Billeder på siden
PDF
ePub

Schubert, like Lachmann, distinguishes between stronger and weaker hebungen, e.g. márnè be mæstè, flóta stíllè bád, after wal-nidè etc., so that various rhythms arise through the change of stronger and weaker hebungen in the many foursyllable verses of Beowulf: léofnè péodèn, ón flódès áht, sægèngà fór etc. Schubert, however, was compelled to give two hebungen to disyllabic words with a short root-syllable at the end of the verse, in order to scan with four beats, e.g. ín géar-dàgùm, léof lánd-frùmà, bónne ủng cúmè, git-rình mónig etc. Also verses such as peod-cýningà he read with four beats. On the other hand he could not bring himself to put a beat on monosyllabic prefixes or proclitics; and so he scanned verses such as wil-gesidàs, fórd onséndòn, wórd-hòrd onléac, ālédòn þá, gewáden hæfdè mén ne cúnnòn, be ýd-làfè, se sýn-scáđà, pe mé sẽ gódà with three beats, verses such as gecýste þá, ne léof ne láð with only two beats even. He recognized, however, that in these cases, as a rule, a long stressed syllable must precede the prefix or proclitic (see below § 51): "in ternariis illis proxima ante thesim praefixo vel proclitico expletam arsis oportet longa sit vel in consonantem desinat" (p. 26). The 'schwellverse' (Beow. 1163-68, 1705-7, 2995 f.) Schubert scanned with six beats (p. 52 ff.). By means of his rules he emended many verses in Beowulf and corrected wrong verse divisions etc.

§ 21. Two-Beat Theory: Wackernagel. Since, as we see from the essays of Jessen and Amelung and Schubert's dissertation, also from an essay by Bartsch, Zum Muspilli, Germania 3, 7—21 (1858), the application of Lachmann's four-beat theory to all old Germanic alliterative poetry made many difficulties, other scholars looked on the half-verse of the alliterative long line as containing not four, but only two beats. And so Wackernagel in his Geschichte der deutschen Literatur, Basel 1848, p. 45 f. (2. ed. 1879, p. 57 f.) explained that each half verse, "whilst the number of unstressed or weakly stressed syllables is not limited, [contains] two, to which their grammatical value and the connection of the words lends a strong accent"..

§ 22. Rieger, Vetter, Hildebrand, Schipper.

In the same way Rieger in his Bemerkungen zum Hildebrandsliede, Germania 9, 295-320 (1864) speaks of the "old national hemistich of two hebungen, which could be surrounded by any number of unstressed or weakly stressed syllables, provided that the two strongly stressed syllables could rise above the others and join them to a unity" (p. 297).

The two-beat theory was treated in more detail and applied especially to OHG., OS. and OE. verse by Th. Vetter, Über die germanische Alliterationspoesie, Vienna 1872 (Göttingen dissertation); Zum Muspilli und zur germanischen Alliterations

poesie, Vienna 1872; and by Rieger, Die alt- und angelsächsische Verskunst, ZfdPh. 7, 1—64 (1876). Hildebrand applied the two-beat theory to ON. alliterative poetry, Die Versteilung in den Eddaliedern, Ergänzungsband zur ZfdPh. pp. 74-139 (1847). In his treatment of OE. alliterative verse in his Altenglische Metrik (1882) Schipper adopted the two-beat theory, as formulated by Wackernagel, Rieger and Vetter; but in his Grundriss der englischen Metrik (1895) he gives a detailed description of Sievers' Type-system, which had in the meantime been published.

§ 23. Laws of the Two-Beat Theory.

The laws of the two-beat theory are in essence the following:

Every half-verse has two stressed syllables (arses) and at least one unstressed syllable (thesis), either before the first stressed syllable (in this case called anacrusis) or after the first or second stressed syllable.

The arsis is always limited to one syllable, the thesis may embrace two or more syllables; in the same way the anacrusis may contain many syllables.

"The two hebungen (arses) are", as Schipper, Engl. Metr. I § 32, p. 56 says, "the essential and regularly required skeleton of the half-verse, whilst the senkungen (theses) are the flesh, which covers the skeleton. The flesh may be much or little, but there must be some flesh".

§ 24. Criticism of the Two-Beat Theory. The two-beat theory looks simple enough, but, when strictly applied, it leads to new difficulties. It can, of course, explain the many OE. foursyllable verses better than the four-beat theory, for we can read: lánge hwile, land gesáwon, géong in géardum, purh mine hánd, múrnende mód, pone gód sénde, sæ-lidende etc. with a fairly regular distribution of arses and theses. Also verses, in which according to the four-beat theory a disyllabic word with a short root-syllable must bear two stresses, cause no difficulty: in geár-dágum, on béarm scípes, léof lánd-fruma. Even the verses with three syllables, which occasionally occur in the texts handed down to us, require no alteration according to the two-beat theory, for they contain the necessary two arses and one thesis: héan húses, mán gepéon.

In verses of five syllables such as fólce tō frófre, wéox under wólenum, him pa Scýld gewát, pone gód sende, there must be two syllables in the thesis or in the anacrusis, whilst in verses of six, seven or eight syllables, which are not very rare in OE., e.g. mál is me to féran, mid his haleda gedriht, gewát him pa to wárode, and still more in the longer OS. and OHG. verses (cp. above § 12) the theses become so unwieldy that a clear rhythmical structure of the verse is hard to obtain by the two-beat theory.

The two-beat theory, however, fails entirely for

all verses

whether they contain four or more syllables -, which contain not only two, but three independent strongly stressed words (three nouns, two nouns and a verb, noun, adverb and verb), none of which we can possibly put in the thesis, e.g. wlánc Wédera leod, átol ýđa geswing, grétte Géata leod, blæd wide sprang, flóta stille bad. According to the two-beat theory the two beats of the verse must fall on the root-syllables of the first two words, leaving at the end of the verse a 'thesis' of two or three syllables, consisting of one or two inflexional syllables and an independent strongly stressed noun or verb (-ta leod, -de sprang, -le bad; -dera leod, -da geswing) this is a phenomenon unheard of in Old Germanic prosody.

In the same way it is not easy to see why according to the two-beat theory the long middle syllable of trisyllabic words with a long root-syllable (or of four-syllable words with a short rootsyllable), or the root-syllable of the second part of a compound is to be reckoned at one time as an arsis, e.g. swā ríxóde, him sẽ ýldésta, hũ þā ædelíngas in geárdágum, ofer hrón-ráde, ofer lágu-stráte, but at another time only as a thesis, e.g. góde páncōde, wine Scýldinga - múrnende mód - féond máncynnes, side sa-næssas - wéordmyndum þáh, wórold-are forgeáf etc. In the last case, therefore, later up-holders of the two-beat theory, e.g. Sievers, have given at least the rank of a 'nebenhebung' (minor stress) to the heavy

-

« ForrigeFortsæt »