|
Alliterate Verse
In prosody, alliterative verse is a form of verse that uses alliteration as the principal device to indicate the underlying metrical structure, as opposed to other devices such as rhyme. The most commonly studied traditions of alliterative verse are those found in the oldest literature of the Germanic languages, where scholars use the term 'alliterative poetry' rather broadly to indicate a tradition which not only shares alliteration as its primary ornament but also certain metrical characteristics. The Old English epic ''Beowulf'', as well as most other Old English poetry, the Old High German ''Muspilli'', the Old Saxon ''Heliand'', the Old Norse ''Poetic Edda'', and many Middle English poems such as ''Piers Plowman'', ''Sir Gawain and the Green Knight'', Layamon's Brut and the ''Alliterative Morte Arthur'' all use alliterative verse. While alliteration is common in many poetic traditions, it is 'relatively infrequent' as a structured characteristic of poetic form. However, st ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Beowulf Cotton MS Vitellius A XV F
''Beowulf'' (; ) is an Old English poetry, Old English poem, an Epic poetry, epic in the tradition of Germanic heroic legend consisting of 3,182 Alliterative verse, alliterative lines. It is one of the most important and List of translations of Beowulf, most often translated works of Old English literature. The date of composition is a matter of contention among scholars; the only certain dating is for the manuscript, which was produced between 975 and 1025 AD. Scholars call the anonymous author the "''Beowulf'' poet". The story is set in pagan Scandinavia in the 5th and 6th centuries. Beowulf (hero), Beowulf, a hero of the Geats, comes to the aid of Hrothgar, the king of the Danes (Germanic tribe), Danes, whose mead hall Heorot has been under attack by the monster Grendel for twelve years. After Beowulf slays him, Grendel's mother takes revenge and is in turn defeated. Victorious, Beowulf goes home to Geatland and becomes king of the Geats. Fifty years later, Beowulf def ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Middle English
Middle English (abbreviated to ME) is a form of the English language that was spoken after the Norman Conquest of 1066, until the late 15th century. The English language underwent distinct variations and developments following the Old English period. Scholarly opinion varies, but the University of Valencia states the period when Middle English was spoken as being from 1150 to 1500. This stage of the development of the English language roughly coincided with the High Middle Ages, High and Late Middle Ages. Middle English saw significant changes to its vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation, and orthography. Writing conventions during the Middle English period varied widely. Examples of writing from this period that have survived show extensive regional variation. The more standardized Old English literary variety broke down and writing in English became fragmented and localized and was, for the most part, being improvised. By the end of the period (about 1470), and aided by the movabl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Icelandic Language
Icelandic ( ; , ) is a North Germanic languages, North Germanic language from the Indo-European languages, Indo-European language family spoken by about 314,000 people, the vast majority of whom live in Iceland, where it is the national language. Since it is a West Scandinavian languages, West Scandinavian language, it is most closely related to Faroese language, Faroese, western Norwegian dialects, and the extinct language Norn language, Norn. It is not mutually intelligible with the continental Scandinavian languages (Danish language, Danish, Norwegian language, Norwegian, and Swedish language, Swedish) and is more distinct from the most widely spoken Germanic languages, English language, English and German language, German. The written forms of Icelandic and Faroese are very similar, but their spoken forms are not Mutual intelligibility, mutually intelligible. The language is more Linguistic conservatism, conservative than most other Germanic languages. While most of them hav ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Der Ring Des Nibelungen
