‘

CHAUCER'S NORMALIZED DICT ION:
A COMPARISON OF RECURRING PHRASES IN
CHAUCER AND BEOWULF TO DETERMINE THE VALIDITY
OF THE MAGOUN THESIS

Thesis for the Degree of Ph. D.
MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY
Edward .I. Wolff
1966

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thesis entitled

CHAUCER' 3 NO '{MALIZED DICTION:
A COIIPAI’ISON OF RECURRING PHI \ASES IN CHAUCER AND BEO'_._____ TULF
TO DETERMINE THE VALIDITY OF THE IIAGOUN THESIS-*-

presented by

Edward J. Wolff

has been accepted towards fulfillment
of the requirements for

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ABSTRACT
CHAUCER'S NORMALIZED DICTION:
A COMPARISON OF RECURRING PHRASES IN CHAUCER AND EEQEQLE
TO DETERMINE THE VALIDITY OF THE MAGOUN THESIS
For well over half a century scholars have attested

to Chaucer's use of rhyme tags and meter fillers, to his idi-
omatic and colloquial language. This study is an attempt to
go beyond passing reference and to firmly establish what might
be called Chaucer's use of normalized diction--a diction that
is very repetitive and free from syntactic eccentricity, a
diction that utilizes the same words to eXpress the same ideas
in different contexts. Whatever other reasons Chaucer may
have had for using this kind of diction, the most probable is
that he meant his poetry to be recited and thus eschewed the
eccentric and elaborate as inappropriate to his purposes.

To demonstrate Chaucer's dependence on normalized
diction, this study traces phrases of four or more consecu-
tive syllables in two words or more in a relatively short
sample of Chaucer's poetry (about 600 lines) as they are re-
peated in a larger sample (about 3000 lines). Comparable
phrases are similarly traced in Beowulf and in Milton's poetry
as touchstones to place the Chaucer results into perspective.

The findings recorded here in a series of tables
range from predictable to surprising. As expected, the

number of repetitions in Milton is very low-~33 phrases in

2

the small sample (lines 1-500 of Book III, 3;) used just

79 times in the large sample (Books I-III of §§)--which
merely verifies the accepted scholarly view of Milton as a
user of eccentric and elaborate diction. Less predictably,
Beowulf contains fewer repetitions than anticipated, eSpeci-
ally in the light of recent scholarship alleging oral com-
position for the poem on the basis of its repeated phrases
and formulas. In the small sample (lines 1-600 of Beowulf),
there are 1&0 phrases used A07 times in the complete poem.
Quite understandably, these figures contrast sharply with
those of Milton. Surprisingly, however, they do not differ
radically from the Chaucer figures--131 phrases in the small
sample (Miller's Tale) used 330 times in the large sample
(Knight's Tale, Miller's Tale, Reeve's Tglg). In the use of
repetitions, then, Chaucer does not represent a mid-point
between the Beowulf poet and Milton, as this writer origin-
ally anticipated; rather, if the Beowulf poet and Milton can
be considered polarities, Chaucer must be closely bracketed
with the former as a user of an accepted, conventional lan-
guage which, it must be assumed, was Spoken by men.

The secondary conclusion of this study, also stem-
ming from the proximity of Chaucer to the Beowulf poet, in
the use of repetitions, tends to diSprove, not the celebra-
ted conclusion of Francis P. Magoun, Jr., that Beowulf was
orally composed in the act of recitation, but the validity
of his evidence for saying so. Magoun bases his contention

on the great number of repetitions of formulas and phrases

0v

3
in Beowulf. Using his reasoning, it might be said on equal
evidence and with equal force that Chaucer composed orally.
But he did not.

To buttress the argument against Magoun, five charts
are included at the end of this study. Two of Milman Parry's
on 223 Iliad and Egg Odyssey, showing the enormity of Homer's
debt to formula, and one of Magoun's on Beowulf, showing
the Beowulf poet's debt to formula, are well known. To
these, for comparison, are added similar charts on Chaucer
and Milton. The results of that comparison show that least
repetitive and formulaic by far is Milton; most repetitive
and formulaic by far is Homer. Between these polarities
stand Chaucer and the Beowulf poet, virtually together,

The fact that a poet like Chaucer, writing in a lettered
tradition, can for all intents and purposes be as repeti-
tive as the Beowulf poet points toward the necessity, not of
abandoning the theory of oral composition of Beowulf, but

of establishing new criteria to prove the theory.

CHAUCER'S NORMALIZED DICTION:
A COMPARISON OF RECURRING PHRASES IN CHAUCER AND BEOWULF
TO DETERMINE THE VALIDITY OF THE MAGOUN THESIS

BY

Edward J. Wolff

A THESIS

Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
Department of English

1966

FOREWORD

This study is primarily an attempt to establish in
a new way Geoffrey Chaucer's use of normalized diction. By
tracing and listing repetitions in samples of Chaucer's
poetry, it was determined statistically that Chaucer relied
heavily on the idiomatic, colloquial language of his day.
His dependence on this quality of language, which so con-
sistently permeates his style, stems most probably from his
conscious intention to write poetry to be read aloud and
thus to be understood by a listener rather than by a reader.
Such intention precludes the use of the elaborate and rec-
ondite.

Repetitions occur in such abundance in Chaucer's
poetry, in fact, that a second conclusion--more tentative
and speculative, but nevertheless worth drawing--suggested
itself. This study shows by tables and charts that in the
use of repetitions Chaucer is surprisingly only a little
behind the Beowulf poet, not enough behind to be clearly
separatedifrom the earlier poet. The feet, then, that
Chaucer'!ggtg his poetry tends to cast a shadow of doubt on
Professor Francis P. Magoun, Jr.'s famous thesis that B32-
‘gglf was orally composed because of the high number of re-
peated phrases and formulas it contains. The results of
this study point, if not toward the written composition of

Beowulf, at least toward the need for creating and develop-
ii

iii
ing new criteria and new systems for determining the oral
composition of Beowulf, or, for that matter, of any other
poem whose method of composition is in doubt.

To Professor William Whallon, my advisor, I wish
to eXpress my deepest appreciation for his insistent but
kindly encouragement, for his valuable suggestions, and
for his putting into sharper focus a complex of ideas which
at one time this writer only vaguely understood. I am
thankful, too, to Professor Arnold Williams for his patient
indulgence over the years and for appointing, to serve in
his absence, my present advisor; to Professor John F.
Mahoney for introducing me to the field of oral poetics
one dark, blustery night; to Professor John A. Yunck for
his friendship and guidance during these troubled years;
and to Professor Heist for his helpful suggestions. Es-
pecially to Mr. and Mrs. Eugene F. Grewe and to Robert J.
Reilly am I grateful: to the Grewes, those "passionate
correctors," for their careful reading and typing of the
manuscript; to Mr. Reilly, for his sanity and humor, com-
passion and understanding, which have provided the stamina

needed to complete this work.

TABLE OF

FOREWORD . . . . . . . . . .
TABLE OF CONTENTS . . . . .
CHAPTER I. . . . . . . . . .
CHAPTER II . . . . . . . . .
CHAPTER III . . . . . . . .

TABLE I. CHAUCER . . .

TABLE II. BEOWULF . .

TABLE III. MILTON . .

TABLE IV.

CHAPTER IV . . . . . . . . .
BIBLIOGRAPHY . . . . . . . .

COMPARATIVE CHARTS:
CHAUCER, AND MILTON . . . . . . . .

CONTENTS

Page

0 e e e e e e e e e e 0 ii
0 e O O O O O O 0 0 O 0 iv
e e O 0 e O 0 O O O O O 1

l7
29
29
51
71+

0 O O O O O O O O O O O
O O O O O O O O O O O O

HOMER, BEOWULF,
82

98
109

iv

CHAPTER I

For decades scholars have attempted to solve the
mystery of Chaucer's poetic style--that luminous quality
about his work that, more than any other, demonstrates his
genius and at the same time escapes absolute definition.
Precisely what it is that informs his style many scholars
have explained in divers ways. One end of the critical

1 who ascribes to

spectrum might be represented by Manly,
Chaucer extensive dependence on formal rhetorical theory
and whose work drove medieval scholars to an exhaustive
study of medieval treatises published by Faral to learn
the rhetorical colors. Matthew of Vendome and Geoffrey of
Vinsauf, as they were said to have shaped Chaucer's poetic
style, gained a prominence that they have yet to relin-
quish.2 Claims of Chaucer's conscious debt to medieval
rhetoricians, however, approached the ridiculous, as in

Benjamin S. Harrison's assertion that Chaucer used exactly

seventy "colors" in the Eganklin's Tale.3 If we accept

the caution of C. S. Lewis, who tells us not to ”read into

 

1John M. Manly, "Chaucer and the Rhetoricians,"
Proceedings 2; the British Academ , XII (1926).

2Charles S. Baldwin, Medieval Rhetoric gag Poetic
(New York, 1959).

3"The Rhetorical Inconsistency of Chaucer's
Franklin," Studies i3 Philolo , XXII (January, 1935), 60.

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Chaucer all manner of ironies, slynesses and archnesses,
which are not there,"h Chaucer has unaccountably and un-
believably blundered in his characterization, since the
Franklin himself denies any knowledge of colours. Even if
we grant the Franklin his pose of unassuming modesty and
view him as discreetly illustrating his "gentillesse," we
must see that many of the "colors," so carefully delin-
eated, can--and do--occur in everyday Speech and that one
could hardly Speak for long without using them.

It simply cannot be denied that Chaucer is in part
indebted to a formal rhetorical tradition, but his "style,"
so say scholars at the other end of the critical spectrum,
cannot be fully explained in the light of this influence.
They contend that Chaucer owes much to the Spoken language.
Thomas R. Lounsbury, representing the extreme of this posi-
tion, in one of the earliest statistical studies of Chaucer's
colloquialisms, attributes to Chaucer a careless use of re-
peated words, phrases and even sentences by and large ir-
respective of meaning.5 More Specifically, although he
concedes that some of Chaucer's recurring expressions ef-
fect a transition, fill out a measure, or secure a rhyme,
and that Chaucer uses the same words to eXpress the same

thought in different works,6 Lounsbury nevertheless adds

 

“Allegogz g§,Love:'A Study gf’Medieval Tradition,
(Oxford, 1936), pp. léh-ES.

SStudies y; Chaucer (New York, 1892), II, 82 ff.
61bide, p. 830

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that

many of them [repeated eXpressions], eSpecially

those most often used, - . . while they cannot be

called absolutely necessary to the sense, the sig-

nification of the passage, in the great majority

of instances, would have been very slightly af-

fectsd if they had not made their appearance at

all.
Noting that Chaucer was far different in this reSpect from
Gower, who used language much more carefully,8 Lounsbury
concludes that Chaucer very often must have "moved per-
sistently on low levels, and ordinarily kept close to the
language of daily life."9 Aside from the amusing mistaken
judgments, Lounsbury's observations are interesting because
they imply that Chaucer simply did not know any better,
which makes him an unconscious, if not haphazard, artist
at best-~a poet vastly different from the careful, aca-
demic artist of rhetoric pictured by Manly and the others.

Manly himself, however, helps to close the apparent

distance separating these views when, at the end of his
famous essay, he concedes that Chaucer

began his career, not merely as a disciple and

imitator of a thoroughly artificial school of

writing, but as a conscious exploiter of the for-

mal rhetoric taught by the professional rhetor-

icians, and that it was only gradually and as a

result of much thought and experiment that he re-

placed the conventional methods of rhetorical
elaboration by those processes of imaginative

 

7Studies in Chaucer, II, 89.

81bid., p. 107.

91b1d., p. 99.

1.

construction which give hislaest work so high a
rank in English literature.

