetry and their highalliteration rate. Although function plays a role in the way they are used, words doublydistinguished in this way have a stylistic dimension as well. In the following pages I willexamine the connection between alliteration rate and the poetic vocabulary. I will proceedby first presenting the results of three comparisons, and will then base my conclusions

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146 Dennis Cronan Studia Neophil 58 (1986)

upon the results. The first body of evidence to be examined is a comparison of thealliteration rates of poetic and non-poetic synonyms. Here, as throughout this study, Ilimit myself to simplexes, since compounds always alliterate. Although this initial com-parison is the most important, other evidence shows that alliterative frequency does notmerely distinguish between poetic and non-poetic words. An examination of those poeticwords whose cognates in Old Icelandic were also poetic reveals that they, as a group, havea slightly higher alliteration rate than poetic words without such cognates. And finally,words used in a figurative sense alliterate much more frequently than when used in theirliteral meanings. This evidence indicates that a word's alliterative frequency can be takenas an index of its poetic worth. By "poetic worth" I refer to a fusion of function and stylethat is perhaps peculiar to traditional poetry, where the stylistic dimension of the poetry is,at least in part, an outgrowth of the structural requirements of the verse.4

The figures from my comparison of the alliteration rates of groups of synonyms arepresented in an appendix. This comparison, which includes 151 words, 91 of which arepoetic, 60 non-poetic, embraces words for "man, warrior," "lord, king," "sword,""shield," "spear," "boat," "sea," "battle," "treasure," "hall," "fire," "woman,""horse," "earth," "hand," "death," "blood." All the words are nouns. The category"man, warrior" is divided into five subcategories: words that mean simply "man"; wordswhose meaning ranges from "man" through "retainer" to "warrior"; words that mean"warrior, hero"; "son, young man"; and words that are always used in the plural to mean"men." These subdivisions are necessary because words such as mann and wiga can beregarded as synonyms in only a very loose sense; mann is used to refer to any man, whilewiga refers only to men who are warriors.

Although eorl properly means "nobleman," it is included among words for "man,warrior." In OE poetry warriors are generally of noble blood, so "nobleman" and"warrior" are usually synonymous. Only those occurrences of scealc with the heroicmeaning of "retainer, warrior" are counted; those meaning "servant," which occurmainly in PPs, are enclosed in parentheses for comparison, but are not included in anytotals. Similarly, weard in the meaning "protector, lord, king" has been counted apartfrom the occurrences meaning "guard, guardian," which have been included in parenthe-ses. The occurrences of dryhten have been divided into two groups: those found in the PPsand the Psalm Fragments (only F5-F50 were counted, since the others repeat material inthe PPS) are separated from the occurrences in the remaining poems, and are included inparentheses for comparison only. This is necessary because 47% of the occurrences ofdryhten are found in the Psalms, where the usage differs markedly from that of the otherpoems.

One other word that requires comment is hord. In addition to its literal meaning,"hoarded treasure," hord is used in genitive combinations which have a figurative sense,as in breosta hord (Gen A 1608b) and sawle hord (Bwf 2422b), which mean "life, soul."5

The figures for this secondary usage are presented in parentheses, but are not included inany totals. With the sole exception of dryhten, the figures for the words in the appendixrepresent occurrences in all surviving Old English poems written in the traditional meter.

The table in the appendix presents the alliteration rate as both a percentage and afraction. In the case ofguma, for example, this fraction is 135/151, which means that out ofa total of 151 occurrences, gutna alliterates 135 times, for a rate of 89%. In addition to thealliteration rate for individual words, the appendix gives the overall rate for each semanticcategory. Words meaning "man, warrior, retainer" alliterate 88% of the time, thosemeaning "sword" 75%, and so on. In order to compare the aggregate alliteration rates ofpoetic and non-poetic words, I here divide the rates for each semantic group into poeticand non-poetic percentages.

