the quantity of the syllables, a long syllable may be declared 'metrically short', the system certainly does not gain in clearness and reliability. § 58. Trautmann's 16+12 Verse-forms ('Versgestalten'). Trautmann's fundamental scheme xululu100 falls into 16 sub-divisions by contraction of any two 'Weilen' of a bar to one long syllable: a) ending in two syllables: 1. xulúulúulóu ófer | héofoná ge|hlídu séaro-bón cúm besmipod b) ending in one syllable: 9. xulúulóulé hæled|únder | héofe\ním 10. le tó | brímes | fárodé 11. xullúule 12. xlúulele 13. 120l 14.21úle 15. xullo 16. 222e hé þæs | fró|fré ge|båd In addition to these there are also subforms, the so-called 'extended verses' ('Dehnverse'), "twelve altogether", in all of which one syllable must fill two consecutive bars: All these 16+12 forms can have or not have a 'Vorschlag' (= anacrusis). Trautmann looks on the so-called schwellverse as verses with six bars. § 59. Criticism of Trautmann's System. Trautmann's system is quite unsatisfactory, for it makes a chief point of something of little importance, the representation of two moren by two short syllables or by one long one. It also obliterates the rhythmical forms, which actually impress themselves in the grouping of the speech-material, and does not at all take into consideration, whether the 'Versgestalten' (verse-forms), constructed by him, clearly impress themselves as separate forms in the texts handed down to us. Thus, for example, the first eight verse-forms are composed of the quite rare B, D2 and E verses with a final resolved stress, whilst all verses of four syllables, i.e. the third part of all Beowulf, are pressed together into the last verse-form of all (16). Verses of exactly the same cadence, as, e.g. haled under heofenum (9) and weox under wolcnum (14) bealuwa bisigu (11), mādma manigo (13), monegum māgāum (15) and lange hwile (16) are separated from one another as quite different kinds of verse. On the other hand, however, verses of quite different structure, which happen to have four syllables, are thrown all together, and, without any attention being paid to the natural stress of ordinary speech, scanned with four equally strong beats: lángé hwílé, þúrh míné hánd, blæd widé spráng, múrnéndé mód, swá ríxódé, féond máncýnnés. Even the rigid two-beat theory of Vetter and Rieger, which at least paid attention to the accent, the chief foundation of Germanic verse, is better than such a four-beat theory. In the twelve subforms also quite different things are mixed, real contractions like nean, hean, dōn, fleon, teon, and such, which are not: gud, gār, gear, peod. If in the latter case it is Trautmann's opinion (p. 185) that gār, pēod etc. were originally disyllabic and could therefore have two beats: gáirú, þéudő, then, in the first place, it is not true, for the final syllables of such words had no stress of their own at an earlier period (cp. Kaluza, Zur Betonungs- und Verslehre des Altenglischen, Fest schrift für Schade 1896, pp. 103 ff.); in the second place, if they had had a stress, then this stress must belong to all the present monosyllabic substantives in OE., and it is not easy to see why only some of them should take two beats of the verse, and especially only before two short syllables. In short Trautmann's 'Silbendauerlehre' (syllable-duration doctrine) is quite useless for a clear view of the peculiarities of OE. alliterative verse. § 60. Martin. I can here only shortly refer to Martin's essay, which recently appeared, Der Versbau des Heliand und der altsächsischen Genesis. Quellen und Forschungen. Heft 100, Strassburg 1907. This deals. exclusively with OS. verse. Martin, who earlier (Zfd Ph. 22, 468. 27, 120 f.; cp. § 54) had declared it possible to unite Sievers' types with the fourbeat theory, in his view of the verses of the Heliand and Genesis follows Schmeller, Über den Versbau in der alliterierenden Poesie (1844) and his definition of the 'Cadence' (i.e. that part of the second half-line from the chief alliterating sound to the end). Like Sievers Martin divides the half-lines into "four members of the verse, two of which in varying positions are raised by a stronger stress above the other two"; but he can "give Sievers' types only a statistical value for old poetry". § 61. Neither two nor four Beats, but four Members. From the above survey of the various theories regarding the rhythmical structure of Old Germanic alliterative verse, which have been advanced during the last 75 years, it is certain that only the number four makes a uniform view of alliterative verse possible. These four parts, however, into which the alliterative verse may be divided, are not of equal value, but are different in stress and length, and can be arranged in different orders to form definite 'rhythmical series' or 'types'! Whether these four indispensable parts of the alliterative verse, which point back to an Indo-Germanic original verse of four bars and must severally be represented by a syllable, can all be looked on as hebungen (in the sense in which the word is used for prosody or for ordinary speech); or whether this term is suitable only for those most strongly stressed syllables of the verse, made prominent by the alliteration, whilst the weaker stresses have sunk to 'weakly stressed' or 'necessary' senkungen, however one chooses to call them on all this there is hitherto no uniformity of opinion. But the terms are of little importance, since the old poets obviously knew nothing of our modern conceptions hebung and senkung, but composed their verses merely by fitting the speechmaterial at their disposal to melodies of four members, which they received from an earlier time. |