The Meters of Old Norse Eddic Poetry : : Common Germanic Inheritance and North Germanic Innovation / / Seiichi Suzuki.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter DGBA Backlist Complete English Language 2000-2014 PART1
• VerfasserIn: Suzuki, Seiichi,
• Place / Publishing House: Berlin ;, Boston : : De Gruyter, , [2013]; ©2014
• Year of Publication: 2013
• Language: English
• Series: Ergänzungsbände zum Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde , 86
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (1096 p.)

This book is a formal and functional study of the three distinct meters of Old Norse eddic poetry, fornyrðislag, málaháttr, and ljóðaháttr. It provides a systematic account of these archaic meters, both synchronic and diachronic, and from a comparative Germanic perspective; particularly concerned with Norse innovations in metrical practice, Suzuki explores how and why the three meters were shaped in West Scandinavia through divergent reorganization of the Common Germanic metrical system. The book constitutes the first comprehensive work on the meters of Old Norse eddic poetry in a single coherent framework; with thorough data presentation, detailed philological analysis, and sophisticated linguistic explanation, the book will be of enormous interest to Old Germanic philologists/linguists, medievalists, as well as metrists of all persuasions. A strong methodological advantage of this work is the extensive use of inferential statistical techniques for giving empirical support to specific analyses and claims being adduced. Another strength is a cognitive dimension, a (re)construction of a prototype-based model of the metrical system and its overall characterization as an integral part of the poetic knowledge that governed eddic poets' verse-making technique in general.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Preface -- Contents -- List of tables -- Abbreviations and symbols -- 1. Introduction -- Part I. Fornyrðislag -- Introduction -- 2. Verse types and their realizations -- 3. Anacrusis and catalexis -- 4. Resolution -- 5. The cadence -- 6. Alliteration -- 7. The stanza -- Part II. Málaháttr -- Introduction -- 8. The prototype of málaháttr: Atlamál in groenlenzco -- 9. A peripheral variant of fornyrðislag/málaháttr 1: Atlaqviða in grœnlenzca -- 10. A peripheral variant of fornyrðislag/málaháttr 2: Hamðismál -- 11. A peripheral variant of fornyrðislag/málaháttr 3: Hárbarðzlióð -- Part III. Ljóðaháttr -- Introduction -- 12. The a-verse and the b-verse -- 13. The c-verse -- 14. The stanza -- 15. Conclusion -- Appendix 1: Catalogue of verse types -- Appendix 2: Dróttkvætt and the eddic meters -- References -- Index of scansion -- Index of authors -- Index of subjects -- Index of verses