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617/68556/58

144/158151/15988/10348/6551/5719/24

159/168158/16246/4860/7132/3285/12542/48

225/23764/7418/1835/38

389/692

2 440/2 967

9096.691.19585.473.889.579.294.697.59684.5

1006887.594.986.5

10092.156.2

82.2

Non-Poetic

689/982292/35057/87

143/195

51/8214/224/14

49/67288/411108/12159/8569/83

226/331224/254

111429/560167/262160/19843/57

596/1 106

3 696/5 274

%

7083.465.573.3

62.263.628.673.170.289.269.483.168.388.2

10076.663.780.875.453.9

70.1

Stadia Neophil 58 (1986) Alliterative Rank in Old English Poetry 147

Poetic %

Man -Man, warriorWarrior, heroYoung manMenSwordShieldSpearBoat, shipSea, waterWar, battleTreasureHallFireWomanHorseEarth, groundHand, palmDeathBloodLord, kingTotals

The cumulative alliteration rate of the poetic words is 12.1 % higher than that of the non-poetic words. If, in the interest of strict comparison, we include in the totals only thosecategories which contain both poetic and non-poetic words (i.e., we exclude the non-poetic figure for "man" and the poetic figure for "men"), we arrive at the followingfigures:Poetic 2 289/2 808 81.5%Non-poetic 3 010/4 295 70.1%

for a difference in alliterative frequency of 11.4%.In the nineteen categories which contain both poetic and non-poetic words, the poetic

words exhibit a higher rate in seventeen, non-poetic in two. The evidence clearly indicatesthat the poetic vocabulary alliterates more frequently than non-poetic words.

Alliterative frequency also emphasizes a distinction within the poetic vocabulary itself.35 of the 272 poetic words have Old Icelandic cognates that can be considered poeticbecause they too occur mainly, or, as is more often the case, only in poetry. In thefollowing table these words are divided into three groups. Group I, the largest, iscomposed of words that do not have any non-poetic cognates in the other Germaniclanguages. A few of these words have cognates in the Old Saxon Heliand (Hel) or the OldHigh German "Hildebrandslied" (Hild) which also appear to be poetic.6 In group II are tobe found words with non-poetic cognates in Gothic as well as cognates in the Heliand. Andgroup III contains words with non-poetic cognates in West Germanic languages (Old HighGerman, Old Saxon, Old Frisian), as well as in Gothic, along with a few cognates in theHeliand. It is possible that some of these words, especially those in group III, attainedtheir poetic status independently in both Old English and Old Icelandic after the languagesand poetic traditions separated, or that some were borrowed from one tradition by theother. But many of the words, those in group I in particular, may be descended from acommon Germanic poetic tradition. Those with non-poetic cognates, on the other hand,may be the products of a Northwest Germanic poetic tradition, out of which the OldEnglish and Scandinavian poetries developed.7 These 35 words are listed below with theirOld Icelandic cognates and their alliteration rates, followed by their other Germaniccognates.8

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beadu 0>QS)blanca (blakkr)brego (bragr)brim (brim 'sea')darod (darra9r)eoh (j6r)folde (fold 'earth, world')gu3 (gunnr, gu3)hild (hildr)gehroden (hr63inn)lid (lid)lind Gind)raeswa (rsesir)sweot (sj(5t)rinc (rekkr)secg (seggr)sine (s0kk)9engel (pengill)wasr (ver)ylde (aldar 'men')

Total

byre (burr)heoru (hjorr)mago (mQgr)metod (mJQtuSr)peoden (pj(53ann)

Total

firas (firar)guma (gumi)hsle/hslea (hair)hasu (h<jss)mearh (marr)mund (mund)rand (rcjnd)tiber (tfvor)tir (tfrr)wicg (vigg)

Total

Total All Groups

Group I

14/143/3

27/3228/297/73/3

180/19257/5755/576/108/8

11/162/187/7

47/5565/6746/480/22/2

71/72

639/699

Group II

12/122/2

12/12213/256129/171

368/453

Group III

51/58135/151232/273

7/717/2215/1513/208/10

26/2919/20

523/605

1 530/1 757

%

1001008897

10010094

1009660

1006911

1008594960

10099

91

%

1001001008375

81

%

888985

10077

10065

1009095

86

87.1

(Hild: gu9ea)(Hel: hild; Hild: hiltia)

(Hel: rink)(Hel: segg)(Hel: sink)

(Go: baur)(Go: hafrus)(Go: magus)(Go: mitaps; Hel: metod)(Go: piudans; Hel: thioden)

(OHG: firihi; Hel: firihos)(OHG: gomo; OS: gumo; Go: guma)(OHG: helid; Hel: helid)(OHG: hasan)(OHG: marh)(OHG: mund)(OS: rand)(OHG: zebar)(OFris: tire; Hel: tir)(OFris: widze; Hel: wigg)

The combined alliteration rate of these words, 87 .1%, is 7.1 % higher than the combinedrate of the remaining 237 poetic words, which is 80% (2911/3641). These words are alsodistinguished by their average frequency of occurrence, which is approximately 50x perword, compared to the average occurrence of those poetic words without Old Icelandicpoetic cognates, which is about 15x per word. This difference strengthens the case forregarding these words as a distinct subcategory of the poetic vocabulary.

