3 - Metrical Criteria for the Emendation of Old English Poetic Texts

Summary

Old English metrics is a field that has attracted many brilliant minds over the past two centuries, yet in each century, there has been one preeminent scholar whose prolific contributions redefined the field. Eduard Sievers (1885, 1893) provided the foundation for modern metrical studies by explaining the apparently random fluctuation of syllables between lines of Old English poetry. He figured out that standard verses consist of precisely four metrical positions, with each position corresponding to a long stressed syllable, a resolved sequence of a short syllable and its successor, or a variable sequence of unstressed syllables. The discovery of the four-position principle opened the door for metrical investigation into the chronology of Old English poetry, since certain verses could now be seen to require the substitution of archaic forms in order to possess four positions: e.g., the verse transmitted as on flett gæð (Beo 2034b) must have contained the pre-contracted form *gæ-ið when it was composed. Metrists contemporary with Sievers perceived the possibility of deriving a relative chronology from the distribution of verses requiring archaic phonology for scansion, yet it was not until the appearance of R.D. Fulk's A History of Old English Meter (1992) that a comprehensive analysis of the data, informed by advances in Indo-European linguistics, became available. Fulk demonstrated that although the four-position principle obtained throughout the Anglo-Saxon period, language change altered the ability of poets to fill metrical positions with linguistic material. His magnum opus is the definitive exploration of the chronological insights afforded by Sieversian metrics.

Sievers’ discoveries also revolutionized the textual criticism of Old English poetry. The application of his metrical system revealed that a small percentage of transmitted verses failed to possess four metrical positions, while also failing to take the form of licensed exceptions (e.g., A3 and D* verses) to this rule. Textual critics have consequently sought to emend the relevant passages, proceeding under the assumption that unmetrical verses do not reflect the compositional tendencies of poets, but are instead the products of scribal corruption. Conservative editors, however, generally refrain from emending metri causa, and scholars opposed to emendation frequently contend that meter provides no reliable insights into a work's textual history. Suspicion of meter pervades the scholarly literature on editing Old English poetry, yet Fulk has critiqued this trend, suggesting that such suspicion is based more in faith than in reason.