The Question Is: But How Did It All Begin?
Creating this blog has been an interesting exercise. In the musical, Joseph and The Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat, there is a song called "Any Dream Will Do". One of the lines in that song says: "let us return, to the beginning". I have found myself in need of returning to the beginning.
In our first lecture this year, we learned that "poesy" can be traced back to a Greek root that means "imaginative writing". "Poetry" is about "making something". Poetry, like music, exists "in time". Poetry has rhythm. A poet is a person who works as a "maker" - a poet re-arranges an idea into a visible linear pattern (shape) using words as material.
All of this got me thinking more about words and how they must get formed and then re-arranged from an oral sound to a visible shape using symbols (letters). My theory would probably have people who study language development shaking their heads, but no matter, this is my thinking, and for better or worse, I'm going to own it for this day, or at least own up to it. Any language, but to be specific, I will use the English language, begins with the voice and the ear and is a development of patterns of sound spoken and heard. When repeated often enough, a grouping of sound patterns becomes a word that can be recognized as having a meaning for a group of people who live in a social community. It allows people access to communication with one another.
To transfer a word from an oral to a written form, it is necessary that common symbols (in the case of present English, symbols of the Roman alphabet) are used in a particular order. In this way, a person looking at the symbols will recognize the pattern that is represented, and be able to understand the meaning or learn the meaning. The majority of humans have the ability to retain and relate symbols to obtain cognition of this concept.
In writing music, patterns are formed using notation and space symbols that are placed and spaced in a particular order in order to achieve the full pattern of the sound. Patterns in both spoken language and in music are those of rhythm and tone. In language, although we do not think about it, our words are made of a series of stressed and unstressed syllables linked with more and more of these until a grouping of word patterns forms a complete thought that is able to be communicated.
Poetry could not be made without words, and the particular words used must have meaning to the hearer in order to be appreciated for the idea that is being expressed. In the alternate, the hearer must have a desire to make meaning of words he or she is hearing, even if none exists initially.
A SHORT HISTORY OF OUR LANGUAGE or
The Things You Might Not Have Questioned
From Henry Sweet's, A Short Historical English Grammar, published in 1892 (Clarendon Press), I read that the name 'English language' in its widest sense comprehends the language of the English people from their first settlement in Britain to the present time. There are three main stages of history of the English language as shown in the following chart (which doesn't want to publish as a chart):
Name/Represented By/Time Period
Early Old English/E. of Alfred/700-900
Late Old English/E. of Ælfric/900-1100
Transition Old English/E. of Layamon/1100-1200
Early Middle English/E. of the Ancren Riwle/1200-1300
Late Middle English/E. of Chaucer/1300-1400
Transition Middle English/Caxton E./1400-1500
Early Modern English/Tudor E.; E. of Shakespeare/1500-1650
Late Modern English/ (nothing shown to represent time) 1650 -
Present English/1900s -
Note: Sweet's book did not have a representative literature named in the Late Modern English period, nor did he tell when this ended, but when he was writing his book near the end of the 1800s, he named this period "Present English".
COGNATE LANGUAGES [languages that are allied (proceed from the same root) with English].
English belongs to the Arian family of languages, descended from a hypothetical Parent Arian language as follows:
East-Arian (Asiatic)
Sanskrit (sacred language of India),
Gaurian (languages of India),
Iranian (Zend or Old Bactrian, Old Persian, which is the language of the Cuneiform inscriptions - Modern Persian),
Armenian (half-way between East and West Arian)
West-Arian (European)
Greek,
Latin (Romance languages: Italian, Provencal, Old/Modern French, Spanish, Portuguese, Roumanian,
Celtic languages, Gaulish, Goidelic group: Irish, Manx, Gaelic
Cymric group: Welsh, Cornish, Breton (introduced from Britain),
Slavonic languages (Old Bulgarian - Russian, Polish, Bohemian, Servian, Bulgarian),
Baltic languages (Lithuanian, Lettish),
Germanic.
The Germanic group to which English belongs, consists of the following languages:
East-Germanic: Gothic, Scandinavian (West group is Norwegian and Icelandic - East group is Danish and Swedish
West-Germanic: Low German languages, Old Saxon - Dutch, Flemish, Anglo-Frisian group: English, Frisian, High German (German).