Comparison of the three groups themselves reveals that the words in group I, which arethe most likely to be descended from a common Germanic poetic tradition, have thehighest alliteration rate, at 91.6%. The alliteration rate of group II, 81.2%, is due to thelow rates of the 256 occurrences of metod and the 171 of peoden. The low alliteration rate

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Studia Neophil 58 (1986) Alliterative Rank in Old English Poetry 149

of peoden is typical of words meaning "lord, king." The frequency of occurrence ofpeoden and metod also skew the average frequency of group II, which is 91 x per word.Strictly speaking, metod may not belong here at all. It is the only one among these wordsthat has developed a strictly Christian meaning (some instances in Beowulf axe, however,ambiguous), although both brego and peoden are sometimes used of the deity. Its frequentoccurrence in Old English poetry therefore has less to do with the word's poetic antiquitythan with the adaptation of poetic traditions by the Church. If it is excluded, thecumulative alliteration rate rises to 87.8%, and the average occurrence frequency drops to44 occurrences per word.

These words are further distinguished by the fact that, with the exception of metod, andperhaps of tiber, they are all heroic. Included are all four words meaning "horse" (blanca,eoh, mearh and wicg), as are three for "battle" (beadu, gud, hild). There are two wordsfor "sea" {brim, wcer), and four meaning "lord, king" {brego, rceswa, dengel, peoden).Seven words mean either "man, warrior" or "men" (firas, guma, heeled, mago, rinc,secg, ylde); and there are four words for weapons (darob, heoru, lind, rand). Theremaining nouns mean "earth" (fold), "boat" (lid), "troop" (sweot), "treasure" (sine),"son" (byre), "hand" (mund) and "glory" (tir). The adjectives gehroden, which is thepast participle of an otherwise unattested verb hreodan 'to adorn,' and hasu are regularlyused to modify heroic nouns.

My final comparison is between the alliteration rates of the literal and the figurative orsecondary meanings of certain words. I include here cases where the material of which anobject is made stands for that object, as in the use.of iren 'iron' for "sword," and caseswhere a part stands for a whole, as in the use of ecg 'edge' to also mean "sword." I alsoinclude the expansion of meaning seen in the use of scealc, whose primary meaning is"servant," to mean "retainer, warrior." The material for comparison here is slight,because words such as rand and lind, which both mean "shield," occur in poetry only intheir figurative meaning.

bord"board""shield""ship"

ecg"edge""sword"

iren (isen, isern)"iron""sword"

rues"headland""ground"

scealc"servant""warrior"

stream"stream""sea"

swat"sweat""blood"

3/524/292/8

4/2531/32

5/611/16

6/98/8

8/1710/11

11/2615/19

1/117/18

%608325

1697

8369

67100

4791

4280

10094

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wudu"tree, wood""spear""ship"

Totals:literalfigurative

33/381/13/3

71/127122/145

87100100

5684

While in some cases (bord, iren and swat—this last, however, with only one literaloccurrence) the literal meanings alliterate more frequently, as a group the figurativemeanings alliterate 28% more frequently than do the literal.

The evidence, then, points convincingly to the association of a high frequency ofalliteration with the poetic vocabulary. Words that are part of this vocabulary tend toalliterate more frequently than words that are not. This difference in frequency is foundnot only between poetic words and words common to both poetry and prose. Words withpoetic cognates in Old Icelandic, and which therefore may be descended from a commonNorthwest Germanic poetic tradition, alliterate more frequently than other poetic words.And a comparison of the literal and figurative usage of a small number of words revealsthat these words alliterate much more often when they are used figuratively. This lastcomparison is significant because it demonstrates that the alliteration rate of a word canchange as its meaning changes, while the metrical contours of the word remain the same.Scealc, for example, has two metrical contours. In the nominative and accusative singular(scealc), the contour is "/", while in all other cases (scealces, scealce, scealcas, scealca)it is "/x". Both metrical contours are found with each meaning of the word.