A much more recent proponent of Chaucer's debt to the rhe-
toricians, Charles Muscatine, takes a more conservative
view: ”The contention that Chaucer gradually abandoned
rhetoric is statistically questionable."11 Nevertheless,
many more scholars seem to have assumed Manly's concession
to be correct and have tried to define in Chaucer's style
that nebulous "something" that Manly could describe only
as "processes of imaginative construction." If Robert K.
Root is right when he says Chaucer's "sentences are short
and loose, simple in their structure, free from awkward in-
versions and from any studied balance or antithesis,"12
then Manly's tacit admission that something other than
Chaucer's use of rhetoric gives him "so high a rank in
English literature" points strongly toward Chaucer's hav-
ing gradually adopted an informal, colloquial tradition,
written or spoken, or both. All of which would tend to
have Manly and Lounsbury agree, if not on the quality of
Chaucer's use of the informal tradition, at least on the

fact that he did use it.

 

1OManly, pp. 112-13.

llghggggg and the French Tradition (Berkeley, 1957),
p. 17“.

12The Poetry Q; Chaucer (Gloucester, Mass., 1957),
p. #1.

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5

Margaret Schlauch,l3 among the more recent critics,
not only recognizes Chaucer's use of the colloquial lan-
guage, but indeed shows, through an analysis of sentence
structure, his carefully apt use of both formal and in-
formal language. For example, she says that Criseyde,
arguing with Troilus against elopement,

is being supremely clear-headed, despite her
swooning, and shows no lapses in sentence struc-
ture while she is talking. On the other hand,
Chaucer inserts loose colloquial structures in-
to many expository passages . . . . Without be-
ing obtrusive they contribute to the sense of
happy ease and flowingness which were character-
istic of the poetry in all periods from the

early Book 2; the Duchess to the maturest Can-
terbury Tales.15

More importantly, Miss Schlauch contends that ”the more
colloquial passages show characteristics of informal Eng-
lish which are recognizable as deviations from the con-
trasting formal usages of both Chaucer's age and ours."15
But most importantly for the purposes of this study she
summarizes the total effect of Chaucer's use of this mix-
ture of language levels when she says:

. . . we can the more readily imagine for our-

selves the enchanting effect of immediacy which

Chaucer must have created when he read aloud his

own works [italics mine], employing colloquia

sentence patterns along with the many other de-
vices he commanded to invest his language with

 

13"Chaucer's Colloquial English: Its Structural
Traits," PMLA,ALXVII (December, 1952), 1103-16.

1“:b1d., p. 1116.
151bid., p. 1101.

6

its qualities 0% social and psychological ap-
propriateness.l

The offhandedness of the italicized clause suggests Miss
Schlauch's complete and unquestioning acceptance of the
theory that Chaucer intended his works to be read aloud.
But it does much more than that. It supplies us with a
good reason for Chaucer's espousing what might be called a
normalized diction, that is, a diction that is free from
eccentricity, from the bizarre and unusual, a diction that
does not try for rarity of eXpression, a diction, finally,
that uses the same words to eXpress the same thoughts in
different contexts. This kind of diction scholars have
ascribed to Homer and to the Beowulf poet before Chaucer.
Others, long before Miss Schlauch, theorized that

because of colloquial usages and repetitions of various
kinds, Chaucer intended his poetry for recitation. As far
back as the turn of the century, discussing Chaucer's verse
tags, Charles M. Hathaway all but guessed it when he con-
cluded:

Besides being a feature of all popular Speech,

these phrases are the especial outfit of the story-

teller, his especial means of establishing credence;

and it is as such that I hold that Chaucer is the

perfect artist in using them in his best work.

Chaucer aims to keep us, and to an astonishing de-

gree succeeds in keepin us exactly in the position
of people listening to %not reading) a story.

 

l6Schlauch, p. 1116.

17"Chaucer's Verse Tags as Part of Narrative
Machinery," Journal 9; English 329 Germanic Philolo , V
(1903-5), #8 .

"

7
He extends high praise to Chaucer for creating in his
reader the illusion that he is listening rather than read-
ing. In this observation he was but one short step re-
moved from being the first to say what the scholarly world
has since come to take for granted, partly as a result of
the study of Ruth Crosby, for example, who says, "His
[Chaucer's] aim was to hold the interest of a fourteenth
century audience that actually would be listening.”18
She says further that Chaucer "wrote primarily for a lis-
tening public and that in doing so he naturally adopted
many of the tricks of style familiar to him through his
knowledge of literature intended to be heard."19 To ar-
rive at this conclusion Miss Crosby in a previous article20
had first to show "some evidences of the custom of oral
delivery in the Middle Ages,"21 and then "to analyze the
peculiar characteristics of narrative intended for publi-

22

cation by that means." These characteristics--examples

 

18"Chaucer and the Custom of Oral Delivery,”
Speculum, XIII (January-October, 1938), 432. Other schol-
ars ad recently asserted that Chaucer read aloud his
works. See George P. Wilson, "Chaucer and Oral Reading,"
South Atlantic Quarterly, XXV (1926), 283 ff.; H. Ludeke,
“Die Funktionen des Erzahlers in Chaucers Epischen Dich-
E325,” Stugien_ zur Englischen Philolo ie, LXXII (Halle,

19Crosby, p. #32.

20"Oral Delivery in the Middle Ages,” Speculum,
XI (January-October, 1936), 88-110.

21Ibid., p. 88.

22Ibid.

8
of direct address and excessive repetitions of various kinds,
such as expletives, meter fillers, rhyme tags, formulas,
transitions, asseverations and oaths--she finds in abun-
dance primarily in Middle English romances, though some-
times in Old French romances as well. Then in the later
article she traces them in the works of Chaucer.

In her summation she is careful to add concessively
that Chaucer indeed used devices of classical as well as
of popular origin and also

that many of the phrases used by Chaucer and the

romance writers were popular colloquialisms.

Chaucer must have heard and used such expres-

zigniainofizgryoggy Speech as frequently as we do
Thus She subscribes to the prevailing view that Chaucer's
style is a happy amalgam of two separate, though notalways
mutually exclusive, traditions, but at the same time in-
sists that Chaucer had good reason to adopt and develop his
style as he did: If he intended his poetry to be read
aloud, as it now seems he most certainly did, why not use
the oral formulas, common phrases, and stock expressions,
already so integral a part of both the recited romances
and everyday Speech?

Indeed, only a decade ago in a study partly de-
voted to Chaucer's concessions to his listening audience,

Mary Giffin says of Chaucer: "A post eXpected to read his

poem aloud to an audience, or he conceived of another per-

 

23"Chaucer and the Custom of Oral Delivery," p. #31.

9
son reading it aloud."24 Her major proofs are brief ref-
erences to a few of the often-cited passages in Troilus

and Criseyde addressed to a listening audience, and to

 

Criseyde's reading aloud to her ladies from the §iggg_g£
Thebeszs a very few token examples from among Chaucer's
many references to "hearing" and "Speaking" in his po-
etry,26 and finally a lengthy plea for the authenticity
and historical accuracy of that famous illumination (Cor-
pus Christi College, Cambridge, MS. 61, reproduced on the
following page) showing Chaucer reading aloud to his king,
queen, and court.27 The brevity of her treatment here
suggests that she is merely summarizing the evidence pre-

28 in order to

sented much more fully by others before her
proceed to the heart of her study. That she could refer
to that evidence so cryptically and rightly assume the
reader's knowledge of the extensive scholarship in this
area is a tribute to the work of all those who enabled her

to proceed so quickly to her study proper.

 

, 2“Studies 95 Chaucer and His Audience (Quebec,
Canada, 1956), p. 19.

25Ibid., pp. 16-17.
261bid., p. 19.
27Ibide, pp. 17‘190

28In addition to Crosby, Schlauch, and the others
mentioned above, see Hel e deeritz, "Rhetorical Word-Play
in Chaucer," PMLA, LXIX L95L), 9L2-52, and Bertrand
Bronson, "Chaucer's Art in Relation to his Audience,"

Universit of California Publications in English, VIII,
No. I (I9AOT: 1-33, to mention a few of_many.

 

 

 

 

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CHAUCER READING POETRY TO HIS AUDIENCE

Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, 13;. _6_l

11

Conventional assumptions and conventional theories,
however, are always in need of re-examination and, in the
event of newly-presented evidence through a fresh critical
approach, are subject to subsequent revaluation. If an
old assumption or an old theory is not thus changed, it
ought at least to be continually reaffirmed. I do not in-
tend in this study to Oppose the idea that Chaucer in-
tended his poetry to be recited. Rather, this study at-
tempts to prove in an entirely new way what Giffin, Crosby,
and the others have said for years. This unique analysis
of Chaucer attempts to show from a different angle of
vision that Chaucer used a normalized diction. The old
theory is thus vitalized and reinforced and with it its
corollary, that he used it because he intended his poetry
to be recited.

In this study I have compiled three lists of re-
peated phrases for comparison, one from the poetry of

Chaucer,29 one from Beowulf,30 and one from the poetry of

Milton,31 To present a valid comparison from which reason-

able conclusions could be drawn, Specific segments from

 

29All lines from Chaucer are taken from Chaucer's
Major Poetr ed. Albert C. Baugh (New York: Appleton-
Century-Cro¥ts, 1963).

30All lines from Beowulf are taken from Beowulf

and the F1 ht at Finnsbur ed. Fr. Klaeber (New York: D. C.
Heath an ompafiy, 19505. ,

31All lines from Milton are taken from John Milton:

Com lete Poems and Major Prose, ed. Merritt Y. Hughes
(New York: Odyssey Press, 1957).

12
Chaucer and Milton were chosen to approximate the length
of the complete Beowulf (3182 lines): from the work of

Chaucer the Knight's Tale, the Miller's Tale, and the

 

Reeve's Tale (331932) were taken, since together they are
acceptable as a literary unit and might fairly represent

as well as any other unit in the Canterbury Tales the high

 

art of Chaucer; from the work of Milton the first three
books of Paradise Lost (2595 lines) were taken for the same
reasons. Secondly, from within each of these larger seg-
ments, a small sample was chosen: from Chaucer, the Miller's
Ialg (667 lines); from Beowulf, the first 600 lines; from
Milton, the first 500 lines of Book III of Paradise Lost.
The difference in the size of the small samples is the re-
sult of an attempt to keep the proportion between small
and large sample in each case approximately equal. As it
stands, the ratio is extremely close to one-to-five.

In order to compare repetitions of word patterns
in these works it was decided to allow four or more con-
secutive syllables comprising two words or more in the
Chaucer and Milton samples to be a quantitative equivalent

of the Old English half-line in Beowulf.33 In addition it

 

32The Miller's "Prologue" and the Reeve's "Prologue"
have been omitted to reduce the size of the Chaucer seg-
ment to compare more clearly with that of the Beowulf.

33The format of the Chaucer and Milton concordances
made it impossible to search for possible repetitions that
carried into a succeeding line. For this reason this study
has not taken into account such repetition.

13

was decided that wherever Chaucer's spelling in the Tat-
lock-Kennedy Concordance3l+ differed from that in the Baugh
text and the question of a fourth syllable arose, the
spelling of the Baugh text would be followed. Finally,
it was decided that varying inflections in words in re-
peated half-lines in Beowulf that made them technically
different would be considered inconsequential and that
therefore they would not be excluded as repeated lines,
since allowance must be made for the fact that Old English
was much more heavily inflected than either Middle English
or Modern English.35

With these qualifications and allowances in mind,
then, I counted the word-patterns defined above as they

appeared in each small sample and were repeated at least

 

once in the corresponding large sample. I counted also
the total number of times these word-groups were used in
the large sample. The results of this count are listed

in the following table.