English is a member of the Anglo-Frisian group of the Low German languages. In the 5th-century or perhaps earlier, Britain was partially conquered by a variety of Germanic tribes, the chief of which were Saxons, Angles and Jutes. All of these tribes spoke the same language with slight differences of dialect. These differences began to increase so that in the 8th-century there were four main dialects: Northumbrian and Mercian (Anglian group), and West-Saxon and Kentish (Southern group). Because the Angles were for a long time the dominant tribe, all the tribes agreed to call their common language English, that is, 'Anglish'.
THE FIRST MATERIALS OF ENGLISH and THE FIRST MATERIALS USED
The Materials for the History of Anglo-Saxon Poetry up to the Accession of Ælfred The Great [taken from Stopford A. Brooke's, The History of Early English Literature: Being the History of English Poetry from Its Beginnings to the Accession of King U+00C6lfred (Macmillian and Co), 1892]
The Exeter Book formed part of a library which Leofric, the first bishop of Exeter, collected and left to his cathedral church. The poems were given to him between the years of 1046 and 1073. He catalogued it as a Mycel Englisc boc be gehwilcum pingum on leoðwisan geworht: "A miclel English book on all kinds of things wrought in verse." It is a varied anthology, and contains poems which range from the 8th-10th-century. One or two may belong to the 7th-century, and some may be of even higher antiquity. Widsith, for example, may contain verses which were made in the old Angle land over the seas. It holds: The Christ, Guthlac, Azarias, The Phœnix, Juliana, The Wanderer, Gifts of Men, The Seafarer, Widsith, Fates of Men, Gnomic Verses, The Panther, Whale and Partridge, The Soul to its Body, Deor, Riddles 1-60, The Wife's Complaint, The Descent into Hell, Riddle 61, The Message of a Lover, The Ruin, Riddles 62-89.
The Vercelli Book was discovered in Vercelli (Upper Italy), in 1832. Although no one knows hot it got there, it is conjectured that a Hospice existed in that town for Anglo-Saxon pilgrims who went on pilgrimage to Rome. The book is a volume of Anglo-Saxon homilies, but interspersed among them are six poems: The Andreas, The Fates of the Apostles, The Address for the Soul to the Body, the Dream of the Rood, The Elene. The last is a fragment on the Falsehood of Men. The handwriting is of the 11th-century.
The Manuscript of Beowulf is in the British Museum, and the same manuscript contains the poem of Judith.
The Junian Manuscript, of the Caedmonian poems. This contains Genesis, Exodus, Daniel, ChristandSatan, and is in the Bodleian.
Two fragments, The Fight at Finnsburg
Before the Roman church came to Britain, memory took nearly the whole place of what would become the written record. Teutonic (people who belonged to one of the Teutonic languages, High and Low German, Gothic and Scandanavian) carvings could be made on stone, metal or whalebone, but usually were cut on a piece of smooth wood, or bark of the beech or ash tree. The OE word "bóc" meant also the beech-tree. The Latin for book was bark, liber, from where we get the word "library".
A Book of Exeter Example
The following is a small part of Widsith taken from the book, English Writers: An Attempt Towards a History of English Literature, Volume: 2, by Henry Morley (Cassell & Company), 1887.
Widsith - Farway - whose name signifies his travel into distant lands -
Widsith unlocked his word-hoard; and then spake
He among men whose travel over earth
Was farthest through the tribes and through the folks:
Treasure to be remembered came to him
Often in hall,
Among the Myrgings, nobles gave him birth.
In his first journey he, with E lhhild,
The pure peacemaker, sought the fierce king's home,
Eastward of Ongle, home of Eormanric,
The wrathful treaty-breaker.
Unlocking Widsith's "wordhoard" -
"Of many things then he began to speak:
Much have I asked and learnt of men in rule
Over the peoples;--every chief must live
Following others in his country's rule,
By custom, who would thrive upon his throne.
Of such was Hwalai once most prosperous
And Alexander, wealthiest of all
The race of man, and he throve most of those
Whom I have heard of, asking through the world."
The poem goes on to give a list of the great chiefs who ruled over tribes and peoples of the north of Europe:--
"Atilla ruled the Huns; Hermanaric
The Goths; over the Banings Becca rules;
Over the Burgends G ỉfica. The Greeks
Were under Cæsar; Cælic ruled the Fins;
Hagena the Island tribes, the Henden Gloms;
Witta ruled Swæfs; the Hælsings Wada ruled,
Meaca the Myrgings; the Hundings, Mearcolf.