It is possible to make some obvious generalizations on the basis of this information: a) Aword found only in poetry is likely to alliterate more frequently than one that is found inprose as well, b) A word that is descended from the common Germanic poetic tradition islikely to alliterate more frequently than one that is not. c) When a word is used in afigurative sense, it will probably alliterate more often than when it is used in its literalsense. But another generalization is also possible: The alliteration rate of any word is ameasure of its poetic worth. Alliteration is an integral feature of the structure of OldEnglish poetry, and as such presents demands that must be met during composition. Yetthe higher frequency of alliteration that is exhibited by the poetic vocabulary indicates thatthere is a stylistic dimension to alliteration alongside the structural. The restriction of anumber of words to poetry has its own stylistic implications, as does the use of words infigurative or extended senses.9 These words distinguish the language of poetry from therealm of ordinary discourse, and contribute to the creation of a poetic world that is aboveand beyond the world of everyday life. The stylistic aspects of these words are highlightedby the poets' frequent use of them in alliterating positions. The structure of the verseemphasizes the stylistic dimension of its vocabulary, and thus becomes a stylistic featureitself.

But alliterative frequency is not an absolute criterion. It would be a mistake to concludethat guma, with an alliteration rate of 89 %, has a greater poetic worth than frea, whoserate is 80%. Comparison must be limited to synonyms, for the alliteration rates ofsemantic categories can vary widely. The words for "lord, king" have an aggregate rate ofonly 55%, while the rate of words meaning "man, warrior, retainer" is 88%.

Another factor that affects ranking is the regular use of certain words as base words ingenitive combinations. With a few exceptions (most notably wine at 91 % and brego at84%) these words have uniformly low alliteration rates. This is due to the structure ofgenitive combinations in which one noun is modified by another in the genitive case. In

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Studia NeopMl 58 (1986) Alliterative Rank in Old English Poetry 151

kent heitis the noun in the genitive, which is the determinant, is needed to complete thesense of the other noun, which is the base word. In a verse from Beowulf,

sinces brytta (Bwf 1170a),

brytta "distributor" is the base word, modified by the determinant sinces "of treasure,"which completes the sense and identifies the referent as a king, because a king wastraditionally a distributor of treasure. In a similar verse from Genesis A,

lifes brytta (Gen A 122a),

the determinant lifes identifies the referent as God, because He is the giver of life.10

A noun modified by another noun in the genitive case commonly occurs in the secondstressed position of a verse, while the first position is usually occupied by the noun in thegenitive case. Therefore, whenever a kent heiti of this type occurs in the b-verse, the baseword cannot alliterate; when it occurs in the a-verse, the base word may share alliteration,as in

beaga bryttan (Bw/35a),

but alliteration is never required. The poets were, of course, free to place the base word inthe first stressed position. This usually occurred when the determinant was difficult toalliterate, as in these verses from Beowulf:

wine Scyldinga (Bwf 170b)eodor Scyldinga (Bu>/428a).

The poet had only a small stock of words beginning with sc-.11 On a few occasions,however, the base word occupies the first position when there is double alliteration:

eodor Ingwina (Bwf 1044a)brego Beorhtdena (Bwf 427a).

But such verses are rare. The alliteration rate of base words is low because the usualstructure of the kent heiti places them in a non-alliterating position. Base words aretherefore to be regarded as a special category because in genitive combinations thealliteration is frequently an attribute of the phrase and not of the individual words.

Base words are most common among the synonyms for "lord, king." Ten of thenineteen words in this category are base words: baldor, brego, brytta, eodor, helm, hleo,wine, rceswa, wisa and weard. These words fall into two groups. Brego, eodor and wineare found in the first position of the verse (in both the a-verse and the b-verse), wherealliteration is obligatory, in 34 out of 47 occurrences, and have a joint alliteration rate of87% (41/47). The other seven words occur in the first position of the verse only 20 times in261 instances, with a joint alliteration rate of 19% (50/261). This difference in usage may bedue to the metrical contour of brego, eodor and wine, which is "x," and is commonlyresolved as a single stress. The contour of the other words is either "/x" {baldor, brytta,rceswa, wisa), or "/" (helm, hleo, weard). This is no more than a suggestion, for I have notmade a systematic examination of the metrical use of words with two short syllables, but itappears that there may be some restriction on the use of these words in the final position ofthe verse.12 If so, this is an example of how a structural factor can affect a word'salliteration rate.