3“John S. P. Tatlock and Arthur G. Kennedy, A Con-

cordance to the Com lete Works of Geoffre Chaucer ahd to
the FomauntT o the hosem as Wington: The Carnegie Ihhtiu
tution of Wahhington, I927) .

35The task of counting these repeated half lines
in Beowulf was made considerably easier by the work of
Richard Kistenmacher, who in doctoral dissertation, gig
wortlichen Wiederholun en im Beowulf written at the Uni-
versity of Grei swald Greifswald, Germany: printed by
Julius Abel, 1898), made a fairly complete and substan-
tially accurate list of such phrases.

1h
TABLE OF RESULTS

 

Number of Phrases Number of Times
Used in Small Sample Repeated in the
Repeated in Large Large Sample
Sample
Chaucer 131 (Miller's Tale) 330 (RTJMI,RV.T)
Beowulf 11.036 (11. l-6OO Beowulf)h07 (complete Beowulf)

Milton 33 (11. 1-500, g; III) 79 (31,, I, II, III)

It was hoped that by adding the Beowulf and Milton
studies as "touchstones," it could clearly be seen that
Chaucer in his use of repeated phrases was about mid-way
between an artist who knew and consciously employed repe-
titions and an artist who knew and consciously avoided them.
This study has, predictably, indicated that in Paradise ngg
Milton was as far from normalized diction as a poet can be.
The repetitions in his sample, such as they are, he uses
in the main only because he is dictionally restricted by the
theological subject matter of his poem. How many ways, af-
ter all, are there of saying "the Son of God" or "Heaven
and Earth"? It is amazing, rather, that in the light of the
narrow choice theological terminology has left him, he has
repeated so little.

The Beowulf "touchstone" has produced surprising

 

36This figure includes six: repetitions in the
first 600 lines that technically are not half lines be-
cause they bridge the caesura. These five appear twenty
times in the complete poem and in this study appear as a
separate group at the end of the list of repeated half-
lines in the Beowulf.

15
results. It has demonstrated that Chaucer in his use of
repetitions is far closer to Beowulf than has ever been
acknowledged. Chaucer is not only not half way between two
extremes; he joins Beowulf at one pole to be contrasted
with Milton at the other. Reading Beowulf, one has always
had the feeling that there is an overwhelming number of
repetitions in the poem--perhaps a greater number than
there really is--probably because the language is relative-
ly unfamiliar and the ear,groping for sense, is perhaps
more attuned to repetitions in unfamiliar tongues than in
familiar. On the other hand, with Chaucer, although one
is always aware of the short expressions like 29; Egg
gggg§,,gg l esse, or fig it thoughte g3, one is disin-
clined to "hear" the repetitions because his diction, even
in Middle English, is so much like the diction that is so
much a part of our daily lives. Hence the tendency would
be to overestimate the repetition in Beowulf and under-
estimate it in Chaucer. The above figures tend to belie
our "impressions" and clearly place Chaucer, in his heavy
reliance on normal and colloquial diction, as nearly repet-
itive as the Beowulf poet.

Thus what Crosby and the others have contended for
years on the basis of their evidence, that Chaucer was
greatly influenced by a language other than the formal, arti-
ficial language of the rhetoricians, is supported by the re-
sults of this study. Further, the closer he can be aligned
with Beowulf and the poetic tradition that produced it, the

16
more evidence there is for saying that Chaucer used this
natural style because he, like the Beowulf poet, had in
mind the recitation of his poetry. The high incidence of
repetition, as scholars attest, in both cases strongly sug-

gests composition of poetry meant to be heard.

CHAPTER II

The close resemblance of Chaucer's work to the
Beowulf in the use of repetitions, as illustrated in this
study, also produces evidence that helps to solve, or at
least to clarify, a recently developed scholarly contro-
versy concerning Beowulf. By about the middle of this cen-
tury it had become conventional to see Beowulf as a poem
composed by one man who combined materials for his narra-
tive epic from both oral and written, pagan and Christian
traditions. How well he unified these disparate materials
was--and still iso-a question for debate,1 but the conten-
tion that "the poem was written pen in hand or written
from the poet's dictation"2 and intended for oral presen-
tation was not. The evidence that Klaeber used to conclude
that the poem was meant to be recited--"the accumulation

of a vast store of ready forms and formulas which could

 

1Many Old English scholars have taken sides on the
unity question. Generally, those who see unity in the
poem rank the poet as superior; those who do not, view him
as something less. On the side of unity are such scholars,
for example, as Arthur E. Dubois, J. R. R. Tolkien, Joan
Bloomfield, Kemp Malone, and others. A few who oppose
them are T. M. Gang, J. C. Van Meurs, and H. L. Rogers.
See Bibliography for titles of their works. Curiously,
Pr. Klaeber, an outspoken defender of the poem's unity,
laments that it lacks "the finish of form as required by
modern taste or by Homeric or Vergilian standards" ("In-
troduction" to his edition, p. lxvii).

2William‘Witherle Lawrence, Beowulf and he Epic

Tradition (Cambridge, Mass., 1928), p. 10.

17

18

be added to and varied at will, repetitions of phrases"3--

was the same that induced Lawrence to call the poem's vari-
ation and repetition and "set epic phraseology" too mechan-
ical.‘ It was precisely this mechanical repetition, this
frequent use of "set epic phraseologyr that led Francis P.
Magoun, Jr., to argue compellingly that Beowulf was composed
not in a lettered tradition, but in an oral tradition, that
is, that it was composed in the moment of oral performance.5
To begin with, according to Magoun,

the characteristic feature of all orally composed
poetry is its totally formulaic character. From
this a second point emerged, namely, that the re-
currence in a given poem of an agpreciable number
of formulas or formulaic phrases brands the latter
as oral, Just as a lack of such repetitions marks

a poem composed in a lettered tradition. Oral
poetry, it may be safely said, is composed entirely
of formulas, large and small, while lettered poetry
is never formulaic, though lettered poets occasion-
ally consciously repeat themselves or quote verbatim

 

3"Introduction" to his edition, p. lxvii.
“Lawrence, p. h.

5"Oral Formulaic Character of Anglo-Saxon Narrative
Poetry,” S eculum, XXVIII (1953), Lao-67. The theory he
promulgates here suggested a new way of looking at Old and
Middle English narrative poetry and thus engendered a num-
ber of valuable studies, such as those by Lewis E. Nichol-
son, Robert P. Creed, Robert E. Diamond, Stanley B. Green-
field, Jackson J. Campbell, Robert Waldron, and others. For
specific titles, see Bibliography.

6He defines formula as "a group of words which is
regularly employed under the same metrical conditions to ex-
press a given essential idea"; formulaic hrases "are of the
same type and conform to the same verhaI an grammatical pat-
tern as the various other verses associated with them and
cited in the supporting evidence” (p. ##9). '

19

from other poets in order to produce a Specific
rhetorical effect.7

Applying these principles to any poem, Magoun continues,

. . . we have suddenly acquired a touchstone with

which it is now possible to determine to which of

two great categories of poetry a recorded text bgy

longs--to the oral or to the lettered tradition.
His recorded text is Beowulf, or more specifically, the
first twenty-five lines of Beowulf. He finds only thirteen
half-lines among the fifty that "are not matched wholly or
in part elsewhere in Anglo-Saxon poetry".9 Thus, as he
says, "some seventy percent of the text of this passage
does occur elsewhere in the corpus of Anglo-Saxon poetry."10
To bolster his statistic, he adds:

Were the surviving corpus, say, twice as big and

if, above all, we had other songs of any extent

dealing with anything like the same thematic ma-

terial, there well might be almost nothing in the

language here uiid that could not be demonstrated
as traditional.

With this convenient projection it would seem that Magoun
has successfully placed the poet of the Beowulf in the group
of unlettered singers who "call upon a ready-made language,
upon a vast reservoir of formulas filling just measures of
verse" as they compose extemporaneously "before a live

audience."12

 

7Magoun, Lh6-h7.
31bid., p. aa9.
91bid.

1°Ib1d., p. use.
11Ibid.
121bid., p. Ahé.

o.-

*Q—a .D—ps—Or—ww

 

20

In his study Magoun admits his debt to the conclu-
sions and technique of the late Milman Parry,13 whose work
was carried on and extended by his pupil Albert B. Lord.1h
On these two men Magoun has heaped high and well deserved
praise for their scholarly breakthrough in Homeric studies.
Working on the assumption that orally composed poetry was
dependent on a system of formulas developed in an oral
poetic tradition over a long period of time and handed
down through the ages to express given ideas in given met-
rical positions,15 they-~but particularly Parry--did indeed
demonstrate that Homer's works were orally composed (Parry
was the first to use the twenty-five-line small samples and

look for repetitions in the large samples, that is in the

 

‘ 13A complete bibliography of the writings of Mil-
man Parry can be found in Albert E. Lord's ”Homer Parry
and Huso," American Journal 9; Archaeology, LII (191.8),
3R-hh. The two most important for the present study are
"Studies in Epic Technique of Oral Versemaking I,: Homer
and Homeric Style," Harvard Studies i3 Classical Philology,
XLI (1930), 73-1h7, and "II, The Homeric Language as the
Language of Oral Poet ," Harvard Studies i3 Classical
Philology, XLIII (1932 , 1-55.

1“See '_r_1_u_e_ Singer 9; Tales (Cambridge, Mass., 1960).
This book contains the results of extensive research done
by both Parry and Lord on the living oral Serbo-Croatien
epic singers in their attempt to corroborate Parry's theo-
ries on Homeric poems. Lord alone, using conclusions ar-
rived at jointly with Parry, posited extensions which are,
if not untenable, highly speculative.

15Parry, "II, The Homeric Language as the Language

of Oral Poetry " Harvard Studies 1g Classical Philology
XLIII (1932), ’7-8. '

I.

s
.
i O
s
' s
I - .
I
' l-
.
.
I . V '
.' . ' -
‘ e
e
. , ' ' . '
.- ‘
e
9
' ‘ i
, ,
. ‘ . - '
r.- __
t
. . . '
' _
- " ‘ , *—._.._..‘
r o
u w .
h
o- ' . ‘
s . ‘
|4 . .'
‘ I
. . , . .
I .
w
0
e ’ . .
1 . ‘
. n
.
O .
k e
.. ‘
O ‘ '
e
--
O . ,
.
9 .
- '_ ' o a
s
n
' ‘ .
l ,. , I l
. ~ . .
i
O
‘ b
O , t ‘
, , .‘ .
° P
t
‘ e
- - l -
,

 

 

21

poems of Homerlé). Over ninety percent of their sampling

consists either in formulas or formulaic phrases. And, as
Lord points out, "It is highly important to emphasize that
formulas are not limited to familiar epithets and oft-re-

peated lines, but that formulas are all-pervasive."17 Sum-
marizing the results of an earlier statistical study by
Carl Edward Schmidt, William Whallon says,
. . . Schmidt counted 180L different lines repeated
exactly in the two Homeric poems, and by increasing
this figure so as to include lines repeated with
very slight modifications he counted 2118 different
lines used a total of 5612 times. Thus one line in
five from the Iliad and the Odysse¥ is to be found
somewhere else in the two poems. he ratio is
thoroughly remarkable because the lines 818 so long
--half again as long as those of Beowulf.
When the evidence of formula, as seen in Parry and Lord, is
added to the evidence, collected by Notopoulos, of repeated
hexameter lines averaging fifteen syllables,19 the evidence
becomes overwhelming: the argument for Homer's oral verse-
making becomes incontestable. "The old Homeric question in
the form it once took [Did he compose orally?] is," as No-

topoulos rightly concludes, "dead, except for those who

 

16Parry, "Studies in Epic Technique of Oral Verse-
Making, I: Homer and Homeric Style," Harvard Studies in
Classical Philolog? XLI (1930), 118 H—T. eeT‘f—ah e IV—of
{he present study or comparison of copies of the Parry and
Magoun charts with similar charts on Chaucer, Beowulf, and
Milton.

l7Lord, p. 1&2.
18"The Diction of Beowulf," PMLA. LXXVI (1961): 311-

19James A. Notopoulos, "Studies in Early Greek Oral
Poetr ," Harvard Studies i3 Classical Philolo , LXIII
(1964' g 16"; e

rs

22

have not heard of Parry, or if they have, proceed as if he
made no difference."20

Praise must be given to Magoun not only for accept-
ing the validity of the Parry oral verse-making theory, but
for seeing the possibilities for application of this theory
to Anglo-Saxon narrative poetry at a time when some repu-
table classical scholars, though accepting the theory,
lamented the concomitant loss of Homer's creative imagina-
tion and subtle artistry, and with it the further loss of a
great body of Homeric csiticism.21 Praise must also be
given to Magoun for so enthusiastically continuing to apply
the theory to works in Anglo-Saxon other than Beowulf,22
thereby contributing to the formulation of "oral poetics,"
which Notopoulos says "Parry's revolutionary turn in Hom-

eric studies" has forced on us.23 Moreover, Magoun's view

of Beowulf is persuasive enough to have Lord himself use

 

20Notopoulos, p. L7.
21Ibid., pp. 61-62.

