The Old English Foot and Resolution in Beowulf

Abstract

This paper attempts to provide a correct characterization of the Old English foot on the one hand and test the validity of resolution as a metrical principle in Beowulf on the other. The first section deals with how to achieve metrical coherence without expanding the foot inventory. Within the framework of Optimality Theory, a moraic trochee is proposed as the canonical foot and its apparently inconsistent manifestation is viewed as resulting from interaction with other constraints. The second section reviews some problems in positing resolution as a reliable metrical principle and provides a constraint-based account of the invocation and suspension of resolution in Beowulf.