Except for the base words of genitive combinations, alliteration rate can be used as ameasure of a word's poetic worth, and can rank individual words within synonym groups.However, ranking is not simply a matter of comparing alliteration percentages. Lineposition plays a role as well. Of the 151 words listed in the appendix, 24 occur in the fourth

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position (the second stressed position in the b-verse, which never alliterates) while alwaysalliterating whenever they occur in the second position (the second stressed position in thea-verse).

scealcsecgorettahysebillecgfaergarbrimholmsundhildcampfeohteplegasacustriaseleadfamneswathearrawinehlaford

19 of these words have ten or more occurrences, and are therefore regarded as statisticallysignificant for the purposes of this study.

Only six words have non-alliterating occurrences in the second position without alsooccurring in the fourth:

All. rate Total Occ. in(%) occ. 2nd pos.

All. rate(%)

9194789196978388979295967890

0933393899894939184

Totalocc.

1167

9232533

64329402257

910

1143

29185018301157

Occ. in4th pos

122211151312211122211219

drengyldeEescflotgelacbrand "firebrand"

509986800

93

272

752

15

111121

Only ylde and brond occur more than ten times and are to be regarded as statisticallysignificant.

Because of the alliteration that is at times required, and almost always permitted in thesecond position, one would expect that there would be more occurrences of non-alliterat-ing nouns and adjectives in the fourth position than in the second. This is indeed the case.In 2500 lines of Old English poetry 68.7% (685/997) of non-alliterating nouns and adjec-tives occur in the fourth position.13 On the basis of this percentage we can adopt a ratio ofseven non-alliterating nouns and adjectives in the fourth position to every three in thesecond. We can expect that, all things being equal, this ratio would be reflected in theproportion of words that have non-alliterating occurrences in only one or the other of thesepositions. In other words, the 19 words that have non-alliterating occurrences only in the

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fourth position should be matched by at least eight words with non-alliterating occurrencesonly in the second position. That there are only two indicates that the distribution of suchoccurrences does not reflect the ordinary distribution of non-alliterating words betweenthe two positions, but is influenced by some other factor. I suggest that this factor is a rulethat marked these words to alliterate whenever alliteration was possible. Whenever theywere used in the second position, they therefore had to alliterate, yet the poets were freeto make occasional use of them in the fourth position.

On the basis of this rule, we can outline a descending scale of alliterative ranking:

1) Words with 100% alliteration.2) Words that alliterate whenever they occur in a position where alliteration is possible.3) Words with non-alliterating occurrences in both the second and fourth positions.

Words of low alliterative rank are found only in category three. Of those words for "sea"with ten or more occurrences, both geofen and lagu are examples of the first category.They are marked to alliterate whenever they occur, and cannot be used in the fourthposition of the line. Brim, at 97%, sund at 95%, and holm at 92% are examples of thesecond category, and are marked to alliterate whenever alliteration is possible, but couldbe used in the fourth position. Flod at 92% and streamas at 80% are examples of words inthe third category which are of high alliterative rank, while mere (70%), wceg (69%),wceter (67%) and see (57%) are words of low alliterative rank. With the exception of flod,words of high alliterative rank are poetic, and those of low rank are non-poetic.

Simplex nouns and adjectives alliterate approximately 75% of the time. The totalalliteration rate of the 151 words listed in the appendix is 74.5%. This figure is remarkablyclose to the 74.6% rate found in a cross sample of 2500 lines of Old English poetry.14 Thisaverage alliteration rate of 75% provides an inviting boundary between high and lowalliteration, but it would be a mistake to rely too mechanically upon a figure such as this.However, this cut-off point is appropriate for words meaning "sea," since their aggregaterate of alliteration is 77%. Six other semantic groups—"treasure," "warrior, hero,""spear," "sword," "ship," and "shield" also have aggregate alliteration rates of between71% and 79% (see appendix for rates).15 The remaining categories have either higherrates, or, in the case of "man," "hand" and "lord, king," lower rates. In this lastcategory, "lord, king," the aggregate rate, even when base words are excluded, is only60% (894/1490). Hence peoden, which at 75 % exhibits only average alliteration, is perhapsto be regarded as a word of high rank. Although the 75% average alliteration rate ofsimplex nouns and adjectives provides a useful guideline for distinguishing between highand low alliteration rates, it should not be applied without taking into consideration theaggregate rate of the semantic category in question.