221n "The Theme of the Beasts of Battle in Anglo-
Saxon Poetry," Neuphilologische Mitteilun en, LVI (1955),
81-90, and "Bede's Story of:Caedmon: The Case History of
an Anglo-Saxon Oral Singer," Speculum, XXX (1955), h9-63.
This latter is an attempt to buttress his argument for gggy
wulf by showing recorded oral composition. Similarly
Rohert P. Creed in "The Singer Looks at His Sources,"
Studies i3 Old English Literature in Honor 2; Arthur Q;
Brodeur edT—Stanley B. Greenfield-TUniversity of Oregon
Books, 1963), pp. uh-SZ, draws a parallel between the Dan-
ish oral singer in the Beowulf and the Greek oral singer,
Demodocus, in the Odyssey and sees them as prima facie evi-
dence that both poems derive from oral traditions.

23Notopoulos, p. 65.

 

 

 

23

his conclusions as partial evidence for his own assertion
that "Analysis of Beowulf indicates oral composition."24

Nevertheless, both Magoun and Lord have been vocif—
erously criticized not only for their conclusions on Beowulf,
but for their misapplication of principles as well. In a
review of the Lord book, Alistair Campbell takes exception
to Lord's use of "thematology, a field so bristling with
uncertainties that it will be well not to follow him into
it."25 Further, he rejects Lord's attempt to use contem-
porary Serbian oral epic practices to reveal conditions un-
der which Beowulf was produced.26 "There is," Campbell con-
cludes with the traditionalists, "little doubt that [Bedb
wulf] is a book epic."27 For him not even the demonstrated
partial formulaic character of the poem is convincing,
since for Campbell it does not follow that all formulaic
poetry is oral any more than that all oral poetry is formu-
laic.28 Even William Whallon, a scholar sympathetically
disposed toward Lord's conclusion on Beowulf, concedes that

Lord's results in this area are ”perhaps not definitive

 

2“Lord, p. 200.

ziflggggg.ggggg§gg Review, LVII (1962), 76.

26Ibid.

27Ibi id.

28Ibid., p. 75. He cites as non formulaic, yet
oral, Old Norse Scaldic verse, and some ancient Highland
and Icelandic poetry.

2h

in every respect."29 Similarly, Magoun is taken to task by
Arthur Gilchrist Brodeur, who, though he praises Magoun
highly for showing the pervasiveness of the formulaic ele-
ments in the poem,30 contends that Magoun assumes falsely
that a lettered poet cannot compose formulaically:

I think Magoun is wrong in his belief that a liter-

ate author cannot have composed in a traditional

formulaic manner. It is clear that Cynewulf did

so compose, and it is equally clear he had not been

trained as a soap. . . . The author of Brunanburh

was obviously an educated man; and no poem )2 Old

English is more nearly "totally formulaic."
He says, further, concluding his chapters on an analysis of
the diction and variation in Beowulf, that "We have seen
one thing clearly: The language of Beowulf, making heavy
use of traditional formulas, is yet by no means 'totally
formulaic.' "32 Magoun's conclusion "that the language of
Old English narrative poetry is totally formulaic"33 is
thus disputed. The formulas apparent in Beowulf, Brodeur
argues, are simply the "inevitable consequence of the poet's
undertaking to compose a heroic poem in the vernacular.”3h

Curiously, while Brodeur accepts Magoun's formulaic

 

29Reviewof Lord's Singer 2; Tales in Compgrative
Literature, XIV (1962), LOO.

' 30The 522 g§_Beowulf (Berkeley at Los Angeles,
(1960) . pf—U-

31;2id., p. 5.
3?;pid., p. 70.
33lgig., p. 3.
3"I_b_i_d., p. 70.

25

study as significant, even if overstated, but rejects his
conclusion, Whallon accepts his conclusion and minimizes
the significance of his formulaic study as a valid premise.
He notes first that "Beowulf and the Homeric poems are not
at all formulaic to the same extent,"35 and, in a close
comparative study of the diction of Beowulf with that of
the Homeric poems, finds that "the language of Beowulf
lacks the economy eXpected from a formulaic language that
is highly developed."36 This lack of economy in Beowulf he
attributes to the immaturity of the Old English oral poetic
tradition, which had not been so perfected as to do away with
superfluous elements "that reach dozens in three thousand
lines and must be assumed to multiply geometrically in a
larger corpus."37 He Speculates:

Further centuries of poetizing in the same tra-

dition might have augmented the language with use-

ful formulas it lacked, and might have also lim-

ited the use of certain distinctive kennings for

the epic hero; further centuries would at least

have cast many replaceable kennings into oblivion.38
He concludes by affirming a correspondence between Beowulf
and the Homeric poems, but on the evidence of his study de-

clares that the diction of Beowulf "is much less completely

stereotyped," and "may on this basis be taken to represent

 

35Whallon, "The Diction of Beowulf," PMLA, LXXVI
(1961), 309.
36Ibid., p. 318.

371bid.
38Ibid.

(a

26

an earlier stage in the development of an oral poem than
do the lligg and the Odyssey."39

Two scholars have thus strongly denied Magoun's
idea that Beowulf is totally formulaic, paradoxically for
diametrically opposed reasons: Brodeur makes a valiant ef-
fort to preserve for the Beowulf poet a careful conscious
poetic artistry; Whallon, like Klaeber long before him,
labels the poem as inferior Homer for not being formulaic
enough, for not having a style "so perfected as to become
invariable.""’0

This very brief summary of the scholarship on the
theory of oral composition as it affects Homer and Beowulf
has helped bring into focus the major differing opinions
on the subject in order to show that the question of the
oral composition of Beowulf is still a matter for debate.
The statistical results of the present study, that bracket
Chaucer with the Beowulf poet in the frequency of their
use of repetitions, tend to cast doubt on the validity of
Magoun's evidence for saying Beowulf was composed orally,
without necessarily doubting the truth of his conclusion.

Using Magoun's line of reasoning (that is, his
adaptations of Parry's criteria as he applied them to B39-
yglf) and imposing them on Chaucer, it could be said, on

the basis of this study, that Chaucer composed his poetry

 

39"The Diction of Beowulf," p. 319.
holbide, p. 3180

27
orally, yet we know he did not. If the argument is turned
around, and it is said that Chaucer 33933 his poetry and
that it contains almost as many repetitions as Beowulf,
could it not be said of Beowulf that it too was part of the
lettered tradition? Chapter I of this study illustrates
fairly conclusively that Chaucer as a writer of poetry used
normalized diction, with its consequent repetition, because
he intended his work to be recited. Could it not be said,
by the same token, that the Beowulf poet as a writer of
poetry "relied on a familiar idiomatic style"h1 because
he intended his work to be recited? Such a view, of course,
accords with that of the traditionaliSts and is mentioned
here to show there is no more reason for Magoun to say that
Beowulf was gaglly composed, g§,g;§ evidence, than there is
for me to say that Beowulf was written, on the evidence of
this study.

Yet the unqualified success Parry had in proving
the oral composition of the Homeric poems militates against
negating Magoun's conclusion, even if his application of
Perry's techniques to Beowulf is not conclusive. The feel-
ing is inescapable that Magoun is somehow right in his
hunch and that he simply used the wrong, but very attrac-

tive, yardstick and could not see that it was not quite

 

“lThe phrase is Whallon's in "The Diction of B32-
wulf,", PMLA, LXXVI (1961), 318. But Brodeur, defending
the Beowulf poet against Magoun, attests to the poet's
use of the "vernacular" (p. 70). In context the word has
connotations of "normal," perhaps even "colloquial."

28

long enough to measure Beowulf. In deference to him and to
his important scholarship in this field, new approaches
should be taken; other criteria should be developed and ap-
plied to the poem to prove about Beowulf what Parry in a
different time proved about Homer. The Whallon approach

to oral composition through the study of the use of diction,
particularly the kenning, marks a beginning. Only after
the oral composition of Beowulf is established beyond ques-
tion can the hoped-for "oral poetics" that pre-occupies
Notopoulos"2 be eXpanded and eventually be fully formulated
to encompass not only Homer and Beowulf and Lord's Serbo-
Croatian epics, but to encompass all oral poetry, irrespec-

tive of epoch and milieu.

thotopoulos, p. 65.

CHAPTER III

The conclusions and inferences drawn in the two
preceding chapters are based on the detailed evidence pre-
sented in this chapter, which consists of four tables. The
first three contain, respectively, repetitions in Chaucer,
Beowulf, and Milton; the fourth contains five charts in-
tended to indicate graphically in capsule form how Homer,
the Beowulf poet, Chaucer, and Milton are related with

respect to the use of repetitions.

TABLE I

The following table lists on the left margin phra-
ses of four or more consecutive syllables in two or more
words appearing in Chaucer's Miller's 13;; that are re-
peated at least once in a larger segment of Chaucer's
poetry, the Knight's gals, the Miller's gals, and the
Reeve's Iglg. These phrases are listed in the order of
their appearance in the Miller's 2313. Beneath each phrase,
this table further lists, indented from the left margin,
all the lines from the larger segment in which that phrase
is repeated. Merely to state that Chaucer saw fit to use
in the relatively short Miller's 2312 131 phrases that he
repeated 330 times in the larger segment of a little more
than 3,000 lines would be to verify statistically a common

assumption. After all,when Chaucer scholars have for dec-

29

30

ades noted that Chaucer is repetitive, statistics like
these have a way of being neglected, or at best accepted
in the abstract. A table of this kind, however, strikes
the eye in a way that no cold statistical total ever could;
it is a visual demonstration of the pervasiveness of
Chaucer's normalized diction in the body of his poetry.

All lines and line numbers appearing in this table
are taken from Albert C. Baugh's edition of Chaucer's
poetry. Occasionally Chaucer has more than one Spelling
for the same word largely because Spelling rules had not
yet been regularized. As long as the variant Spellings
contained the same number of syllables for a word, they

were considered to be vocal equivalents.

ther was dwellynge
Whilom ther was dwellynge at Oxenford 3187
With hym ther was dwellynge a povre scoler, 3190

a carpenter
And of his craft he was a carpenter. 3189
But if he koude a carpenter bigyle." 3300

his fantasye
Had 1erned art, but a1 his fantasye 3191
The folk gan laughen at his fantasye; 38AO

men asked hym
If that men asked hym in certein houres 3195

31

Or if men asked hym what sholde bifalle

sholde bifalle
Or if men asked hym what sholde bifalle

Upon the sterres, what ther sholde bifalle,

I may not rekene hem alle
I may nat rekene hem alle though I wolde.