(''The Ring of the Nibelung''), WWV 86, is a cycle of four German-language epic music dramas composed by Richard Wagner. The works are based loosely on characters from Germanic heroic legend, namely Norse legendary sagas and the . The composer termed the cycle a "" (stage festival play), structured in three days preceded by a ("preliminary evening"). It is often referred to as the ''Ring'' cycle, Wagner's ''Ring'', or simply ''The Ring''. Wagner wrote the libretto and music over the course of about twenty-six years, from 1848 to 1874. The four parts that constitute the ''Ring'' cycle are, in sequence: * '' Das Rheingold'' (''The Rhinegold'') * '' Die Walküre'' (''The Valkyrie'') * '' Siegfried'' * ''Götterdämmerung'' (''Twilight of the Gods'') Individual works of the sequence are often performed separately, and indeed the operas contain dialogues that mention events in the previous operas, so that a viewer could watch any of them without having watched the previous parts ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Richard Wagner
Wilhelm Richard Wagner ( ; ; 22 May 181313 February 1883) was a German composer, theatre director, essayist, and conductor who is chiefly known for his operas (or, as some of his mature works were later known, "music dramas"). Unlike most opera composers, Wagner wrote both the libretto and the music for each of his stage works. Initially establishing his reputation as a composer of works in the romantic vein of Carl Maria von Weber and Giacomo Meyerbeer, Wagner revolutionised opera through his concept of the ''Gesamtkunstwerk'' ("total work of art"), whereby he sought to synthesise the poetic, visual, musical and dramatic arts, with music subsidiary to drama. The drama was to be presented as a continuously sung narrative, without conventional operatic structures like Aria, arias and Recitative, recitatives. He described this vision in a List of prose works by Richard Wagner, series of essays published between 1849 and 1852. Wagner realised these ideas most fully in the first ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Runic Song
Runic song, also referred to as ''Rune'' song, ''Runo'' song, or ''Kalevala'' song, is a form of oral poetry and national epic historically practiced among the Baltic Finnic peoples. It includes the Finnish epic poems ''Kalevala'' and '' Kanteletar'', as well as the Estonian '' Kalevipoeg''. Estonian and Finnish researchers suggest the term runosong for English translation, or local terms, such as Estonian ''regilaul'', Seto ''leelo'' or Finnish ''runolaulu'' when it is about regional tradition. Description Runic song is typically monophonic among most Baltic Finnic groups, though it is generally polyphonic when practiced among the Seto. Runic song usually does not contain rhyming couplets, but is frequently heard in alliterative trochaic tetrameter, or Kalevala meter. Runic song is usually sung in , though quadruple metre and sextuple metre singing also exists. In addition to their musical character, runic singers also are required to follow certain practices as they san ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Kalevala Meter
In English poetry, trochaic tetrameter is a meter featuring lines composed of four trochaic feet. The etymology of ''trochaic'' derives from the Greek ''trokhaios'', from the verb ''trecho'', meaning ''I run''. In modern English poetry, a trochee is a foot consisting of a stressed syllable followed by an unstressed syllable. Thus a tetrameter contains four trochees or eight syllables. In classical metre, the word ''tetrameter'' means a line with four ''metra'', wherein each ''metron'' contains two trochees. Thus a classical trochaic tetrameter contains 16 syllables (15 syllables if catalectic). Example The rhythm of a line of an English trochaic tetrameter is: Using the symbols of classical poetry, the longum and the breve (brevis), a line of trochaic tetrameter is represented as: When the tetrameter is catalectic, the last syllable of the line is omitted. Literature ''The Song of Hiawatha'' An example of epic poetry written in trochaic tetrameter is ''The Song of Hiawa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Mongol Epic Poetry
Epic poetry, or ''tuuli'' in Mongolian, is an important genre of Mongol oral literature, with features reminiscent of Germanic alliterative verse. The two most well-known epics are the '' Jangar'' and the '' Geser''. These ''tuuli'' are commonly sung with instruments such as the ''Morin khuur'' (horse-head fiddle) and the '' Tovshuur'' (lute). Most epics deal with topics of the history of the Mongols, their ideal worlds and heroes, and the acquisition of new lands. Epics are performed mostly as celebrations or during important events. Mongol epic poetry has, as of 2009, been on the UNESCO List of Intangible Cultural Heritage in Need of Urgent Safeguarding. History Epics were, until the 17th century, not put in writing. Although epics are still passed down orally, they have been written down, and some performers add to their own performances through reading the written versions of the epics. Epics such as the ''Geser'' were passed to the Mongols through writing (the first edition o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Somali Literature