The distinction between high and low alliteration rates can also be used to define thelimits of the poetic vocabulary more precisely. The only criterion currently used toidentify poetic words is their restriction, or near-restriction, to poetry (the restrictioncriterion), and their corresponding absence from prose. But all surviving Old English proseis from the late ninth century and later, while the bulk of the surviving poetry appears to beearlier than this.16 The absence of words from prose is an imprecise, but not invalid,criterion, for we lack prose remains that are contemporary with many of the poems.Alliterative frequency is a useful complement to the restriction criterion because it canenable us to identify words whose restriction to poetry is an accident of historicalcircumstance. Giefl 'morsel,' which alliterates only once in nine occurrences, and gifnes,'grace, favor,' which alliterates once in three occurrences, are examples of such words.Here again, alliterative frequency should not be applied too mechanically, and it would bewise to establish a more conservative definition of low alliteration for words found only in

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154 Dennis Cronan studia Neophil 58 (1986)

poetry. Perhaps all poetic words, with the exception of base words, that have a rate of50% or below should be regarded with suspicion. Other criteria can also play a role.Neither giefl nor gifnes are heroic words, and both are limited in their distribution: giefl tothe Exeter Book, and gifnes to the "Lord's Prayer II." Moreover, the -nes suffix of gifnesis a prose suffix that is not found on any other word that is restricted to poetry. Thusalliteration, along with frequency and distribution, and the distinction between heroic andnon-heroic elements of the vocabulary, can supplement the restriction criterion andprovide us with a more accurate discrimination between the poetic and non-poetic vocabu-lary.

The status of words commonly found in prose, and which have a high alliteration rate inpoetry, such as wiga 'warrior' (39/39), bold 'house' (21/21), and fcemne 'virgin, woman '(50/51), is more problematic. While it is possible to regard the omission of words from OldEnglish prose as an historical accident, the inclusion of words in prose cannot, of course,be explained in this manner. Yet we should be willing to entertain the possibility that thepoets' frequent use of certain prose words in alliterative position indicates that theyregarded these words as poetic. Here we must again be conservative, this time in defininghigh alliteration. Since the aggregate alliteration rate of all poetic words is 82.3%, analliteration rate of 85 % or better would be suitable for identifying prose words whoseusage deserves to be described as "poetic." But no conclusions about the status of thesewords can be reached until we have carefully examined all their occurrences in bothpoetry and prose.

It is possible to argue, of course, that these prose words enjoy a high alliteration ratesimply because the poets found them useful in meeting the demands of alliteration. But thealliterative usefulness of a word such as bold, which always alliterates in 21 occurrences,or fcehd, which always alliterates in 40 occurrences, would not prevent the poets fromusing them occasionally in non-alliterating positions. As in the case of many of the wordsfound only in poetry, their constant alliteration can only be a stylistic feature of the words,for there is nothing in the structure of the verse which requires 100% alliteration.

This is a point that must be stressed, especially in regard to poetic words. To conclude,as Marie Borroff does, that these words were used because they were a technical aid in thecomposition of the verse, and not because of their stylistic value, is to ignore the interplayof the structural and the stylistic. Such a conclusion implies that when the poets used thesewords they were unaware of the impression that words which are emphasized by bothstress and constant alliteration, and which are further distinguished by restriction topoetry, would make upon their audience. It is foolish to deny that the poets themselveswere aware of the stylistic dimension of their own vocabulary. These words were usefultools in meeting the alliterative requirements of the line, but the absence of many of themfrom non-alliterative positions, and the high alliteration rate of others, is a deliberatestylistic feature. Alliterative frequency functions as a measure of poetic worth because thestylistic dimension of Old English poetry often consists of an exaggeration, a heightening,of the structural demands of the verse.

In Old English the distinction between words of high alliterative rank and those of lowrank is not always clear-cut. The alliteration rate of many words is, strictly speaking,neither high nor low, but simply average. Despite this gradation of rank, the connectionbetween a high rate of alliteration and words which are marked by some other characteris-tic—restriction to poetry, possible descent from a common Germanic poetic tradition, usein a figurative or extended meaning—is consistent. This connection is not absolute, forthere are words found only in poetry that have a low alliteration rate, and words that occurin both poetry and prose that have a high alliteration rate. But the consistency of theconnection is sufficient to demonstrate that in Old English poetry a high alliteration rate is

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a reflection of a stylistic quality inherent in certain words. This knowledge enables us touse alliterative frequency to rank synonyms according to their poetic worth, and also todefine more precisely the poetic vocabulary.

