Well, it's that excessive alliterating that I'm talking about exactly. Most of the modern definitions that I saw at the time required three or four alliterations. But axax or xaax were by far the most common lines in Beowulf, with three much less common and four very rare indeed, even in later OE poetry.
I'm now pretty pissed at my undergraduate self for not clearly citing that tidbit; while I did cite, there are so many citation in that section I'm not sure which applies. *facepalm* Anyway, somebody went through and counted. It may have been Cable or Bliss or Creed; it may be been cited by Stanley; it may have been someone quoting Klaeber.
Auden also did "City Without Walls" (which went totally crazycakes with the alliteration, imo) and Eberhart' wrote "Brotherhood of Men." There are a number of shorter pieces by Wilbur, Lewis, Chappell ("My Grandfather's Church Goes Up" is pretty awesome), and Merrill. There's also Tolkien's response to Maldon. I really liked Rebsamen's imitative translation of Beowulf.
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Date: 26 September 2010 08:35 pm (UTC)I'm now pretty pissed at my undergraduate self for not clearly citing that tidbit; while I did cite, there are so many citation in that section I'm not sure which applies. *facepalm* Anyway, somebody went through and counted. It may have been Cable or Bliss or Creed; it may be been cited by Stanley; it may have been someone quoting Klaeber.
Auden also did "City Without Walls" (which went totally crazycakes with the alliteration, imo) and Eberhart' wrote "Brotherhood of Men." There are a number of shorter pieces by Wilbur, Lewis, Chappell ("My Grandfather's Church Goes Up" is pretty awesome), and Merrill. There's also Tolkien's response to Maldon. I really liked Rebsamen's imitative translation of Beowulf.