0f everything; I may nat rekene hym alle.

hende Nicholas
This clerk was cleped hende Nicholas.
Now bere thee wel, thou hende Nicholas,
And hende Nicholas and Alisoun
Me reweth soore of hende Nicholas.

With hende Nicholas and Alisoun.

and of solas
Of deerne love he koude and of solas;

In bisynesse of myrthe and of solas,

allone, withouten any compaignye
Allone, withouten any compaignye,

Allone, withouten any compaignye,

Crete and smale
His Almageste, and bookes grete and smale

Save al this compaignye, grete and smale!

3197

3197
3h59

20h0
3198

3199
3397
3h01
3h62
3832

3200
365h

2799
320A

3208
4323

32
and al above
And a1 above, depeynted in a tour, 2027

And a1 above ther lay a gay sautrie, 3213

and after that

And after that with Sharpe Speres stronge 1653

And Quyked agayn, and after that anon 2335
And after that another compaignye 2572
And after that cam woful Emelye, 2910

And after that right thus he seyde his willez2986
And after that he song the kynges noote. 3217

And after that a tubbe and a kymelyn, 3621

this carpenter

This carpenter hadde wedded newe a wyf 3221
This carpenter awook, and herde him synge, 336A
This carpenter was goon til Osenay; 3a00
This carpenter to blessen hym bigan, 3Ah8
This carpenter wende he were in despeir, 3h7h
This carpenter answerde, "What seystow?" 3h90

This carpenter goth doun, and comth ageyn, 3h96

"Yis," quod this carpenter, "Ful yoore ago." 3537

This carpenter seyde his devocioun, 36A0
Fil on this carpenter right, as I gesse, 36hh
This carpenter out of his slomber sterte, 3816

in the snare

Til that Fortune had brought him in the snare.
1h90

33

But Sith that he was fallen in the snare,

this yonge wyf
Fair was this yonge wyf, and therwithal
Fil with this yonge wyf to rage and pleye
and therwithal
And therwithal he bleynte and cride, "A!"
And therwithal on knees doun he fil,
And therwithal Dyane gan appeere,
Fair was this yonge wyf, and therwithal

of the same suyte
And of the same suyte he cladde Arcite.

Were of the same suyte of hir coler;

and sikerly
And sikerly ther trowed many a man

And sikerly she had a likerous ye;

in al this world

"In al this world, that som tyme he ne deyde.

In al this world, to seken up and doun,

world to seken up and doun
In al the world, to seken up and doun,

In al this world, to seken up and doun,

on hir legges

Somme woln ben armed on hir legges weel,

Hir shoes were laced on hir legges hye.

3231

3233
3273

1078
1103
23h6
3233

2873
3242

2101
32hh

28h6
3252

2587
3252

2123
3267

3h
this hende Nicholas
That on a day this hende Nicholas
She loveth so this hende Nicholas

And atte laste this hende Nicholas

hir housbonde
Whil that hir housbonde was at Oseneye,

And she answerde hir housbonde therwithal,

was at Oseneye
Whil that hir housbonde was at Oseneye,

Upon the Monday was at Oseneye

and prively
And prively he caughte hire by the queynte,

And prively he sente hem to his in,

God me save
Or I wol dyen, also Cod me save!"
A myrie child he was, so God me save.

My moder yaf it me, so God me save;

this Nicholas
This Nicholas gan mercy for to crye,
This Nicholas no lenger wolde tarie,
This Nicholas sat evere caPYng uprights,
This Nicholas sat ay as stille as stoon,
This Nicholas answerde, "Fecche me drynke,

This Nicholas his dore faste shette,

3272
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3288
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3hhh
3h72

3&92
3h99

35

This Nicholas was risen for to pisse,

This Nicholas anon leet fle a fart,

For to crye
This prison caused me nat for to crye,
This Nicholas gan mercy for to crye,

That it had been to late for to crie,

atte laste
But atte laste the statue of Venus shook,
With othere rytes mo; and atte laste
That she hir love hym graunted atte laste,

And atte laste this hende Nicholas

and swoor his ooth
And swoor his ooth, as he was trewe knight,

And swoor his oath, by seint Thomas of Kent,

by seint Thomas
And swoor his oath, by seint Thomas of Kent,
And seyde, "I am adrad, by Seint Thomas,
He saugh net that.

at his commandement
And ryde anon at his commandement.
He can at his commandement in hye.

That she wol been at his commandement,

of jalousie

Therwith the fyr of jalousie up sterte

But yet, by seint Thomas,

3798
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1095
3288

#196

2265
2h30
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3h87

959
3291

3291
3&25
31.61

2869
2979
3292

1299

36
Of jalousie or any oother teene.

"Myn housbonde is so ful of jalousie

I woot right wel
I woot right wel, thou darst it nat withseyn.

I woot right wel I nam but deed," quod she.

I nam but deed
I nam but deed; ther nis nomoore to seye."
I nam but deed; ther nis no remedye."
I woot right wel I nam but deed," quod she.

Myn herte is broken, help! I nam but deed!

as in this cas
Thyn aventure of love, as in this cas."
"Ye moste been ful deerne, as in this cas."

But what availeth hym as in this cas?

Quod Nicholas
"Nay, therof care thee noght" quod Nicholas.
"Now John," quod Nicholas, "I wol nat lye;

"Hastou nat herd," quod Nicholas, "also

as I have told biforn
To forthre me, as I have toold biforn.

To wayte a tyme, as I have told biforn.

so God me save
A myrie child he was, so God me save.

My moder yaf it me, so God me save;

3106
329A

11h0
3296

1122
127A
3296
4289

2357
3297
3385

3298
3513
3538

11h8
3302

3325
3795

Q

0‘

37
in al the toun
In al the toun for deeth of this Theban.
In al the toun nas brewhous ne taverne

That he was holde wood in al the toun;

this Absolon
This Absolon, that jolif was and gay,
This Absolon ful joly was and light,
This Absolon doun sette hym on his knees
This Absolon gan wype his mouth ful drie.
This Absolon knokketh a1 esily,
This Absolon ne roghte nat a bene

And therwith spak this clerk, this Absolon,

this carpenteris wyf
And namely on this carpenteris wyf.

Thus swyved was this carpenteris wyf,

I dar wel seyn
I dar wel seyn in this world ther nas.

I dar wel seyn, if she hadde been a mous,

this parissh clerk
This parissh clerk, this joly Absolon,

This parissh clerk, this amorous Absolon,

this joly Absolon
This parissh clerk, this joly Absolon,
Fro day to day this joly Absolon

2829

333k
38b6

3339
3671
3723
3730
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3772
380k

33h3
3850

1886
33h6

33h8
3657

33h8
3371

ir

 

ar

ar

 

38
in his herte
And was a1 his, in chiere, as in his herte.
That dwelled in his herte syk and soore,

Hath in his herte swich a love-longynge

love-longynge
Hath in his herte swich a love-longynge
My love-longynge, for yet I shal nat mysse

Ywis, lemman, I have swich love-longynge,

and Absolon
And Absolon his gyterne hath ytake,
And Absolon, hym fil no bet ne wers,
And Absolon gooth forth a sory pas.
And Absolon hath kist hir nether ye;

and forth he gooth
And forth he gooth, jolif and amorous,

And forth he goth, a twenty devel way,

til he cam to the
Til he cam to the carpenteres hous

Ne breed ne ale, til he cam to the celle

to the carpenteres hous
Til he cam to the carpenteres hous

He rometh to the carpenteres hous,

the carpenteres wal

That was upon the carpenteres wal.

2683
280k
33h9

33h9
3679
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3353
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37h1
3852

3355
#257

3356
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3356
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3359

39

And wente unto the carpenteris wal.

this passeth forth

This passeth forth; what wol ye bet than weel?

This passeth forth a1 thilke Saterday,

woweth hire
So woweth hire that hym is wo bigon.

He woweth hire by meenes and brocage,

on a scaffold
An heraud on a scaffold made an "00!"

He pleyeth Herodes on a scaffold hye.

that Absolon
That Absolon may blows the bukkes horn;

For though that Absolon be wood or wrooth,

and so bifel
And so bifel that in the taas they founde,
And so bifel, by aventure or cas,

And so bifel it on a Saterday,

hende Nicholas and Alisoun
And hende Nicholas and Alisoun
With hende Nicholas and Alisoun.

that Nicholas
That Nicholas shal shapen hym a wyle
That Nicholas stille in his chambre lay,

3787

3370
3h19

3372
3375

2533
338A

3387
339#

1009
107h
3399

3h01
3832

3h03
3&20

40
and if so be
And if so be that thou my lady wynne,
And if so be thou wolt nat do me grace,

And if so be the game wente aright,

and right anon
And right anon it ran hym in his mynde,
And right anon swich strif ther is bigonne,

And right anon, withouten wordes mo,

withouten wordes mo
And right anon, withouten wordes mo,
Withouten wordes mo they goon to bedde,

He sit hym up withouten wordes mo,

no lenger wolde
For ire he quook, no lenger wolde he byde,

This Nicholas no lenger wolde tarie,

mete and drynke
And mete and drynke this nyght wol I brynge

Bothe mete and drynke for a day or tweye,

1617
2322
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1402
2438
3408

3408
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3819

1576
3409

3411
3411

Get us som mete and drynke, and make us cheere,A132

for to seye
If that I hadde leyser for to seye,

And to hire housbonde bad hire for to seye,

this sely carpenter

This sely carpenter hath greet merveyle

1188
3412

3423

41
This sely carpenter goth forth his wey.

This sely carpenter bigynneth quake;

the chambre dore
And at the chambre dore whil that he stood,

And to the chambre dore he gan hym dresse.

maister Nicholay
"What: How! what do ye, maister Nicholay?

And thou wolt seyn, 'Hayl, maister Nicholay!

but al for noght
But al for noght-he was broght to the stake.

But al for noght, he herde nat a word.

ful lowe upon
An hole he foond, ful lowe upon a bord,

That stant ful lowe upon his boures wal.

and at the laste he
And at the laste he took conclusioun

And at the laste he hadde of hym a sighte.

Goddes pryvetee
Men sholde nat knows of Goddes pryvetee.

I wol nat tellen Goddes pryvetee.

of his studiyng
He shal be rated of his studiyng,

He shal out of his studiyng, as I gesse"

3601
3614

3435
3468

3437
3579

2648
3439

3440
3677

2857
3443

3454
3558

3463
3467

L2
if that I may
If that I may, by Jesus, Hevene Kyng!

If that I may, yon wenche wil I swyve.

as I gesse
But Venus is it soothly, as I gesse."
He shal out of his studiyng, as I gesse"--

Fil on this carpenter right, as I gesse,

for the nones
And of the grete bataille for the nones
For he was yong and myghty for the nones,

His knave was a strong carl for the nones,

and hente hym by the
Withinne his brest; and hente hym by the herte

And hente hym by the sholdres myghtily,

of the dore
And on the thresshfold of the dore withoute:

Right at the entree of the dore bihynde

pater-noster
For nyghtes verye, the white pater-nosterl

"Now, Pater-noster, clom!" seyde Nicholay,

 

this carpenter answerde
This carpenter answerde, "What seystow?