45 Franklin StreetEast Providence, RI 02915USA

NOTES1 Marie Borroff "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight": A Stylistic and Metrical Study (New Haven,

1962), p. 60. The words she discusses are burne, freke, gome, hapel, lede, renk, schalk, segge,talk, and wyge, which alliterate 263 times in 264 occurrences. Borroff bases her discussion on theresearch of August Brink, presented in Stab and Wort im Gawain: eine stylistische Untersuchung,Studien zur englischen Philologie, 59 (Halle, 1920).

2 T. A. Shippey, Old English Verse (London, 1972), pp. 102-103.3 Poetic words are those which are restricted to poetry, or which have only a few exceptional

occurrences in prose or glosses. In compiling a list of poetic words I have relied on theidentifications in John R. Clark Hall, A Concise Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, 4th ed. (Cambridge,1960), and in the glossary in Fr. Klaeber, Beowulf and the Fight at Finnsburg, 3rd ed. (Lexington,Mass., 1950), checking each word myself on A Microfiche Concordance to Old English, compiledby Antonette diPaolo Healy and Richard L. Venezky (Toronto, 1980). I am using "non-poetic" todesignate those words that occur in both poetry and prose.

4 I refer here only to those collective stylistic features that are a common characteristic of all poems,and not to the stylistic usages of individual poets.

5 All abbreviations of poem titles are those adopted in A Concordance to the Anglo-Saxon PoeticRecords, ed. by J. B. Bessinger, programmed by Philip H. Smith (Ithaca, 1978), pp. xiii-xv.

6 Because there are so few prose remains in Old Saxon, we cannot be sure that words found only inOld Saxon poetry are indeed poetic. However, when all the cognates of Old Saxon words arepoetic, as is the case with all the words from the Heliand included under group I, below, it is verylikely that the Old Saxon words are poetic as well.

7 The idea of such a tradition is, of course, highly speculative.8 In determining which words are poetic in Old Icelandic, I have relied on Richard Cleasby and

Gudbrand Vigfusson, An Icelandic-English Dictionary, 2nd ed. (Oxford, 1957), and Jan de Vries,Altnordisches Etymologisches Worterbuch (Leiden, 1961).

9 As Borroff, p. 30, observes, "distinctive qualities of style are dependent on restriction in range ofuse."

10 For a discussion of the difference between a kent heiti and a kenning, see A. G. Brodeur, The Artof Beowulf (Berkeley, 1960), pp. 17-20.

11 Scyldingas alliterates only twice in 35 occurrences.12 In Beowulf, verses of metrical type E with resolved stress in the final position (--x^x) always bear

double alliteration when they occur in the a-verse (14x). Verse 881a earn his nefan, is a possibleexception; the scansion of this verse is doubtful. Private communication from Calvin Kendall.

13 The passages examined are Bwf 662-990 and 2892-3016; Gen A 1002-1201; Exo 200-399; Dan1-100; And 1-199; Ele 221-411; Chr II 440-539; Chr III 1565-1664; Glc A 100-199; Jln 140-239;Wan 1-50; GfM 1-50; Sfr 1-50; Riddles 1, 6, 11, 21, 40, 58 (100 lines); Brb 1-50; Mid 1-50; PPs 73(74 lines); PPs 113 (79 lines); PPs 131 (59 lines); MB 1 (84 lines); and MB 11 (102 lines).

14 See previous note for list of passages examined. There are 2963 alliterating occurrences out of atotal of 3920, The passage from Gen A, at 78.9%, has the highest frequency of alliteration; PPs 73,at 58.3 %, the lowest. In general, it appears that PPs and MB have a lower frequency of alliterationthan the rest of the poetry, although the frequency varies with each psalm and metra. With theexception of the low rates of PPs 73, PPs 113 (63.8%) and MB 11 (63.2%), alliteration rates of allpassages fall between the 72.4% rate of the lines from Chr II and the 78.9% rate of the passagefrom Gen A.

15 The 78% rate of words for "warrior, hero" is skewed by the 37% rate of the 46 occurrences ofcempa. This contrasts sharply with the 97% rate of the other six words (96/99).

16 The dating of most poems is uncertain, but the majority were composed before palatal and velar gceased to alliterate, which appears to have occurred in the mid-tenth century. The alliteration ofthese two allophones of g has been confirmed as a valid criterion of early poetry by AshleyCrandell Amos, in her Linguistic Means of Determining the Dates of Old English Texts (Cam-bridge, Mass., 1980), pp. 100-102.

