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Oct. 18th, 2004 10:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
vyvyanxAfter reading The Silmarillion at last this year (borrowed from ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
robinbloke; thank you again), I felt inspired to read LOTR yet again. On reaching the song Bilbo makes in Rivendell just before the Council of Elrond, I was struck for the first time not merely by how much more sense it makes once you know who Eärendil is, but also by the unusual complexity of the poetic structure. Before I thought it was just structured around iambic tetrameter, with rather loose end-rhyme between even-numbered lines, and no clear verse plan. But now I notice it also has a reasonably strict assonance and some consonance of the last 4 syllables of odd-numbered lines with the first 4 syllables of following even-numbered lines. (The vowels of unstressed syllables all seem to count as equivalent.) For example:
In panoply of an-cient kings
in chain-ed rings he armoured him;
o'er leagues unlit and found-ered shores
that drowned be-fore the Days began,
But on him might-y doom was laid,
till Moon should fade, an orbed star
etc.
(There's also a fair amount of Old English-style alliteration e.g. he built a boat; his shining shield; and banner bright; the Flammifer...)
robinbloke; thank you again), I felt inspired to read LOTR yet again. On reaching the song Bilbo makes in Rivendell just before the Council of Elrond, I was struck for the first time not merely by how much more sense it makes once you know who Eärendil is, but also by the unusual complexity of the poetic structure. Before I thought it was just structured around iambic tetrameter, with rather loose end-rhyme between even-numbered lines, and no clear verse plan. But now I notice it also has a reasonably strict assonance and some consonance of the last 4 syllables of odd-numbered lines with the first 4 syllables of following even-numbered lines. (The vowels of unstressed syllables all seem to count as equivalent.) For example:In panoply of an-cient kings
in chain-ed rings he armoured him;
o'er leagues unlit and found-ered shores
that drowned be-fore the Days began,
But on him might-y doom was laid,
till Moon should fade, an orbed star
etc.
(There's also a fair amount of Old English-style alliteration e.g. he built a boat; his shining shield; and banner bright; the Flammifer...)