Somali literature is the literature used by the ethnic Somalis of Somalia, Somaliland, Djibouti, Yemen, Eritrea, Ogadenia, and Kenya. Somali poetry Nation of Bards Due to the Somali people's passionate love for and facility with poetry, Somalia has also been called by, among others, the Canadian novelist and scholar Margaret Laurence, a "Nation of Poets" and a "Nation of Bards". The 19th-century British explorer Richard Francis Burton, who visited the Somali Peninsula, similarly recounts in his book ''First Footsteps in East Africa'' how: According to Canadian novelist and scholar Margaret Laurence, who originally coined the term "Nation of Poets" to describe the Somali Peninsular, the Eidagale sub-section of the Garhajis clan were viewed as "the recognized experts in the composition of poetry" by their fellow Somali contemporaries: Structure Somali poetry features obligatory alliteration, similar in some respects to the requirements of Germanic alliterative verse. There ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Medieval Welsh Literature
Medieval Welsh literature is the literature written in the Welsh language during the Middle Ages. This includes material starting from the 5th century AD, when Welsh was in the process of becoming distinct from Common Brittonic, and continuing to the works of the 16th century. The Welsh language became distinct from other dialects of Old British sometime between AD 400 and 700; the earliest surviving literature in Welsh is poetry dating from this period. The poetic tradition represented in the work of ''Y Cynfeirdd'' ("The Early Poets"), as they are known, then survives for over a thousand years to the work of the ''Poets of the Nobility'' in the 16th century. The core tradition was praise poetry; and the poet Taliesin was regarded as the first in the line. The other aspect of the tradition was the professionalism of the poets and their reliance on patronage from kings, princes and nobles for their living, similar to the way Irish bards and Norse skalds were patronized for th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Irish Bardic Poetry
Bardic poetry is the writings produced by a class of poets trained in the bardic schools of Ireland and the Gaelic parts of Scotland, as they existed down to about the middle of the 17th century or, in Scotland, the early 18th century. Most of the texts preserved are in Middle Irish or in early Modern Irish, however, even though the manuscripts were very plentiful, very few have been published. It is considered a period of great literary stability due to the formalised literary language that changed very little. Background According to the Uraicecht Becc in Old Irish Law, bards and '' filid'' were distinct groups: ''filid'' involved themselves with law, language, lore and court poetry, whereas bards were versifiers. However, in time, these terms came to be used interchangeably. With the arrival of Christianity, the poets were still given a high rank in society, equal to that of a bishop, but even the highest-ranked poet, the ''ollamh'' was now only 'the shadow of a high-ranki ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Alliterative Morte Arthur
The Alliterative ''Morte Arthure'' is a 4346-line Middle English alliterative poem, retelling the latter part of the legend of King Arthur. Dating from about 1400, it is preserved in a single copy in the 15th-century Lincoln Thornton Manuscript, now in Lincoln Cathedral Library. History The author of the ''Morte Arthure'' is unknown. In his history of Scotland, Andrew of Wyntoun mentions a poet called Huchoun ("little Hugh"), who he says made a "gret Gest of Arthure, / And þe Awntyr of Gawane, / Þe Pistil als of Suet Susane" reat history of Arthur, / And the Adventure of Gawain, / The Epistle also of Sweet Susan This "Gest of Arthure" has been claimed to be a reference to what is now known as the ''Alliterative Morte Arthure''; but the fact that the ''Morte Arthure'' seems to have been written in an East Midlands dialect, the fact that Huchoun may have been Scottish, and the dialect of the extant ''Epistle of Sweet Susan'', which appears to be that of North Yorkshire, all a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
