Alliterative verse in disguise?
William Cloud Hicklin
I wonder. from The Battle of the Pelennor Fields:
"Right through the press drove Théoden Thengel's son, and his spear was
shivered as he threw down their chieftain. Out swept his sword, and he
spurred to the standard, hewed staff and bearer; and the black serpent
foundered."
Drop some 'little words' and relineate:
Through the press drove Théoden Thengel's son
his spear was shivered as he threw down their chieftain.
Out swept his sword, spurred to the standard,
hewed staff and bearer; the black serpent foundered.
That sure feels Beowulfian to me!
--
"There's got to be a better way than fighting," said Mr. Saveloy.
"Yep. Lots of 'em," replied Cohen. "Only none of 'em work."
Prai Jei
message <op.tupvx3xtrwd1fl@emachine>:
>
> I wonder. from The Battle of the Pelennor Fields:
>
> "Right through the press drove Théoden Thengel's son, and his spear was
> shivered as he threw down their chieftain. Out swept his sword, and he
> spurred to the standard, hewed staff and bearer; and the black serpent
> foundered."
>
>
> Drop some 'little words' and relineate:
>
>
> Through the press drove Théoden Thengel's son
> his spear was shivered as he threw down their chieftain.
> Out swept his sword, spurred to the standard,
> hewed staff and bearer; the black serpent foundered.
>
>
> That sure feels Beowulfian to me!
Tolkien's tales (I'm sure it's true) would hold such hidden charms to
heighten their appeal, so I'm not surprised that somebody has found such a
poetic dainty to display in his post.
--
ξ:) Proud to be curly
Interchange the alphabetic letter groups to reply
Glenn Holliday
>
> I wonder. from The Battle of the Pelennor Fields:
>
> "Right through the press drove Théoden Thengel's son, and his spear was
> shivered as he threw down their chieftain. Out swept his sword, and he
> spurred to the standard, hewed staff and bearer; and the black serpent
> foundered."
>
>
> Drop some 'little words' and relineate:
>
>
> Through the press drove Théoden Thengel's son
> his spear was shivered as he threw down their chieftain.
> Out swept his sword, spurred to the standard,
> hewed staff and bearer; the black serpent foundered.
>
>
> That sure feels Beowulfian to me!
I had noticed the alliterative style, but never thought to recast
it as verse. Well done, and thanks.
No surprise that it's there. Tolkien was very fond of Old English
alliteration. It was the standard mechanism for verse in an age
before rhyming became popular.
I wonder if Tolkien wrote this first as a poem, then decided to
rework it as part of the narrative here. Anybody know of earlier
verse versions of this?
--
Glenn Holliday holl...@acm.org
Stan Brown
abc.fsnet.co.uk>:
> > Through the press drove Théoden Thengel's son
> > his spear was shivered as he threw down their chieftain.
> > Out swept his sword, spurred to the standard,
> > hewed staff and bearer; the black serpent foundered.
> >
> >
> > That sure feels Beowulfian to me!
>
> Tolkien's tales (I'm sure it's true) would hold such hidden charms to
> heighten their appeal, so I'm not surprised that somebody has found such a
> poetic dainty to display in his post.
It was only after many readings of LotR that I realized practically
everything Tom Bombadil said was in verse, even though printed as
prose.
--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Tompkins County, New York, USA
http://OakRoadSystems.com
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Prai Jei
message <op.tupvx3xtrwd1fl@emachine>:
>
> I wonder. from The Battle of the Pelennor Fields:
>
> "Right through the press drove Théoden Thengel's son, and his spear was
> shivered as he threw down their chieftain. Out swept his sword, and he
> spurred to the standard, hewed staff and bearer; and the black serpent
> foundered."
>
>
> Drop some 'little words' and relineate:
>
>
> Through the press drove Théoden Thengel's son
> his spear was shivered as he threw down their chieftain.
> Out swept his sword, spurred to the standard,
> hewed staff and bearer; the black serpent foundered.
>
>
> That sure feels Beowulfian to me!
The thing with this thread is, I find myself thinking that everybody opting
to contribute their opinion will similarly try setting their sentences out
in verse. So I keep trying to scan, but lose track of the scheme, for it
seems that no other has essayed such alliteration.
