Robin wrote:

>But Anglo-Saxon metrics is Candice's field, not >mine

Thank you, Rhododentron, for endowing me with such
(undeserved) expertise! I was never much good at
metrics of any period (not having the ear for it), and
my work in A-S poetics more generally occurred many
years ago. Still, I remain interested in the tensions
and overlaps of the Old and Middle English languages
as they collided in the emphases of their
respective--but also overlapping--periods.

The issue of alliteration's function in the works of
the _Pearl_ poet, Langland, and others who spawned the
so-called northern revival constitutes a
poetic-political example of a collision between the
literate and the unlettered English periods, as does
_Beowulf_, to a lesser degree and from the opposite
direction. That is, _B._'s poetics are mainly derived
from the (pagan) oral tradition, with alliteration
serving a largely mnemonic function (classically, at
least) and, as a way of both introducing and recalling
the culture's evolving Christianity and literacy. By
the time you get to Middle English poetry, the oral
tradition and the mnemonic devices it necessitated
have become mainly decorative and virtually
error-free--unlike works such as _Beowulf_ which are
riddled with alliterative errors. The Middle English
works, on the other hand, give their literacy away by
being too perfect and by overdoing the alliteration,
for example.

The sonnet lines you quote from Shakespeare and others
of his period tend to use alliteration sloppily and
without conveying any sense of necessity because there
really is no need for a mnemonic device once writing
has become the norm. I agree with you, though, in your
assumption that Shakespeare et al probably didn't have
access to the older works (many of which were still
being collected by the aristocracy for their personal
libraries), and I have long suspected that there is
something in English per se that's expressed via
alliteration (and assonance) in these works or, as in
modern times, is rejected as doggeral. The
alliteration you note in Shakespearean sonnets is too
haphazard to constitute a poetic style or technique or
something conscious and deliberate, it seems to me.

As for the question (Jon's, I think) about the
existence of modern, scholarly work on such phenomena,
I'm not familiar with any, but, as I said, my own
ruminations on these issues occurred years ago, and my
interests have since shifted even further back to
runes and their relationship to an oral culture
gradually becoming literate. 

I wonder what Christopher Walker thinks--?

Candice


       
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