This carpenter answerde, "Allas, myn wyf:

For what so that this carpenter answerde,

3464
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1102
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879
1423
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1300
3475

3482
4243

3485
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3490

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43
in pryvetee
And after wol I Speke in pryvetee

And heng hem in the roof in pryvetee.

his hooly blood
"Nay, Crist forbede it, for his hooly blood!"

Therfore he wolde his hooly blood honoure,

I wol nat lye
"Now John," quod Nicholas, "I wol nat lye;

But right fair was hire heer, I wol nat lye.

the moone bright
As I have looked in the moone bright,

For at an hole in shoon the moone bright;

allas, my wyf
Allas, myn hertes queene! allas, my wyf!

This carpenter answerde, "Allas, my wyf!

fiuod hende Nicholas
"Why, yis, for Code," quod hende Nicholas,
"A berd! a herd!" quod hende Nicholas,

I undertake
I undertake, withouten mast and seyl,

Thanne shaltou syymme as myrie, I undertake,

hire and thee and me

Yet shal I saven hire and thee and me.

3493
3623

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3513
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3515
4298

2775
3522

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3533

44
But whan thou hast, for hire and thee and me,
hastow nat herd
Hastow nat herd hou saved was IMoe,

"Hastou nat herd," quod Nicholas, "also

thilke tyme
Al be that thilke tyme they were unborn,
At thilke tyme, than alle his wetheres blake

a knedyng trogh
A knedyng trogh, or ellis a kymelyn,
He gooth and geteth hym a knedyng trogh,

a kymelyn
A knedyng trogh, or ellis a kymelyn

And after that a tubbe and a kymelyn

the remenant
The remenant of the tale is long ynough.
Of al the remenant of myn oother care
Th' encens, the clothes, and the remenant a1

But for a day,-Fy on the remenant!

aboute pryme
Aboute pryme, and in the toun alight.

Aboute pryme upon the nexte day.

I wol nat tellen
I wol nat tellen eek how that they goon

I wol nat tellen Goddes pryvetee.

3563

3534
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2033
3542

3548
3620

3548
3621

888
1569
2277
3552

2189
3554

2963
3558

45
out of doute
Thus artow of my conseil, oute of doute,
Thy wyf shal I wel saven, out of doute.

Greet sokene hath this millere, out of doute,

go now thy wey
Go now thy wey, and Speed thee heer-aboute.

Go now thy wey, I have no lenger Space

knedyng tubbes
Ygeten us thise knedyng tubbes thre,
He hadde yboght hym knedyng tubbes thre,

Into oure knedyng-tubbes wol we crepe,

knedyng tubbes thre
Ygeten us thise knedying tubbes thre,
He hadde yboght hym knedyng tubbes thre,

thanne shaltow
Thanne shaltow hange hem in the roof ful hye,

Thanne shaltou swymme as myrie, I undertake,

hem in the roof
Thanne shaltow hange hem in the roof ful hye,

And heng hem in the roof in pryvetee.

the corde atwo
And eek an ax, to smyte the cords atwo,

And with his ax he smoot the corde atwo,

1141
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3564
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3565
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3565
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3569
3820

46

thanne wol I

But shortly to the point thanne wol I wende,
Thanne wol I clepe, 'How, Alison! how, John!

And al the nyght thanne wol I wake and pleye."

be murie
Biforn hym stood and bad hym to be murie.
But after we I rede us to be merye,

Be murie, for the flood wol passe anon.’

his preyere
Ne clepe, ne crie, but been in his preyere;

And stille he sit, and biddeth his preyere,

and weylawey
Ful ofte he seide "Allas" and "weylawey,"
"Allas," quod Absolon, "and weylawey,

And gan to crie "Harrow!" and "Weylawey!

his pryvetee
That knew his pryvetee and al his cas,

And to his wyf he tolde his pryvetee,

but natheless

to wedden whan tyme is, but nathelees

But nathelees she ferde as she wolde deye,

go forth thy wey
And seyde, "Allas! go forth thy wey anon,
Goth forth thy wey, or I wol casts a ston,

2965
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3686

1386
3068
3578

3587
3641

3602
3714
4072

1411
3603

1832
3606

3607
3712

Q

47
ful many a
Ful many a riche contree hadde he wonne;
Ful many a tame leoun and 1e0part.
Ful many a yeer, and woost what I desire,

He siketh with ful many a sory swogh;

a furlong way
They seten stille wel a furlong way.
This John lith stille a furlong wey or two,

and the melodye
Up goon the trompes and the melodye,

There was the revel and the melodye;

day bigan to Sprynge
The Sunday nyght, er day bigan to Sprynge,

Aboute his dore, syn day bigan to Sprynge.

moote I thrive

So moot I thrive, I shal, at cokkes crowe

864
2186
2301
3619

3637
4199

2565
3652

2209
3674

3675

For, John," seyde he, "als evere moot I thrive

a twenty devel wey
And lat me slepe, a twenty devel wey!"

And forth he goth, a twenty devel way,

heeled of his maladye
He shal be heeled of his maladye.

For he was heeled of his maladie.

4177

3713
4257

2706
3757

40

48

a, benedicitee

 

 

 

"The God of love, a, benedicitee! 1785

*Why rise ye so rathe? ey, benedicitee! 3768
hoote kultour

That hoote kultour in the chymenee heere, 3776

The hoote kultour brende so his toute, 3812
in a poke

Or in a poke nobles alle untold, 3780

They walwe as doon two pigges in a poke; 4278
and Nicholas

And Nicholas amydde the era he smoot. 3810

And Nicholas is scalded in the towte. 3853
For to dye

Broght hem hyder bothe for to dye. 1797

And for the smert he wende for to dye. 3813
as he were wood

As he were wood, with face deed and pale, 1578

Armed, and looked grym as he were wood; 2042

As he were wood, for wo he gan to crye, 3814

And herde oon crien "water" as he were wood, 3817

gan to crye
That she was wel ny mad, and gan to crye, 2342

*The difference between the "a" and "ey" sounds is
negligible in this kind of oath. What is significant is

time; they both represent a single vowel sound preceding this
cart ,

49

AS he were wood, for wo he gan to crye, 3814

"What, whilk way is he geen?" he gan to crie. 4078

he gan to crye
As he were wood, for wo he gan to crye, 3814

"What, whilk way is he geen?" he gan to crie. 4078

Goddes herte
"Help! water! water! help, for Goddes herte!" 3815

By Goddes herte, he sal nat scape us bathe 4047

Nowellis flood
And thoughte, "Allas, now comth Nowellis flood!"8 8
3 1
He was agast so of Nowellis flood 3834
and doun gooth a1
Ther stomblen steedes stronge, and doun gooth a1;

2613
And doun gooth a1; he foond neither to selle 3821

par compgignye

 

To sitten in the roof, par compaignye. 3839
The wenche rowteth eek, par compaignye. 4167

 

my leeve brother

Ne in noon oother cas, my leeve brother; 1136
They seyde, "The man is wood, my leeve brother"-
3848
leeve brother
And soothly, leeve brother, this is al. 1184

They seyde, "The man is wood, my leeve brother"§8h8

50
al the rowte
Unto the seetes preeseth al the route. 2580

This tale is doon, and God save al the rowte. 3854

TABLE II

The following table lists on the left margin the
repeated half-lines in the first six-hundred lines of Egg-
£21; that are repeated at least once in the complete poem.
They are listed in the order in which they appear in the
poem itself. Beneath each of these half-lines and indented
from the left margin are listed all the lines in which that
half-line appears. At the end of this table is a small
group of Six phrases that are not, strictly Speaking, half-
lines because they bridge the caesura, but nevertheless
represent repetitions of significant size to appear here
and be counted. In all, there are 140 repeated half-lines
in the smaller sample that appear 407 times in the complete
poem. Since Old English is a much more highly inflected
language than Middle English and modern English, allowances
had to be made for different case endings. Wherever it was
clear that half-lines varied only in inflections, they were
included as repetitions.

All lines and line numbers are taken from Fr. Klae-

ber's third edition of Beowulf.

peod-cyninga
beodcyninga brym gefrunon, - 2
Ba icam pearfe [gefnmgn] peodcyninges 2694

51

52
monegum nagpum
monegum magpum meodosetla ofteah,
manigre magpe geond pisne middangeard,

manigum magpa geond bysne middangeard

syddan arest weard
egsode eorflafl, syooan.arest wears,

inwitnida, syoban.arest wearb

'pat was god cyning
gomban gyldan; hat was god cyning!
gLadne Hroogar, ac hat was god cyning:_

Geatum wealdan; hat was god cyning.

'bat hie ar drugon
be hie ar drugon aldodléase
inwidsorge, be hie ar drugon

inwitnipas, be hie ar drugon.

longe hwile
lange hwile; him.pas Liffrea.
leod Scyldunga lange hwile;
longe hwile, ligegesan wag

wuldres Waldend
wuldres Wealdend woroldare forgeaf,
wuldres Waldend, Wa bib ham be sceal

wuldres Waldend, weorbmynda $21.

75
1771

1947

11
863
2390

15
831
1858

16

2159
2780

17
183
1752

I'll-ll!)

 

53
swase gesibas
swase gesipas, swa he selfa had,
swasra gesida, nefne sinfrea,
swase gesioas ond hyra sylfra feorh.

swase gesioas: "Nolde ic sweord beran

wine Scyldinga
penden wordum weold wine Scyldinga-
wine Scyldinga, weana gehwelcne.
Bat was wnac micel wine Scyldinga,
wine Scildinga, worold ofLatest;
winum Scyldinga weorce on mode
(fiafab has geworden wine Scyldinga,

Me pone walrus wine Scildunga

hringed-stefna
Dar’at hyoe stod hringedstefna
hringedstefnan,-- holm storme weol.

hladen herewadum hringedstefna.

leofne peoden
aledon pa leofne peoden,

Ne meahton we geLaran leofne beoden,

beaga bryttan
beaga bryttan on bearm scipes,
beaga bryttan, swa bu bena eart,

beaga bryttan, breac ponne moste-

29
1934
2040
2518

30
148
170

1183
1418
2026
2101

32
1131
1897

34
3079

35
352
1487

54
billum ond byrnum
billum ond byrnum; him on bearme Lag

bill ond byrnan, 06 Sat his byre mihte

madma manigo

madma manigo, pa him mid scoldon

madma menigeo, maga Healfdenes,

beod-gestreonum
peodgestreonum, pon pa dydon,
bedflgestreona, ond gepeoh tela,

umbor wesende
anne ofer yae umborwesende.

umborwesendumzar arna gefremedon."

segen gyldenne
Ba gyt hie him asetton segen thdenne

segen gyldenne sigores to leane,

him was geomor sefa
geafon on garsecg; him was geomor sefa.
goldwine Geata. Him was geomor sefa,

sagde gesidum --him was sefa geomon--:

rnen ne cunnon
murnende mod. Men ne cunnon

mistige moras; men ne cunnon,

40
2621

41
2143

44
1218

46
1187

47
1021

49
2419
2632

50
162

55
seleéradende
secgan to sooe, selenadende,

selenadende secgan hyrde,

longe prage
leof leodcyning longe brage
lange brage; he him has lean forgeald.

lifde after lapum, lange brage,

geond bisne middangeard
manigre magpe geond bisne middangeard,

manigum magba geond bysne middangeard,

earfoolice

Ba se ellengast earfoolice

earfoalice heora aghwaprum
earfodlice; atrihte was
earfoolice, ob bat afen cwom;

earfoblice, pat he on eoraan geseah

ob bat an ongan
eadiglice, ob bat an ongan

eald ebelweard—-, 06 bat an ongan

he him has lean forgeald
lange prage; he him 625 lean forgeald-

ladlicu lac. He him has lean forgeald,

swefan.after symble

swefan after symble; sorge ne cubon.

