Alliteration In Culture

Alliteration occurs in a wide variety of contexts in stress-initial languages, including Icelandic, Finnish and Mongolian. It can be found in English from Beowulf to The Sun . Nevertheless, alliteration remains an unexamined phenomenon. This pioneering volume takes alliteration as its central focus across a variety of languages and domains.

The genesis of the alliterations in this book was an email exchange in 2001 with a colleague in Albany, New York. In the emails, we traded alliterations back and forth, variously signing our emails Phrantic in Philadelphia, Accommodating in Albany, Perplexed in Philadelphia and finally, Alliterative in Albany. This email exchange was ultimately the inspiration for my first alliteration about the city of Albany. I then set myself the challenge of exploring the alliterative possibilities of each letter of the alphabet and this slim volume of alliterative verse, Alliteration, Again and Again, is the culmination of that endeavor. My earnest hope is that this work will not be dismissed as: Alliteration, an author affliction and awful addiction, avoiding any actual artistic achievement.!

This collection of thirteen chapters answers new questions about rhyme, with views from folklore, ethnopoetics, the history of literature, literary criticism and music criticism, psychology and linguistics. The book examines rhyme as practiced or as understood in English, Old English and Old Norse, German, Swedish, Norwegian, Finnish and Karelian, Estonian, Medieval Latin, Arabic, and the Central Australian language Kaytetye. Some authors examine written poetry, including modernist poetry, and others focus on various kinds of sung poetry, including rap, which now has a pioneering role in taking rhyme into new traditions. Some authors consider the relation of rhyme to other types of form, notably alliteration. An introductory chapter discusses approaches to rhyme, and ends with a list of languages whose literatures or song traditions are known to have rhyme.

Explores the nature of stress and accent patterns in natural language using a diverse range of theories, methods and data.

The twelve articles in this volume promote the growing contacts between medieval linguistics and medieval cultural studies generally. Articles address medieval English linguistics, and the interrelation in Anglo-Saxon England between Latin and vernacular language and culture.

Old and Middle English literature can be obscure and challenging. So, too, can the vast body of criticism it has elicited. Yet the masters of medieval literature often drew on similar texts, since imitation was admired. For this reason, recent scholarship has often focused on the importance of genre. The genre in which a work was written can illuminate the author's intentions and the text's meaning. Read in light of a genre's parameters, a given work can be considered in relation to other works within the same category. This reference is a comprehensive overview of Old and Middle English literature. Chapters focus on particular genres, such as Allegorical Verse, Balladry, Beast Fable, Chronicle, Debate Poetry, Epic and Heroic, Lyric, Middle English Parody/Burlesque, Religious and Allegorical Verse, and Romance. Expert contributors define the primary characteristics of each genre and discuss relevant literary works. Chapters provide extensive reviews of scholarship and close with detailed bibliographies. A more thorough bibliography of major scholarly studies closes the book.

Powerful Poetry celebrates the beauty, power, and pleasure of poetry in the classroom. This highly-readable book outlines the many benefits of integrating poetry into your literacy program, including building reading, writing, and speaking skills, nurturing creativity, and celebrating language. Powerful Poetry provides practical, enjoyable lessons for integrating poetry into your year-long literacy program and engaging ways to introduce poetic structure, language, tools, and devices. Book lists introduce a wide range of wonderful poems and poets. Ideal for new and experienced teachers who are looking to bring the power of poetry into their classroom.