The Composition of Old English Poetry

This book offers an imaginative new way of understanding the relationship between syntax and metre in Old English verse. It challenges the view that Old English poetry is composed in loose syntax to compensate for the strict requirements of prosody, such as metre and alliteration. The author proposes a 'prosodical' syntax to replace the famous syntactic laws of Hans Kuhn through its greater accuracy and wider range of application. She formulates three concise rules which apply to the...
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This book offers an imaginative new way of understanding the relationship between syntax and metre in Old English verse. It challenges the view that Old English poetry is composed in loose syntax to compensate for the strict requirements of prosody, such as metre and alliteration. The author proposes a 'prosodical' syntax to replace the famous syntactic laws of Hans Kuhn through its greater accuracy and wider range of application. She formulates three concise rules which apply to the entire Old English poetic corpus.