APPENDIX II.
ANGLO-SAXON VEESIFIOATIOF.1
ANGLO-SAXON poetry is composed in a kind of blank-verse, in long
unrimed (but alliterative) and ungrouped (i.e. stichic) lines.

A. GENERAL PRINCIPLES.
1. Every line consists of two parts, the first half-line and the sec-
ond half-line; these half-lines are separated by a cæsura and united
by alliteration (i.e. initial rime; end-rime occurs occasionally, but
merely as an incidental ornament).

2. Every half-line has two rhythmic stresses, or accents, and con-
sequently two rhythmic measures, or "feet" ; it is a structural unit
and has a scansion of its own, independent of that of its complemen-
tary half-line. In contrast to the second half-line, the first half-line is
more favorable to the expanded and heavier forms of the foot.

3. The "foot" (or measure) in its simplest form consists of two
parts, an accented and an unaccented part (arsis and thesis). How-
ever, two additional forms are employed : a foot of one part only (an
arsis), which is employed in combination with a foot of three parts, of
which one is an arsis (having the chief rhythmic stress), another has a
secondary stress, and the third is unaccented, being the true thesis.

4. The arsis (or rhythmic stress) requires a long syllable (the vowel
must be long in quantity, or, if short, the syllable must be closed with
a consonant) or the equivalent of a long syllable. This equivalent is
called a resolved stress and consists of two syllables, of which the first
(with one of the word-accents) is short in quantity and the second is
light enough in accent to combine with the first to produce with it the
metric equivalent of a long syllable. But there are special conditions
under which the arsis consists of a short syllable.

5. The thesis (or unstressed part of the foot) consists of a varying
number of syllables, which are either unaccented or subordinate in

1 For the wider relations of this system of versification, see Eduard Sievers,^
Altgermawische Metrik, Halle, 1893.

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