Theodric ruled the Franks; the Rondings Thyle,
Breoca the Brondings. Billing ruled the Werns;
Oswine the Eowas; over the Jutes Gefwulf;
Fin son of Folcwald ruled the Frisian race;
Sigehere ruled longest over the Sea Danes;
Hn'f ruled the Hocings; Helm the Wulfings; Wald
The Woings; W¢đ the Thyrings; and S'ferth
The Sycgs, and Ongetheow the Swedes; Sceafthere
The Ymbers; Sceafa the Longbards; and Han
The Hætwers; Holen ruled over the Wrosns.
Hringwals the Herefaras' king was named.
Offa ruled Ongle; Alewih the Danes;
Of all these men he was the proudest, yet
He over Offa won no mastery,
But earliest among men, while yet a child,
The greatest of the kingdoms Offa won."
(As Morley notes: There is a rough order in the naming of the tribes whose chiefs are recorded in this passage; they are named generally from the east westward towards the North Sea.)
Morley goes on to say: "In all these names of places and of people we see dimly through a mist movement of tribes in the north of Europe in the latter half of the fifth century and the beginning of the sixth, and we hear faint and far off the sound of the names of chiefs then famous for their prowess. They belong still to the days of history that comes to us transformed by the poets who struck the glee-beam in the halls of the great chiefs, and shaped their deeds into triumphant song, in which their enemies often figured as monster-forms, and they themselves were raised to demigods."
Morley advises his readers to remember that such songs come down to us, whether First-English or Scandinavian, never in their own first voice, always as echoes. This compels us to recognize that in the most ancient pieces of our literature, which had their rise in the old home upon the mainland, we have not the old songs themselves, but early reproductions of them…in the days when poems were handed down from generation to generation by oral tradition, and their delivery was entrusted to a distinct class of reciters, the hearers looked for strict fidelity in the recital.
THE SCÓ P
Shapers (makers) of visual art create a lasting form that takes space, but shapers of dance, music and poetry need living interpreters to give them form. They do not rest in space. They move in time. Dance moves the body in a rhythm, music moves in other than articulate sound, and poetry moves in the sound of human speech. In earliest times, dance, music and poetry were one - either a recitation by one person, or told in a drama.
The Anglo-Saxon Scóp (Gleeman) emphasized his rhythmic chant with chords struck on a harp (glee-beam). Later the accompaniment was with a fiddle. The Scóp carried the whole literature of his people. He was like an author and a publisher. He maintained the old and added the new. The Scóp's wealth hung on the favour of strong chiefs, who gave gifts to those who could sing their praises. The chief's followers cheered each tale. The Scóp was above all else, a poet. In the Mead Halls where Scóps performed, there were also entertainers - who sang, jested, recited and did gymnastics. Scóps travelled far - they were bearers of the latest news, not just from over the next few hills, but from long distances.
FIRST-ENGLISH VERSIFICATION
Accent
In shaping verses the First-English poet marked his rhythm by Accent. In Greek and Latin, natural quantity of sound, determining the time required for utterance, was used to express rhythmical time, without much reference to accent upon words. The Teutonic poets used art in the management of rhythm by accent, without much reference to natural quantity.
Since accent is stress of sound upon a syllable, accent gives emphasis. This was recognized in both verse and in ordinary speech by First-English. The chief accent in every word rested upon the syllable in which it's meaning lay. Syllables of less significance were avoided, and the accent never fell upon a prefix or a suffix. In shaping verses, a First-English poet did not break the bond that joined, in every word, the accent to the sense. And even now, much of the strength of English lies in this true fellowship of thought and sound.
If rise and fall of tone is considered inseparable from all connected speech into "high tone" and "low tone" and "no tone", where there is no stress, it comes close to silence. First-English poetry, although two high tones might sometimes follow in succession, did not depart from this principle. The result was that in words without a prefix, the high tone fell usually upon the first syllable of a word.
In Greek or Latin falls on one of the last three syllables of a word; in French, on one of the last two, and usually on the last. The romance usage differs from the Teutonic in not requiring stress of sound to correspond precisely with the stress of thought. It was not until after the Norman Conquest (1066) that the use of French pronunciation could so far affect the sound of English words in verse as to allow a poet to eke out his measure by putting a high tone upon the last syllable.
