Generalized Anacrusis in the Meter of Beowulf

Abstract

This paper proposes a modified version of anacrusis which applies to a verse- initial element in order to make the verse more manageable by a finite set of verse types. The type- dependent application of the restricted anacrusis originally proposed by Sievers (1885) and adherently employed by Bliss (1958), Cable (1974), Russom (1987) and Hutcheson (1995) not only is unwarranted but also yields a statistical anomaly in some identifiable pairs of verse types. It is demonstrated that there is no obvious reason for such limitation on its application and that the correlation between relative complexity and actual frequency of lift- initial verse types exhibits a pattern incompatible with that of dip- initial verse types. To account for such problems. it is argued that the application of anacrusis be extended to all verse types in such a way that both lift- initial and dip-initial verse types are legitimate candidates for its application. Such extension is further justified by the frequency pattern in light verses.