T.M. Sommers
>
> I wonder. from The Battle of the Pelennor Fields:
>
> "Right through the press drove Théoden Thengel's son, and his spear was
> shivered as he threw down their chieftain. Out swept his sword, and he
> spurred to the standard, hewed staff and bearer; and the black serpent
> foundered."
>
> Drop some 'little words' and relineate:
>
> Through the press drove Théoden Thengel's son
> his spear was shivered as he threw down their chieftain.
> Out swept his sword, spurred to the standard,
> hewed staff and bearer; the black serpent foundered.
>
> That sure feels Beowulfian to me!
I made a similar observation regarding a different passage in
another newsgroup:
--
Thomas M. Sommers -- t...@nj.net -- AB2SB
chrisk...@hotmail.com
<icelofang...@mindspring.com> wrote:
> I wonder. from The Battle of the Pelennor Fields:
>
> "Right through the press drove Théoden Thengel's son, and his spear was
> shivered as he threw down their chieftain. Out swept his sword, and he
> spurred to the standard, hewed staff and bearer; and the black serpent
> foundered."
>
> Drop some 'little words' and relineate:
>
> Through the press drove Théoden Thengel's son
> his spear was shivered as he threw down their chieftain.
> Out swept his sword, spurred to the standard,
> hewed staff and bearer; the black serpent foundered.
>
> That sure feels Beowulfian to me!
Indeed. As T. M. Sommers noted, there have been several other attempts
to recast Tolkien's prose in alliterative verse form, or discuss the
alliteration or other verse forms found in Tolkien's prose. The most
notable discussion of this that I know of is the paper by Gergely
Nagy, "The Adapted Text: The Lost Poetry of Beleriand", which appeared
in volume 1 of Tolkien Studies in 2004, and which discussed examples
from the descriptions of Beleriand in 'The Silmarillion'.
But going back to the Pelennor Fields, the discussion of that chapter
in the 'Chapter of the Week' discussions in these newsgroups led R.
Dan Henry to comment on the alliteration, and I expanded on this
further in a subsequent post on 20 January 2005:
http://groups.google.co.uk/group/alt.fan.tolkien/msg/810ec4fc9cd1b212
I hope R. Dan Henry won't mind me re-quoting what he wrote:
"Throughout much of the chapter, but especially in describing the
assault of the Rohirrim, there is a rhythm to the text much like that
of the alliterative verse of the Rohirrim. (There is also some
alliteration, too.) It helps add to the feel in several ways. Like a
piece of theme music, it gives a "Rohirric mood" to their battle
scenes. It has something of the pace of horses, too, and a sense of
the charge. Finally, it allows short, action-centric sentences,
without the loss of mood that a more modern Hemmingwayesque style
would. I've mostly been reading aloud to myself this time through and
this sort of thing becomes more obvious than if reading silently." -
R. Dan Henry (RABT - 17 January 2005)
I then pointed out some of the alliteration:
"This chapter has extensive parts that I love to read aloud.
Expecially from the "and now the fighting waxed furious" bit. Re-
reading it again, after reading your analysis, the style does become a
lot clearer. The alliteration is indeed there:
"the fighting waxed furious on the fields of the Pelennor" (F)
"Horns were blown and trumpets were braying, and the mumakil were
bellowing as they were goaded to war." (B)
"black sails bellying in the breeze" (B)
"and fight there on foot till all fell" (F)
There are also a lot of stacatto lists, which probably help give the
rhythm and pace that you mention. This can be seen by the number of
times Tolkien uses the word 'and' to string clauses together and keep
this rhythm going. From "And now the fighting waxed furious..." to
"they rode back to battle together", there are several passages where
the use of 'and' is quite overwhelming, but Tolkien makes it work!"
- C. Kreuzer (RABT - 20 Janaury 2005)
The original post contains a lot more thoughts, in case anyone has the
time to re-read that, including a more detailed look at the repetitive
use of the word 'and' in that chapter. Maybe that contributes to the
atmosphere as well?
Christopher
Tux Wonder-Dog
Well, it makes criticisms of Tolkien's style such as that voiced by Brian
Aldiss in "Billion Year Spree" and its successor, "Trillion Year Spree",
that Tolkien's style was monotonous and showed no development, rather short
of the mark.