Alliteration
In the Alliteration that adorned his verse, the Scóp was true to the same principle. Every device of rhyme that calls attention to a word, gives emphasis. The First-English poet married sound to sense, and applied the emphasis of alliteration only at the points of the greatest stress in the expression of thought. He strengthened emphasis on the chief syllables of the chief words. Accent, everywhere significant in the true course of thought, was aided by Alliteration.
This construction gave to the form of First-English poetry inherent dignity and grace that could not be destroyed even by a weak reciter. A Scóp who was whole master of his art could still further heighten the expression by subtle variations of tone and modulations of voice, now soft, now terrible, through which the passions speak, and the true spirit of poetry within one man can breathe itself into the hearts of all.
There are three forms of the rhyme by which verses are linked together. They are as follows: Alliteration, Assonance, and the Full Rhyme to which alone the name of rhyme is commonly applied.
Alliteration is by the use of identical consonant sounds, or limitation to vowel sounds, usually not the same, at the beginnings of words. Assonance is by use of identical vowel sounds placed neither first nor last, but within words of which the consonants are not alike. In full rhyme there are at the ends of words identical sounds, which may include both vowels and consonants. Though full rhyme might here and there, be imitated from without, it made no part whatever of the system of oldest verse English.
First-English verse was formed of two half lines, each with two accents, united by alliteration into one long line of four accents. The three first of the four accented words, two in the first half-line and one in the second, were alliterated, and the letter of alliteration in the second line was looked upon as the chief letter, because its emphasis had grown in repetition. Assonance comes by use of the same vowels, not at the beginning of words, but within them, and not followed by corresponding consonants.
Although there was no counting of Syllables for the construction of an Anglo-Saxon verse, their number was not disregarded. In recitation, many or few unemphacized words between the main words by which time was marked, produced effects of animation, tumult, weighty and deliberate expression. This gave occasion for a finer skill in shaping of the song, and added yet another help to the attainment of full harmony in gesture, music, word and thought. Beyond this again, there was a freedom used in deviation from strict rule, when thought rose higher for the change.
In looking at Cædmon's Hymn, composed sometime between 658 and 680, it is clear that this follows the 'formula' for First-English verse. This is believed to be the earliest Old English poem. (I am 'blogging' this hymn for anyone who may read this blog and not have seen this before.)
CÆDMON'S HYMN
Nu sculon //herigean*******heofonrices// Weard
Now we must praise*********heaven-kingdom's Guardian,
Meotodes //meahte*********and his modgeþane
The Measurer's might********and his mind-plans,
weorc Wuldor-Fæder********swa he wundra gehwæs
The work of the Glory-Father,* when he of wonders of every one,
ece// Drihten*************** or// onstealde
Eternal Lord,*************** the beginning established.
He ærst sceop*************** ielda// bearmum
He first created************** for men's sons
The best discovery of Cædmon's Hymn that I made, even though I had missed it many times over as I read it, is that G-d is the original poet (scóp) - "sceop"(1/2 line 9) who "created", who "made". So, how did it all begin? This was the question, and this is where I began on this wild ride, and wondered where I would end up. The best answer I can give you is that it began in "meahte" (might) (1/2 line 3) and "modgeþane" (mind-plans) (1/2 line 4) of the Master and Original Poet. The need to be co-creators has been present in the world ever since, inspiring people like Cædmon and a whole host of others who took what is around us all the time (words) and married these to unique thought. This is 'the stuff' that has allowed the world to connect with the rhythm of the ages in the sound of poetry.
In our first lecture this year, we learned that "poesy" can be traced back to a Greek root that means "imaginative writing". "Poetry" is about "making something". Poetry, like music, exists "in time". Poetry has rhythm. A poet is a person who works as a "maker" - a poet re-arranges an idea into a visible linear pattern (shape) using words as material.
All of this got me thinking more about words and how they must get formed and then re-arranged from an oral sound to a visible shape using symbols (letters). My theory would probably have people who study language development shaking their heads, but no matter, this is my thinking, and for better or worse, I'm going to own it for this day, or at least own up to it. Any language, but to be specific, I will use the English language, begins with the voice and the ear and is a development of patterns of sound spoken and heard. When repeated often enough, a grouping of sound patterns becomes a word that can be recognized as having a meaning for a group of people who live in a social community. It allows people access to communication with one another.
