Jon asked, "Did the ancients think of poetry in
'lines'?"
No, in _measures_, so far as we can tell from the work
of Albert Lord and others prior to the Yugoslavian
literacy campaign that put paid to the oral tradition
there last century. Lines, as such, were the work of
scribes to whom the oral poets dictated their
compositions.
To be fair, there's still a contingent of scholars who
don't accept the oral tradition--and who, in the case
of Beowulf, read it as thoroughly Christian to boot.
Obviously, I guess, my training was at the hands of
the Lord school....
Candice
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