51
1346

54
114
1257

75
1771

86
1636
1657
2303
2822

100
2210

114
1584

119

swefeb after symle.

ece drihten
ece Drihten,
ecean Dryhtne;
ecean Dryhtne,

ofer ealde riht

grim ond gnadig
grim and gnadig,
grim ond gnndig,

panon eft gewat

britig begna;

Danon eft gewiton

wica neosan

mid hare walfylle
Gewiton him 6a wigend

mare peoden

micel morgensweg.

marne beoden,
marum.beodne
beoden marne
mares beodnes,
Swa manlice
marne beoden;

mare beoden

56

Ba was aal ond mal,

has be he Abel slog;
him has endelean
has be ic on aldre gebad,

ecean Dryhtne

gearo sona was,

bat bar gumena sum

banon eft gewat

ealdgesibas

wica neosan.

wica neosian

Mare beoden,

pa him was manna bearfo
min arende ,
ymb binne 316,

bar hie meahton swa.
users beoden,

pa das monige geweard.

mondreamum from.

1008

108
1692
1779
2330

121
1499

123
853

125
1125

129
201
345
353
797
1046
1598
1715

57
marum deodne? Ic Gas modceare
marne peoden. Him.pat to mearce weard;
marum peodne, ponne his myne sohte,
peoden marne pegn ungemete till,
He 6a mid Dam maomum marne bioden,
peodnas mare, ha bat par dydon,

alegdon 6a tomiddes marne peoden

aeaeling ar-god
abeling argod, unblibe sat,
Labeling].argod, swylc {Eschere was!
abeling argod ende gebidan,

wergan gastes
wergan gastes; was hat gewin to strang,

wom wundorbebodum wergan gastes;

lab and longsum
lad ond longsum! Nas hit lengra fyrst,

lab and longsum, be on 6a leode becom,

flahde ond fyrene
flahoe ond fyrene; was to fast on Dam.
fyrene ond flahbe fela missera,
flahoe ond fyrena, buton Fitela mid hine,

fahde ond fyrene, swa hyt gefrage vses,

husa selest

husa selest. Was seo hwil micel;

1992
2384
2572
2721
2788
3070
3141

130
1329
2342

133
1747

134
192

137
153
879
2480

146

58
on heahstede husa selest 3'

Hafa nu ond geheald husa selesg

weana gehwelcene
wine Scyldinga, weana gehwelcne,

weana gehwylces, swa ic be wene to."

undyrne cub
ylda bearnum undyrne cub

on minre epeltyrf undyrne cud;

fela missera
fyrene ond fiahoe fela missera.

He [6a] fratwe geheold fela missera,

feo pingian
feorhbealo feorran, fea bingian,

Siaoan pa fahbe feo pingode;

atol aghaca
(ac se) aglaca ehtende wees,
atol aghaca ealdre binum,
atol aglaca anra gehwylces

atol agLaca; him on eaxle weard

dugube and geogobe
deorc deapscua, dugupe ond geogope,
dugupe ond geogope dal aghwylcne,

dugude ond iogobe, hat bu him ondnadan ne
bearft,

285
658

148
1396

150
410

153
2620

156
470

159
592
732
816

160
621
1674

59
feond mancynnes
Swa fela fyrena feond mancynnes.

mancynnes feond. 0nd his modor pa gyt

oft gefremede
atol angengea oft gefremede,

eatolne inwitscear oft gefremedon-

gretan moste
no he bone gifstol gretan moste.

bat we hine swa godne gretan moton."

to gefremmanne
wib fiargryrum to gefremmanne.

to gefremmanne, folces hyrde,

after dead-dage
after deaddage Drihten secean

after deabdage dom unlytel,

maga Healfdenes
Swa 6a malceare maga Healfdenes
"Gebenc nu, se mars maga Healfdenes,
mago Healfdenes mapmas twelfe;
sona me as mara mago Healfdenes,

madma menigeo, maga Healfdenes.

Piigelaces pegn
bat fram ham gefnagn Higelaces pegn
heard be hiltum Higelaces begn

164
1276

165
2478

168
347

174
2644

187
885

189

1474
1867

2011
2143

194
1574

60

Let se hearda Higelaces pegn 2977

magenes strengest
se was moncynnes magenes strengest 196

se pe manna was magene strengest 789

on pam dage pisses lifeS

on ham dage pysses lifes, 197
on ham dage pysses lifes. 790
on dam dage pysses lifes 806

secean wolde
ofer swanrade secean wolde, 200

sunu Healfdenes secean wolde 645

snotere ceorlas

Bone sibflat him snotere ceorlas 202
pa selestan, snotere ceorlas, 416
Sona pat gesawon snottre ceorlas, 1591

peah he him leof ware
1ythwon logon, peah he him leof ware ; 203
labum dadum, peah him leof ne was . 2467

Geata leoda

Hafde se goda Geata leoda 205
"We synt gumcynnes Geata leode 260
ofer geofenes begang Geata leode; 362

in ham guosele Geotena leode 443

61
after gudsceare, Geata leode
Geata leodum ond Gar-Denum
ne to gneao gifa Geata leodum,
hu se guosceaoa Geata leode
Geata leode Gub-Scilfingas,
Him 6a gegiredan Geata leode

Swa begnornodon Geata leode

beorhte fnatwe
on bearm nacan beorhte fnatwe,

bar on bearm scipes beorhte fnatwa.

obres dogores
ob pat ymb antid opres dogores

ofer ylda bearn opres dogores,

Wedera leode
Wedera leode on wang stigon.
wigSpeda gewiofu, Wedera leodum.
cwao pat wilcuman Wedera leodum
"Nu is wilgeofa Wedra leoda.

Geworhton Ba Wedra leode

gubgewadu
gubgewado; Code pancedon
his gadelinges gubgewadu,
geaf him 6a mid Geatum gubgewada-
gubgewadu, par me gifede swa

1213
1856
1930
2318
2927
3137
3178

214
896

219
605

225

697
1894
2900
3156

227
2617
2623
2730

’lni. . a: .1.

62
gubgewadu par se gomela Lag; 2851

pat he genunga gubgewadu 2871

gode pancedon

gubgewado; Gode pancedon 227
grette Geata leod, Gode pancode 625
Ahleop 6a se gomela, Gode pancode, 1397
Eodon him pa togeanes, Gode pancodon , 1626

fyrdsearo fuslicu
fyrdsearu fuslicu; hine fyrwyt bnac 232
fyrdsearo fuslic,-- no ymbe 6a flahoe Sprac, 2618

hine fyrwit bnac

fyrdsearu fuslicu; hine fyrwyt bnac 232

fiagre fricgcean, hyne fyrwet brac, 1985

fratwum gefyrdred; hyne fyrwet bnac, 2784
lind-habbende

lindhabbende, ne ge leafnesword 245

lindhabbendra. Lastas waron 1402

gearwe ne wisson
gubfremmendra gearwe ne wisson, 246

para pe gumena bearn gearwe ne wiston, 878

secg on searwum
secg on searwum; nis pat seldguma. 249
secgas on searwum, hwaber sel mage 2530

secg on searwum, pat Bat sweord gedeaf 2700

63
wapnum geweordad
wapnum geweordad,

wapnum gewurpad, pa bar wlonc baled

hord-geneatas
ond Higelaces heorogeneatas

Donne he Hroogares heorbgeneatas

heordgeneatas; nas him hreoh sefa,
penden halo abead heordgeneatum ,
hlafordes(hrfire, heorbgeneatas ;

wide geond eorban
witena welhwylc wide geond eorpan,

wigend weorbfullost wide geond eorpan,

sunu Healfdenes

sunu Healfdenes secean cwomon,
Wille ic asecgan sunu Healfdenes,
sunu Healfdenes secean wolde
bat to healle gang Healfdenes sunu;
Bonne sweorda gelac sunu Healfdenes
"Hwat, we be pas salac, sunu Healfdenes,
sunu Healfdenes --swigedon ealle--:

sunu Healfdenes on(midne sylfes dom;

secean cwomon
sunu Healfdenes secean cwomon,

pat he sigehrebig secean come

nafne him his wlite leoge, 250

331

261
1580
2180
2418
3179

266
3099

268
344
645
1009
1040
1652
1699
2147

268
1597

”114.1? -111:

6h
Deniga frean
Deniga frean; ne sceal bar dyrne sum
Deniga frean; cube he dugube peaw,

aefter deofla hryre Denigea frean,

secgan hyrdon

swa we soplice secgan hyrdon,
swylcra searoniba secgan hyrde
bet he fram SigemundeE] secgan hyrde

selenrdende secgan hyrde,

deorcum nihtum
deogol dadhata deorcum nihtum

deorcum nihtum draca rieflflan,

worda ond worca
worda ond worca, se be wel benceb.
wordum ne worcum ware ne bnace,

wordum 0nd weorcum, pat 1c be wel herige

frean Scyldinga
frean Scyldinga. Gewitap fora beran
frean Scildinga frinan wille,

be at fotum aat frean Scyldinga,

ic eow wisige
wapen ond geuadu, ic eow wisiges

wundur under wealle, 1c eow wisige,

271
359
1680

273
582
875
l3h6

275
2211

289
1100
1833

291
351
500

292
3103

i.

i

’».-u-..

65
arum healdan
arum healdan, op art eft byreb
arum heolde, pat bar’anig mon

arum bealdan, gyf bu.er bonne he,

leofne mannan
ofer lagustreamas leofne mannan
as be er lange tid leofra manna
after ligetorne leofne mannan.
leofes mannes 11c eall forswealg,
leofne mannan; hio beet 11c aetbaer
leofes monnes. Lyt swigode

leofne mannan par he longe sceal

sidéfatmed scip
seomode on sale sidflapmed scip,

salde to sande sidflabme scip

ongitan mihton
geatolic 0nd goldfah ongyton mihton;
ar he bone grundwong ongytan mehte.
pat hie Geata clifu ongitan meahton,

bat he pone grundwong ongitan meahte,

fold buendum
hat was foremmrost foldbuendum

foldbuende; no hie flader cunnon,

296
1099
1182

297
1915
19h3
2080
2127
2897
3108

302
1917

308
1h96
1911
2770

309
1355

 

66
lixte se leoma
lixte se leoma ofer landa fela.

Lixte se leoma, leoht inne stod,

heard hand-locan
heard handlocen, hringiren scir

heard handlocen helpe gefremede,

bugon be to bence
bugon pa to bence,-- byrnan hringdon,

Bugon be to hence bLmdagande,

samod mtgwdere
saemanna searo samod etydere,
seon sibbegedriht samod etgedere;
swefan sibbegedriht samod aatgedere,

Beer wees sang 0nd sweg samod aetgaedere

oret-mecgas
oretmecgas after mpelum fnagn:
bone yldestan oretmecgas

ofer ealowmge oretmecgas,

heard under helme

heard under helme: "We synt Higelaces

311
1570

322
551

327
1013

329
387
729
1063

332
363
#81

3&2

heard under helme, bet he on heo[r]6e gestod.h0h

heard under helme, hiorosercean bar

beod-geneatas

beodgeneatas; Beowulf is min nama.