To transfer a word from an oral to a written form, it is necessary that common symbols (in the case of present English, symbols of the Roman alphabet) are used in a particular order. In this way, a person looking at the symbols will recognize the pattern that is represented, and be able to understand the meaning or learn the meaning. The majority of humans have the ability to retain and relate symbols to obtain cognition of this concept.
In writing music, patterns are formed using notation and space symbols that are placed and spaced in a particular order in order to achieve the full pattern of the sound. Patterns in both spoken language and in music are those of rhythm and tone. In language, although we do not think about it, our words are made of a series of stressed and unstressed syllables linked with more and more of these until a grouping of word patterns forms a complete thought that is able to be communicated.
Poetry could not be made without words, and the particular words used must have meaning to the hearer in order to be appreciated for the idea that is being expressed. In the alternate, the hearer must have a desire to make meaning of words he or she is hearing, even if none exists initially.
A SHORT HISTORY OF OUR LANGUAGE or
The Things You Might Not Have Questioned
From Henry Sweet's, A Short Historical English Grammar, published in 1892 (Clarendon Press), I read that the name 'English language' in its widest sense comprehends the language of the English people from their first settlement in Britain to the present time. There are three main stages of history of the English language as shown in the following chart (which doesn't want to publish as a chart):
Name/Represented By/Time Period
Early Old English/E. of Alfred/700-900
Late Old English/E. of Ælfric/900-1100
Transition Old English/E. of Layamon/1100-1200
Early Middle English/E. of the Ancren Riwle/1200-1300
Late Middle English/E. of Chaucer/1300-1400
Transition Middle English/Caxton E./1400-1500
Early Modern English/Tudor E.; E. of Shakespeare/1500-1650
Late Modern English/ (nothing shown to represent time) 1650 -
Present English/1900s -
Note: Sweet's book did not have a representative literature named in the Late Modern English period, nor did he tell when this ended, but when he was writing his book near the end of the 1800s, he named this period "Present English".
COGNATE LANGUAGES [languages that are allied (proceed from the same root) with English].
English belongs to the Arian family of languages, descended from a hypothetical Parent Arian language as follows:
East-Arian (Asiatic)
Sanskrit (sacred language of India),
Gaurian (languages of India),
Iranian (Zend or Old Bactrian, Old Persian, which is the language of the Cuneiform inscriptions - Modern Persian),
Armenian (half-way between East and West Arian)
West-Arian (European)
Greek,
Latin (Romance languages: Italian, Provencal, Old/Modern French, Spanish, Portuguese, Roumanian,
Celtic languages, Gaulish, Goidelic group: Irish, Manx, Gaelic
Cymric group: Welsh, Cornish, Breton (introduced from Britain),
Slavonic languages (Old Bulgarian - Russian, Polish, Bohemian, Servian, Bulgarian),
Baltic languages (Lithuanian, Lettish),
Germanic.
The Germanic group to which English belongs, consists of the following languages:
East-Germanic: Gothic, Scandinavian (West group is Norwegian and Icelandic - East group is Danish and Swedish
West-Germanic: Low German languages, Old Saxon - Dutch, Flemish, Anglo-Frisian group: English, Frisian, High German (German).
English is a member of the Anglo-Frisian group of the Low German languages. In the 5th-century or perhaps earlier, Britain was partially conquered by a variety of Germanic tribes, the chief of which were Saxons, Angles and Jutes. All of these tribes spoke the same language with slight differences of dialect. These differences began to increase so that in the 8th-century there were four main dialects: Northumbrian and Mercian (Anglian group), and West-Saxon and Kentish (Southern group). Because the Angles were for a long time the dominant tribe, all the tribes agreed to call their common language English, that is, 'Anglish'.