Stan Brown
<wes.p...@paradise.net.nz>:
[about 80 lines of quote and 4 lines of new stuff]
Just a reminder to everyone -- please trim your quotes. Thanks!
Calvin
Prai Jei
<1183482272.0...@w5g2000hsg.googlegroups.com>:
Bingo
Count Menelvagor
<chriskreu...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> The original post contains a lot more thoughts, in case anyone has the
> time to re-read that, including a more detailed look at the repetitive
> use of the word 'and' in that chapter. Maybe that contributes to the
> atmosphere as well?
they give a sort of "biblical" feel. also, the rhythm, as youmention.
sometimes i think tolkien's prose is actually more poetic than his
poetry! (and i'm also reminded a bit of the medieval cursus, which
gave rules for prose rhythms.)
tolkien's verse is a kind of mixed bag in terms of quality. the
alliterative verse is excellent, as is the song about luthien that
aragorn sang on weathertop. some of the other stuff is a bit
embarrassing IMO. i'm not only thinking of tom bombadil; the dirge for
rowan trees sung by quickbeam should have been moving, but is largely
killed by its metre and by bathos like "oh rowan dead" and "for ever
and a day"; though bits of it to succeed in being moving, they get
drowned by the other stuff. IMHO and all that.
William Cloud Hicklin
<chrisk...@hotmail.com> wrote: (citing Dan)
>
> "This chapter has extensive parts that I love to read aloud.
> Expecially from the "and now the fighting waxed furious" bit. Re-
> reading it again, after reading your analysis, the style does become a
> lot clearer. The alliteration is indeed there:
>
> "the fighting waxed furious on the fields of the Pelennor" (F)
>
> "Horns were blown and trumpets were braying, and the mumakil were
> bellowing as they were goaded to war." (B)
>
> "black sails bellying in the breeze" (B)
>
> "and fight there on foot till all fell" (F)
>
> There are also a lot of stacatto lists, which probably help give the
> rhythm and pace that you mention. This can be seen by the number of
> times Tolkien uses the word 'and' to string clauses together and keep
> this rhythm going. From "And now the fighting waxed furious..." to
> "they rode back to battle together", there are several passages where
> the use of 'and' is quite overwhelming, but Tolkien makes it work!"
>
Tolkien's prose is riddled with individual lines with words that
alliterate: here, though, it's full-blown: Old English verse disguised in
paragraph form, like Bombadil. I'll have to look at the rest of the
chapter for other examples; but the sample I put up earlier withstands
strict analysis:
Th-X-/Th--Th-(S)
-S-S-/--Th-(Th)X-
-S-S/S--S-
-S-B-/-BS-x-
with a quasirhyme on standard/foundered, which the Gawaine-poet does
sometimes. The 'carryover' alliterations between one line's primary and
the next's secondary is also characteristic of ME allit.verse, as are the
consecutive stresses 'black serp(ent),' often used to emphasize a climax.
Steve Morrison
> Tolkien's prose is riddled with individual lines with words that
> alliterate: here, though, it's full-blown: Old English verse disguised
> in paragraph form, like Bombadil. I'll have to look at the rest of the
> chapter for other examples; but the sample I put up earlier withstands
> strict analysis:
>
> Th-X-/Th--Th-(S)
> -S-S-/--Th-(Th)X-
> -S-S/S--S-
> -S-B-/-BS-x-
>
> with a quasirhyme on standard/foundered, which the Gawaine-poet does
> sometimes. The 'carryover' alliterations between one line's primary and
> the next's secondary is also characteristic of ME allit.verse, as are
> the consecutive stresses 'black serp(ent),' often used to emphasize a
> climax.
It occurs to me (since not everyone has a copy of "On Translating
Beowulf" or the appendix to /Sir Gawain and the Green Knight/) that
someone should explain what the rules for alliterative verse are!
Rather than go into detail, I'll link to two pages which do that:
http://www.dnaco.net/~sirbill/OldEnglishMetrics.html
http://alliteration.net/fieldgd.htm
The first site gives a good brief explanation and the second is very
detailed since it's aimed at helping poets write their own
alliterative verse. Elsewhere on the second site, there are reviews
of some of Tolkien's (and Lewis's) alliterative verse:
Christopher Kreuzer
news:13ao27i...@corp.supernews.com...
Thanks for those links. I'va always wanted to know more about alliterative
verse!
Christopher