The structure of Old Norse Dróttkvætt poetry

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Last edited by MARC Bot
July 29, 2024 | History

The structure of Old Norse Dróttkvætt poetry

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Probably recited at court, the drottkvaett was a form of Old Norse skaldic poetry composed to glorify a chieftain's deeds or to lament his death. Kari Ellen Gade explores the structural peculiarities of ninth- and tenth-century drottkvaett poetry and offers new answers to fundamental questions about its word order, syntax, composition recitation, comprehension, and relationship to similar genres.

At the same time, she suggests a solution to the mystery of the origins of the drottkvaett and its eventual demise in the fourteenth century.

Governed by a strict system of syllable counting and internal rhymes, drottkvaett meter was the most stylized and most highly regarded in skaldic poetry. Gade offers a systematic discussion of the metrical and syntactic structure of drottkvaett and shows how this poetry was composed according to traditional patterns of alliteration.

The restrictions imposed by alliteration, she finds, were largely responsible for syntactic arrangements of various types and for differences between the syntactic fillers used in odd and even lines. Gade demonstrates as well that skaldic syntax was determined by fixed patterns of placement of subjects and verbs, and that sentence boundaries were marked by syllabi and metrical markers that must have made such syntactic breaks audible during recitation.

The first scholar to examine the relations between the metrical structure and the phonetic realization of drottkvaett poetry, Gade shows that, contrary to recent speculation, it could not have been sung or chanted.

Publish Date
Language
English
Pages
290

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Edition Availability
Cover of: The structure of Old Norse Dróttkvætt poetry
The structure of Old Norse Dróttkvætt poetry
1995, Cornell University Press
in English

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Book Details


Edition Notes

Includes bibliographical references (p. [270]-276) and index.

Published in
Ithaca
Series
Islandica ;, 49

Classifications

Dewey Decimal Class
839/.61
Library of Congress
PT7172 .G3 1995, PT7172.G3 1995

The Physical Object

Pagination
xx, 290 p. ;
Number of pages
290

ID Numbers

Open Library
OL783844M
ISBN 10
0801430232
LCCN
95015965
OCLC/WorldCat
32347231
Library Thing
3165851
Goodreads
2352

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July 29, 2024 Edited by MARC Bot import existing book
September 9, 2021 Edited by ImportBot import existing book
December 4, 2010 Edited by Open Library Bot Added subjects from MARC records.
April 28, 2010 Edited by Open Library Bot Linked existing covers to the work.
December 10, 2009 Created by WorkBot add works page