THE FIRST MATERIALS OF ENGLISH and THE FIRST MATERIALS USED
The Materials for the History of Anglo-Saxon Poetry up to the Accession of Ælfred The Great [taken from Stopford A. Brooke's, The History of Early English Literature: Being the History of English Poetry from Its Beginnings to the Accession of King U+00C6lfred (Macmillian and Co), 1892]
The Exeter Book formed part of a library which Leofric, the first bishop of Exeter, collected and left to his cathedral church. The poems were given to him between the years of 1046 and 1073. He catalogued it as a Mycel Englisc boc be gehwilcum pingum on leoðwisan geworht: "A miclel English book on all kinds of things wrought in verse." It is a varied anthology, and contains poems which range from the 8th-10th-century. One or two may belong to the 7th-century, and some may be of even higher antiquity. Widsith, for example, may contain verses which were made in the old Angle land over the seas. It holds: The Christ, Guthlac, Azarias, The Phœnix, Juliana, The Wanderer, Gifts of Men, The Seafarer, Widsith, Fates of Men, Gnomic Verses, The Panther, Whale and Partridge, The Soul to its Body, Deor, Riddles 1-60, The Wife's Complaint, The Descent into Hell, Riddle 61, The Message of a Lover, The Ruin, Riddles 62-89.
The Vercelli Book was discovered in Vercelli (Upper Italy), in 1832. Although no one knows hot it got there, it is conjectured that a Hospice existed in that town for Anglo-Saxon pilgrims who went on pilgrimage to Rome. The book is a volume of Anglo-Saxon homilies, but interspersed among them are six poems: The Andreas, The Fates of the Apostles, The Address for the Soul to the Body, the Dream of the Rood, The Elene. The last is a fragment on the Falsehood of Men. The handwriting is of the 11th-century.
The Manuscript of Beowulf is in the British Museum, and the same manuscript contains the poem of Judith.
The Junian Manuscript, of the Caedmonian poems. This contains Genesis, Exodus, Daniel, ChristandSatan, and is in the Bodleian.
Two fragments, The Fight at Finnsburg
Before the Roman church came to Britain, memory took nearly the whole place of what would become the written record. Teutonic (people who belonged to one of the Teutonic languages, High and Low German, Gothic and Scandanavian) carvings could be made on stone, metal or whalebone, but usually were cut on a piece of smooth wood, or bark of the beech or ash tree. The OE word "bóc" meant also the beech-tree. The Latin for book was bark, liber, from where we get the word "library".
A Book of Exeter Example
The following is a small part of Widsith taken from the book, English Writers: An Attempt Towards a History of English Literature, Volume: 2, by Henry Morley (Cassell & Company), 1887.
Widsith - Farway - whose name signifies his travel into distant lands -
Widsith unlocked his word-hoard; and then spake
He among men whose travel over earth
Was farthest through the tribes and through the folks:
Treasure to be remembered came to him
Often in hall,
Among the Myrgings, nobles gave him birth.
In his first journey he, with E lhhild,
The pure peacemaker, sought the fierce king's home,
Eastward of Ongle, home of Eormanric,
The wrathful treaty-breaker.
Unlocking Widsith's "wordhoard" -
"Of many things then he began to speak:
Much have I asked and learnt of men in rule
Over the peoples;--every chief must live
Following others in his country's rule,
By custom, who would thrive upon his throne.
Of such was Hwalai once most prosperous
And Alexander, wealthiest of all
The race of man, and he throve most of those
Whom I have heard of, asking through the world."
The poem goes on to give a list of the great chiefs who ruled over tribes and peoples of the north of Europe:--
"Atilla ruled the Huns; Hermanaric
The Goths; over the Banings Becca rules;
Over the Burgends G ỉfica. The Greeks
Were under Cæsar; Cælic ruled the Fins;
Hagena the Island tribes, the Henden Gloms;
Witta ruled Swæfs; the Hælsings Wada ruled,
Meaca the Myrgings; the Hundings, Mearcolf.
Theodric ruled the Franks; the Rondings Thyle,
Breoca the Brondings. Billing ruled the Werns;
Oswine the Eowas; over the Jutes Gefwulf;
Fin son of Folcwald ruled the Frisian race;
Sigehere ruled longest over the Sea Danes;
Hn'f ruled the Hocings; Helm the Wulfings; Wald
The Woings; W¢đ the Thyrings; and S'ferth
The Sycgs, and Ongetheow the Swedes; Sceafthere
The Ymbers; Sceafa the Longbards; and Han
The Hætwers; Holen ruled over the Wrosns.
Hringwals the Herefaras' king was named.