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156 Dennis Cronan Studia Neophil58 (1986)

APPENDIX: POETIC AND NON-POETIC SYNONYMS: ALLITERATION RATE

all. = alliterating occurrences, occ. = total occurrences. An asterisk identifies poetic words.

Man

ceorlmannwer

Total

All./occ.

3/13484/793201/265

689/982

Man, warrior, retainer

beorn*guma*haele/haelea*rinc*scealc*(servantsecg*eorlbegn

Total

Warrior, hero

freca*oretta*sceotend*wigend*cempadrengwiga

Total

Son, young manbyre*eafora*hyse*maecg*maga*mago*sunu

Total

Menfiras*ni99as*ylde*

Total

Sword

bill*brand*ecg*heoru*iren*mece*

128/128135/151232/27347/5510/118/17

65/67186/195106/155

909/1 035

3/37/98/8

38/3817/46

1/239/39

113/145

12/1270/8021/239/11

20/2012/12

143/195

287/353

51/5829/2971/72

151/159

24/251/1

32/332/2

11/1616/24

% all.

236976

70

1008985859147)949568

88

10078

1001003750

100

78

100889182

10010073

81

8810099

95

9610097

1006967

secg*sweord

Total

Shield

bord*lind*rand*scyld

Total

Spear

sesc*darod*gar*francaspere

Total

Boat, ship

far*lid*naca*batceolcnearfleotflotascip

Total

Sea, waterbrim*ear*geofon*hsf*hsern*holm*lagu*streamas*sund*waed*waer*wa9um*flodflotmeresaswaegwaster

Total

AlL/occ.

2/251/82

139/185

24/2911/1613/2014/22

62/87

6/77/7

38/433/31/11

55/71

5/68/86/106/6

24/301/11/16/6

11/23

68/91

28/294/4

22/222/21/1

37/4015/1515/1921/227/72/25/5

73/794/5

16/2350/8829/42

116/174

447/579

% all.

10063

75

83696564

71

8610088

1009

77

8310060

10080

10010010048

75

9710010010010092

1008095

100100100928070576967

77

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War, battle, fight

beadu*gu5*hild*lac*gelac*oret*sa?cc*tohte*campfeohtegefeohtplegasacustridwig

Total

Treasure

sine*maddumhord

concrete(figurative

gestreon

Total

Hall

reced*ssel*seld*sele*boldheallhofsalor

Total

Fire

jeled*bsl*adbrondbrynefyrgledleg

Total

Womanides*maeg*maegd*meowle*bryd

AU./occ.

14/1457/5755/57

1/10/23/3

24/244/47/99/10

14/140/1

13/141/3

65/70

266/283

46/4834/39

24/2711/201/19

105/133

19/258/96/8

27/2921/2124/3122/292/2

129/154

11/1121/2116/1814/1518/23

112/14516/2050/110

258/363

54/642/13

24/375/11

45/48

% all.

10010096

10008

88

1

7890

1000

933394

94

9687

8955)

5

79

76897593

1007773

100

84

100100899378778045

71

8415654594

cwenfasmnewif

Total

Horse

blanca*eoh*mearh*wicg*hors

Total

Earth, ground

folde*hruse*eordemolde

Total

Hand, palm

folm*mund*hand

Total

Death

swylt*cwalucwealmdea9mor3

Total

Blood

dreor*heolfor*swat*blod

Total

Lord, king

baldor*brego*brytta*eodor*fengel*frea*hearra*helm*hleo*rasswa*dengel*5eoden*

AlL/occ.

31/4550/5198/110

309/379

3/33/3

17/2219/207/7

49/55

180/19245/45

394/52335/37

654/797

49/5915/15

167/262

231/336

18/184/4

20/33130/155

6/6

178/216

8/1010/1017/1843/57

78/95

1/1027/32

5/364/40/4

141/17728/3020/38

1/262/180/2

129/171

96 all.

699889

82

1001007795

100

89

941007595

87

8310064

69

1001006184

100

82

801009475

82

108414

1000

8093534

110

75

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wine*cyningealdorhiaforddryhten

without PPs(PPs only

All./occ.

10/11170/36331/10448/57

347/582120/532

% all.

91473084

6023)

wisa*weard

'king, lord'*('guard'

Total

All./occ.

6/13

15/12017/29

985/1 798

% all.

46

1359)

55

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alliterative rank in old english poetry

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