How does quantity work in Old English prosody?

Answer 1

Somehow, from reading your scholarly response to an earlier question on Beowulf, I have an idea you can answer this question better than we can. So let me ask you a question. My understanding of Anglo-Saxon verse has always been that it is primarily alliterative. This brief explanation, floating around the internet, summarizes what I have always understood.

"Old English poetry is based upon one system of verse construction which was used for all poems. The system consisted of five permutations on a base verse scheme; any one of the five types could be used in any verse. The system is founded upon accent, alliteration, the quantity of vowels, and patterns of syllabic accentuation. The system was inherited and exists in one form or another in all of the older Germanic languages; it is generally called alliterative verse."

The "quantity of vowels" I have always understood, like the quantity of syllables in ancient Greek poetry, to be related to the length of time it took to pronounce the vowels: long or short. This is hard for a native speaker of English to understand, accustomed as we are to an accentual language and to verse forms based primarily on accented syllables and caesuras. For example, we understand the long "o" in "coat," and the short "o" in cot; the long "e" in "seat," and the short "e" in "set." But all of these one-syllable words can be accented in an English phrase or line of poetry, and in fact are likely to be accented. Even the alliterative forms of Anglo-Saxon verse are really based only on accented syllables, usually four per line.

So I'm asking you: what are the "five permutations of a base verse scheme" in Anglo-Saxon? And how does the "quantity of vowels" fit in?

I apologize for turning your question on you, but I am curious as to what your present understanding is and how you are hoping to clarify that understanding.

And, by the way, "wanna," "gonna," "gotta," and the like are definitely not "writerly English," but curiously they represent very accurately the way native speakers of English elide syllables and reduce unaccented vowels to schwas.

When we wanna slip into a sorta casual tone, we gotta use such spellings to indicate our change of voice.

Except in THE most formal circumstances, even professors of English are unlikely to pronounce "want to" as two distinct syllables with no schwa. Sometimes we indicate that in our spelling to make sure the reader knows we want to establish an informal, even casual, relationship.

That's just what we wanna do. OK?

Answer 2

I can't remember, verse luck.