Offa ruled Ongle; Alewih the Danes;
Of all these men he was the proudest, yet
He over Offa won no mastery,
But earliest among men, while yet a child,
The greatest of the kingdoms Offa won."
(As Morley notes: There is a rough order in the naming of the tribes whose chiefs are recorded in this passage; they are named generally from the east westward towards the North Sea.)
Morley goes on to say: "In all these names of places and of people we see dimly through a mist movement of tribes in the north of Europe in the latter half of the fifth century and the beginning of the sixth, and we hear faint and far off the sound of the names of chiefs then famous for their prowess. They belong still to the days of history that comes to us transformed by the poets who struck the glee-beam in the halls of the great chiefs, and shaped their deeds into triumphant song, in which their enemies often figured as monster-forms, and they themselves were raised to demigods."
Morley advises his readers to remember that such songs come down to us, whether First-English or Scandinavian, never in their own first voice, always as echoes. This compels us to recognize that in the most ancient pieces of our literature, which had their rise in the old home upon the mainland, we have not the old songs themselves, but early reproductions of them…in the days when poems were handed down from generation to generation by oral tradition, and their delivery was entrusted to a distinct class of reciters, the hearers looked for strict fidelity in the recital.
THE SCÓ P
Shapers (makers) of visual art create a lasting form that takes space, but shapers of dance, music and poetry need living interpreters to give them form. They do not rest in space. They move in time. Dance moves the body in a rhythm, music moves in other than articulate sound, and poetry moves in the sound of human speech. In earliest times, dance, music and poetry were one - either a recitation by one person, or told in a drama.
The Anglo-Saxon Scóp (Gleeman) emphasized his rhythmic chant with chords struck on a harp (glee-beam). Later the accompaniment was with a fiddle. The Scóp carried the whole literature of his people. He was like an author and a publisher. He maintained the old and added the new. The Scóp's wealth hung on the favour of strong chiefs, who gave gifts to those who could sing their praises. The chief's followers cheered each tale. The Scóp was above all else, a poet. In the Mead Halls where Scóps performed, there were also entertainers - who sang, jested, recited and did gymnastics. Scóps travelled far - they were bearers of the latest news, not just from over the next few hills, but from long distances.
FIRST-ENGLISH VERSIFICATION
Accent
In shaping verses the First-English poet marked his rhythm by Accent. In Greek and Latin, natural quantity of sound, determining the time required for utterance, was used to express rhythmical time, without much reference to accent upon words. The Teutonic poets used art in the management of rhythm by accent, without much reference to natural quantity.
Since accent is stress of sound upon a syllable, accent gives emphasis. This was recognized in both verse and in ordinary speech by First-English. The chief accent in every word rested upon the syllable in which it's meaning lay. Syllables of less significance were avoided, and the accent never fell upon a prefix or a suffix. In shaping verses, a First-English poet did not break the bond that joined, in every word, the accent to the sense. And even now, much of the strength of English lies in this true fellowship of thought and sound.
If rise and fall of tone is considered inseparable from all connected speech into "high tone" and "low tone" and "no tone", where there is no stress, it comes close to silence. First-English poetry, although two high tones might sometimes follow in succession, did not depart from this principle. The result was that in words without a prefix, the high tone fell usually upon the first syllable of a word.
In Greek or Latin falls on one of the last three syllables of a word; in French, on one of the last two, and usually on the last. The romance usage differs from the Teutonic in not requiring stress of sound to correspond precisely with the stress of thought. It was not until after the Norman Conquest (1066) that the use of French pronunciation could so far affect the sound of English words in verse as to allow a poet to eke out his measure by putting a high tone upon the last syllable.
Alliteration
In the Alliteration that adorned his verse, the Scóp was true to the same principle. Every device of rhyme that calls attention to a word, gives emphasis. The First-English poet married sound to sense, and applied the emphasis of alliteration only at the points of the greatest stress in the expression of thought. He strengthened emphasis on the chief syllables of the chief words. Accent, everywhere significant in the true course of thought, was aided by Alliteration.
This construction gave to the form of First-English poetry inherent dignity and grace that could not be destroyed even by a weak reciter. A Scóp who was whole master of his art could still further heighten the expression by subtle variations of tone and modulations of voice, now soft, now terrible, through which the passions speak, and the true spirit of poetry within one man can breathe itself into the hearts of all.
