I agree - at least in most of the modern translations I've seen,
alliterative verse has a very clumsy sound. Yet I don't get that effect from
the Middle English alliterative verse I've read. Is it that contemporary
language doesn't suit the form, or are modern practitioners just doing it
badly? I've often been tempted to try it for a modern poem, but so far
haven't dared. A friend of mine had a go, though, using a modified form with
only two alliterated words, and it was quite effective, though not very
recognizable as alliterative verse.
Best wishes
Matthew
----- Original Message -----
From: "Michael Snider" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Wednesday, August 08, 2001 1:53 PM
Subject: Re: Beowulf (was Re: HG my name JG my game WS wont same)
> It's hard for me to read anything more than about 50 lines in
> alliterative meter without getting restless -- it does thump along. M&S
> have taken more frequent liberties than the original, allowing almost
> any pattern that alliterates 3 of 4 stresses (there are exceptions, but
> in the original it's almost always 2 in the first and 1 in the second
> hemistitch), occasional alliteration on unstressed syllables, and very
> occasional cross-alliteration in a line.
>
>
>
> On Wednesday, August 8, 2001, at 03:53 AM, Candice Ward wrote:
>
> > Thanks very much, Michael, for the link to this site, which I didn't
> > know,
> > and the news of the forthcoming translation. (I particularly liked the
> > site's comparative translation page--what a labor of love!) Not sure
> > what to
> > make of the Murphy & Sullivan rendition, which at first glance seems
> > rather
> > comic-book (but then so is Beowulf), and its sing-songy rhythm gets
> > monotonous pretty quickly for me. But I need to give it a more thorough
> > study.
> >
> > Very glad to see a link at this site to Kevin Kiernan's Electronic
> > Beowulf
> > Project--the most spectacular new work on the text since the Creed and
> > Foley
> > digital-metrics analyses of the 1980s, I'd say.
> >
> > Candice
> >
> >
> >
> > on 8/6/01 11:10 AM, Michael Snider at [log in to unmask] wrote:
> >
> >> Tim Murphy and Alan Sullivan's new translation will be in the next
> >> edition of Longman's -- meanwhile, there's a generous selection from it
> >> at http://www.jps.net/pdeane/fgr/beoInfo.htm
> >>
> >> Also has a link to an Anglo-Saxon net text.
> >>
> >> On Monday, August 6, 2001, at 12:38 AM, Robin Hamilton wrote:
> >>>
> >>>> Trick question! (Go ask Shameless Seamus, why dontcha?)
> >>>
> >>> See above. I refuse to reopen Heaney's translation without greater
> >>> provocation.
> >
>
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