A Field Guide to Alliterative Verse

Secondary Stress; Strong and Weak Dips

At this point we have almost finished pulling together a list of the major elements of alliterative poetry - the pieces out of which patterns are built. We have a fairly clear idea of what makes a lift; it now remains to draw some distinctions among dips.
There is a widespread impression that in alliterative poetry the dips do not matter, that any number and arrangement of unaccented syllables may be placed between the strong stresses in the line. That does not appear to have been true at all -- there are rules about the content and placement of unaccented syllables.
Or to put it another way: not all dips are created equal. The following hypothetical pairs of half-lines will help make my point clearer:
harm followed horror; after heartbreak, war; for the king was killed and his crown broken
The half-lines may be analysed as follows:
(lift) (dip) (lift) (dip) HARM | followed | HORR |or,
 (dip) (lift) (dip) (lift) after | HEART | break, | WAR;
 (dip) (lift) (dip) (lift) for the | KING | was KILLED
 (dip) (lift) (lift) (dip) and his | CROWN | BROK- | en
The difference between the dips should be almost palpable. The one-syllable dips are hardly audible. The two-syllable dips give the rhythm a swing; and the presence of secondary stress, as in "followed" and "break", has a slowing, retarding effect.Let us adopt the following terms:
a weak dip -- a dip containing exactly one unstressed syllable(was in was killed, -en in broken)
a long dip -- a dip containing two or more syllables(for the, and his, followed, after)
a strong (or heavy) dip -- a dip containing a potential lift (i.e., a heavy syllable or else a lighter syllable with primary lexical stress.)(followed, break)
The concepts of long and weak dip are common in scholarly discussions of alliterative poetry (though the distinction between long and strong dips is not always strictly maintained, mostly because in Old and Middle English, strong dips are generally long). Dips that are both long and heavy (i.e., multiple-syllable dips containing a secondary stress) are important in Anglo-Saxon alliterative verse. What is not so clear is whether one syllable heavy dips have any independent role. I think they do, and will explain how in later installments.
One thing that is extremely important to realize is that the placement of long/strong and weak dips is not random. In Old English alliterative verse, a dip at the end of a line or half-line must be weak, and, as a general rule, there is never more than one long dip in a half-line. This is related to the fact that the first stress in an Old English half line is the only stress that must alliterate; long dips go with prominent stresses. In Middle English alliterative verse, the final dip at the end of a line must be a weak dip; conversely, strong dips must occur immediately before or after the three metrically alliterating stresses in the Middle English line. It’s the same principle: long or strong dips go with prominent stresses.
In any case, though, we now have all the tools we need to analyse the rhythm and sound structure of alliterative verse. Alliterative poems are not all alike: different rhythms are possible, and different ways to measure out the rhythm. So let us now examine some of the ways that verse can be built around strong stresses.
Copyright ©2000, Paul Deane
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