There are three forms of the rhyme by which verses are linked together. They are as follows: Alliteration, Assonance, and the Full Rhyme to which alone the name of rhyme is commonly applied.
Alliteration is by the use of identical consonant sounds, or limitation to vowel sounds, usually not the same, at the beginnings of words. Assonance is by use of identical vowel sounds placed neither first nor last, but within words of which the consonants are not alike. In full rhyme there are at the ends of words identical sounds, which may include both vowels and consonants. Though full rhyme might here and there, be imitated from without, it made no part whatever of the system of oldest verse English.
First-English verse was formed of two half lines, each with two accents, united by alliteration into one long line of four accents. The three first of the four accented words, two in the first half-line and one in the second, were alliterated, and the letter of alliteration in the second line was looked upon as the chief letter, because its emphasis had grown in repetition. Assonance comes by use of the same vowels, not at the beginning of words, but within them, and not followed by corresponding consonants.
Although there was no counting of Syllables for the construction of an Anglo-Saxon verse, their number was not disregarded. In recitation, many or few unemphacized words between the main words by which time was marked, produced effects of animation, tumult, weighty and deliberate expression. This gave occasion for a finer skill in shaping of the song, and added yet another help to the attainment of full harmony in gesture, music, word and thought. Beyond this again, there was a freedom used in deviation from strict rule, when thought rose higher for the change.
In looking at Cædmon's Hymn, composed sometime between 658 and 680, it is clear that this follows the 'formula' for First-English verse. This is believed to be the earliest Old English poem. (I am 'blogging' this hymn for anyone who may read this blog and not have seen this before.)
CÆDMON'S HYMN
Nu sculon //herigean*******heofonrices// Weard
Now we must praise*********heaven-kingdom's Guardian,
Meotodes //meahte*********and his modgeþane
The Measurer's might********and his mind-plans,
weorc Wuldor-Fæder********swa he wundra gehwæs
The work of the Glory-Father,* when he of wonders of every one,
ece// Drihten*************** or// onstealde
Eternal Lord,*************** the beginning established.
He ærst sceop*************** ielda// bearmum
He first created************** for men's sons
heofon to hrofe************** halig Scyppend
heaven as a roof,************* holy Creator;
đa//middangeard************ moneynnes Weard
then middle-earth************ mankind's Guardian,
ece //Drihten**************** æfter// teode
eternal Lord, *****************afterwards made --
firum// foldan**************** Frea// ælmihtig
for men earth, ****************Master almighty.
[Please note: I have had to 'get creative' here because this programme does not allow for blank spaces moving from left to right. I have marked the caesurae // between the words, and the caesurae between the half-lines ****]
The more I looked at Cædmon's Hymn, the more I began to see. Not only are the placing of caesurae interesting, but also, the variety of epithets for God. As the notes in The Norton Anthology of Poetry point out, there are eight different half-lines that consist of these. I think the unusual word "mind-plans" is beautiful because it gives a picture of not only a creative God, but a thinking God. It gives credibility to human thinking as being important, when the emphasis around us is on production. Something that I also noted was that this hymn could be split into two by taking just the half-lines on the left side as one poem and the half-lines on the right side as another poem, and still make sense. It would read as follows:
Now we must praise
the Measurer's might
the work of the Glory-Father,
eternal Lord.
He first created
heaven as a roof,
then middle-earth
eternal Lord,
for men earth.
heaven-kingdom's Guardian,
and his mind-plans,
when he of wonders of every one,
the beginning established.
for men's sons
holy Creator;
mankind's Guardian,
afterwards made --
Master almighty.
The best discovery of Cædmon's Hymn that I made, even though I had missed it many times over as I read it, is that G-d is the original poet (scóp) - "sceop"(1/2 line 9) who "created", who "made". So, how did it all begin? This was the question, and this is where I began on this wild ride, and wondered where I would end up. The best answer I can give you is that it began in "meahte" (might) (1/2 line 3) and "modgeþane" (mind-plans) (1/2 line 4) of the Master and Original Poet. The need to be co-creators has been present in the world ever since, inspiring people like Cædmon and a whole host of others who took what is around us all the time (words) and married these to unique thought. This is 'the stuff' that has allowed the world to connect with the rhythm of the ages in the sound of poetry.
posted by maggiesong at 5:31 PM
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