Anglo-Saxon Accentual Verse

Type: structure, other.

Description: Based on alliteration and stress, this is a style left over from the English language’s Anglo-Saxon forebears. It is usually done with four-stress lines with a caesura (pause) in the middle. The stressed words are alliterated with the first stress, the second stress or both. The fourth stress does not alliterate internally, but might cross-alliterate with other lines. Alliteration holds the lines of the poem together, rather than the rhyme. All vowels were considered to alliterate with each other, but consonant compounds such as ‘sk’ or ‘sp’ would alliterate only with themselves, not each other. The Anglo-Saxons were more likely to use enjambment than to end-stop their lines.

Stanza length: quatrain.

© Jem Farmer 2008, all rights reserved.