2539

3h3

breac bolgenmod

Wulfgar mabelode
Wulfgar mabelode
Wulfgar mabelode

feorran cumene

"Her syndon geferede

feorran cumene,

wordum wrixlan
wordum wrixlan;

wordum wrixlan;

cnihtwesende
Ic hine cube

Wit pat gecwadon

angan dohtor

angan debtor;

and 6a Iofore forgeaf

for arstafum

for arstafum

and for arstafum

to West-Denum

to West-Dennm,

dare he he geworhte

67

beodgeneatas,

--p£t was Wendla 190d9

to his winedrihtne=

feorran cumene

bat we fundiap

no bu him wearne geteoh

welhyylc gecwab,

cnihtwesende;

cnihtwesende

is his eafora nu

angan dohtor,

us onsende,

usic sohtest.

has ic wen hrbbe,

to West-Denum

1713

3h8
360

361
1819

366
87k

372
535

375
2997

382
#58

383
1578

68
has ic wen habbe
to West-Denum, pas ic wen habbe, 383
walnib wera, has be icEwen]hafo. 3000

wib Grendles gryre
wib Grendles gryre. Ic Dam godan sceal 38h
on Grendles gryre. God eape mag A78

beo bu on ofoste
Beo bu on ofeste, hat in gan 386

Bio nu on ofoste, pat ic erwelan, 27A?

Denigea leodum

Deniga leodum." Ba to dura eode 389
leode Deniga, ac he lust wigeb, 599
Denigea leode. Ac him Dryhten forgeaf 696
Denigea leodum. Dead isAEschere, 1323
ond to deabcwalum Deniga leodum; 1712
deabwerigne Denia leode 2125
heard-hicgende
heardhicgende hider wilcuman. 39h
heardhicgende hildemecgas, 799

leode mine

9a me pet gelardon leode mine , #15
Forpan he to lange leode mine 1336
lo hat londbuend, leode mine, 1345

has be 1c moste minum leodum 2797

r . ..

69

se scel to gemyndum minum leodum

pa selestan
pa selestan, snotere ceorlas,
bone selestan sawolleasne
firm selestan be sam tweonum
bone selestan bi arm tweonum ,

bone selestan smcyninga

wean ahsodon
'wnzc‘Wedera nib --wean ahsodon--,

sybban he for w1enco wean ahsode,

brego Beorht-Dena
brego Beorht-Dena, biddan wille,

brego Beorht-Dena; gehyrde on Beowulfe

eodur Scyldinga
eodor Scyldinga, anre bene,

eodur Scyldinga ut of healle;

Wigendra hleo
pet bu me me forwyrne, wigendra hleo,
ofer werpeode, wigendra hleo,

pat bar on worbig wigendra hleo,

hafalan hydan
hafalan hydan, ac he me habban wile

hafelan [beorgarj‘k nis beet heoru stow '.

280A

416
1&06
1685
1956
2382

123
1206

#27
609

128
663

#29
899
1972

hh6
1372

'1“...311_.u.1 Spa».

 

70
gif mec hild nime
Onsend Higelace, gif mec hild nime,

hondgesellum, gif mec hild nime;

wine min Beowulf
"Forlgpwyfimtum bu, wine min Beowulf,

geond widwegas, wine min Beowulf,

to handbonan
wearp he Heapolafe to handbonan
Wearb him on Heorote to handbanan

to handbonan, Huge cempan;--

panon he gesohte
Danon he gesohte Sub-Dena folc

bonon he gesohte swasne ebel,

Ar Scyldinga
ofer yba gewealc, Ar-Scyldinga;
eaforum Ecgwelan, Ar-Scyldingum;

folca Deniga
ba ic furpum weold folce Deniga

folces Denigea fyftyne men ,

unlifigende
min yldra mag unlifigende,
unlyfigendes eal gefeormod,
unlifgendum aefter selest. .

eorl ofer obrum unlifigendum,

#52
l#81

#57
170#

#60
1330
2502

#63
520

#6#
1710

#65
1582

#68
7##
1389
2908

gumena mngum
gumena angum,
to gegangenne

gumena anig,

beore druncne

Ful oft gebeotedon

beore druncen

bidan wolde

pat hie in beorsele

bidan wolde;
bidan wolde,

on beor-sele
on beorsele
on beorsele

in biorsele,

mi ddangeardes

efre merba bon ma

bat he ne mette

a‘hirum nebdon
aldrum nebdon?

aldrum nebdon,

s°rhfu1ne sib

sorhfullne sib,

sorhfulne sib,

71

hwat me Grendel hafab

gumena enigum.

nefne God sylfa,

beore druncne

ymb Brecan apnace,

bidan woldon

brimwylm onfeng
ac mid bale for,

benc gerymed;
byldan wolde.

be us bas beagas geaf,

middangeardes

middangeardes,

Ne inc enig mon,

ond bat gerfndon swa.

pa git on sund reono

’

sunu deob wrecan.

#7#
2h16
305#

#80
531

#82

l#9#
2308

#92
109#
2635

50#
751

510
538

512
1278

1! v.1!)
. I .3. r

 

72

sorhfulne sib on seglrade,

wadu weallende
wado weallende, wedera cealdost,

wadu weallendu. No ic wiht fram pe

helpe gefremede
heard hondlocen helpe gefremede,

nemne him heabobyrne helpe gefremede,

golde gegyrwed
golde gegyrwed. Me to grunde teah
golde gegyrede gummanna fela

golde gegyrede; mas mid Geatum ba

hilde-bille
hildebille; heaponas fornam
hildebille, hond sweng ne ofteah,
la b’g-geteonan

Swa mec gelome labgeteonan

no by leng leofab labgeteona

3W8 hit gedefe was
deoran sweorde, swa hit gedefe was,

deabcwealm Denigea,

deoran sweorde
deoran sweorde, swa hit gedefe was.

discas lagon ond dyre swyrd,

swa hit gedefe was.

l#29

5#6
581

551
1552

553
1028
2192

557
1520

559
97#

561
1670

561
30#8

 

 

73
under heofones hwealf
under heofones hwealf heardran feohtan,

under heofones hwealf healsittendra

sibes werig
sibes werig. Da mec aa opbar,

sona him selebegn sibes wergum,

dad gefremede
swa deorlice dad gefremede
purh Drihtnes miht dad gefremede,

dadum gefremed, pat bin [domJnyab

to banan wurde
peah bu binum brobrum to banan wurde,

under bordhreoban to bonan wurdon,

sunu Ecglafes
sunu Ecglafes,

sunu.Ecgpafes,

Secge ic be to sobe,
Da was swigra secg,

sunu Ecglafes, heht his sweord niman,

Sige-Scyldinga
swibe onsittan, Sige~Scyldinga;

Sige-Scyldingum sorge gefremede,

Repeated Phrases That Bridge the Caesura

Hrobgar mapelode helm Scyldinga

Hrobgar mapelode, helm Scyldinga:

576
2015

579
179#

585
9#0
95#

587
2203

590
980
1808

597
200#

371

Hrobgar
Hrobgar

mapelode,

mapelode,

73a.
helm Scyldinga: #56
helm Scyldinga: 1321

sibbegedriht samod.atgadere
seon sibbegedriht samod atgadere;

swefan sibbegedriht samod atgadere,

pa fahbe feo
Sibban pa fahbe feo pingode;
Ic be pa fahbe feo leanige,

Heorote par

hador on Heorote. bar was haleba dream,

Com pa to Heorote, bar Bring-Dene

eat fotum sat frean Scyldinga

be at fotum sat frean Scyldinga,

at fotum ant frean Scyldinga; gehwylc hiora
his ferhpe treowde,

B eowulf map elode bearn Ecgbeowes:
Beowulf mapelode, bearn Ecgpeowes:

Beowulf mapelode, bearn Ecgpeowes:

Beowulf mabelode, bearn Ec[g]beowes:

Beowulf mapelode, bearn Ecgbeowes:
Beowulf mapelode, bearn Ecgpeowes:
Beowulf mabelode, bearn Ecgbeowes:
Beowulf mapelode, bearn Ecgbeowes:
Biowulf mabelode, bearn Ecgbioes:

Biowulf mapelade, bearn Ecgbeowes:

387
729

#70
1380

#97
1279

500

1166

529
631
957
1383
l#73
1651
1817
1999
2#25

1.3.11 .r.“ Ha ..

i

TABLE III

The following table lists at the left margin phra-
ses of four or more consecutive syllables in two or more
words appearing in the first 500 lines of Book III of Para-

dise Lost that are repeated at least once in a larger seg-

Books I, II, and III of Paradise

 

ment of Milton's poetry:

Lost.l These phrases are listed in the order in which they

appear in these first 500 lines of Book III. Beneath each
phrase, this table further lists, indented from the left

margin, all the lines from the larger segment in which that

phrase is repeated. All lines and line numbers are taken

.from the Merritt Y. Hughes edition of Milton's works.
The 33 phrases in the small segment that appear 79

tines in the large segment neither by their number nor by

1It is sometimes difficult to discern the exact

ntuwber of syllables in his phrases because Milton is in-
ccunsistent in his use of the principle of elision. 0f
Ltilton, Douglas Bush says: "Thus in his normal concern for
thia decasyllabic line and the avoiding of a supernumerary
SYllable he commonly elided the 'e' of 'the' before a
thvel, but often he--or the printer-~did not; 'heaven' and
'eVening' are commonly Spelled as a monosyllable and disyl-
1alile respectively, but there are many exceptions. . . .
Sillce Milton had both to compose and to read proof with

he: aid of amanuenses, we often cannot be sure whether such
inconsistencies are accidental or deliberate . . ." ("Pre-
face" to The Complete Works 91; John Milton LBoston: Bough-
t30h Mifflin Company, 19653, p. “vi—)1 '."""'—'It therefore seems
Prludent to classify the phrase "Th"Almighty," even if only
hree syllables, with "The Almighty," the phrase "The wall
25‘ Ileav'n" with "The wall of heaven," and the phrase
he«Etv'n and earth" with "heaven and earth."

7#

75

their nature challenge the long-accepted view of Milton's
diction. They show clearly, as James Holly Hanford first
concluded forty years ago, that "Milton's language . . .
has little relish of the Speech of men." His preference
is "for the unusual and recondite, in vocabulary and con-
struction, which leads him to archaism on the one hand, and
to substitution of foreign idiom, particularly Latin, for
native on the other."2 More recently T. 3. Eliot has de-
nied that Milton maintains any contact with the conversa-
tional tone. He Speaks of James Joyce and Milton as two
"blind musicians, each writing a language of his own based
on English."3 However mistaken T. 3. Eliot may be in his
other observations on Milton, his point here it well-taken.

It is interesting to note that of the thirty-three
repeated phrases in the sampling only three are repeated
more than once, and only two of those are repeated more
than twice. Those two, "Th' Almighty" and "Heav'n and
Earth," in being used as often as they are, would tend to
bear out the traditional view of Milton as a conscious imi-
tator of Vergil in his use of epic devioes--here an approxi-
mation of an epithet and a set phrase. More significant,

however, are the thirty remaining phrases, which, as they

 

2A Milton Handbook (#th ed.; New York: Appleton-

Century-Crofts, Inc., 195#). p. 293.

3"Milton" in Milton Criticism: Selections from
Four Centuries, ed. by James Thorpe {New York: Rinehart &
ompany, Inc., 1950), p. 323.

I

”jg-ma. .5. at... 1,.

..

76
are repeated only once, point up the conscious artificiality

of Milton's syntax and diction.

thee I revisit
Thee I revisit now with bolder wing, III, 13

Though hard and rare: thee I revisit safe, III, 21

the Stygian

Both glorying to have scap't the Stygian flood
I, 239

Escap't the Stygian Pool, though long detain'd
III,1#

to reascend
Hath emptied Heav'n, shall fail to reascend I, 633

The dark descent, and up to reascend, III, 20

Celestial Light

For that celestial light? Be it so, since he
I, 2#5

So much the rather thou Celestial Light III, 51

th' Almighty
With vain attempt. Him the Almighty Power I, ##

We shall be free; th' Almighty hath not built
I, 259

Matchless, but with th' Almighty, and that strige

Th' Almighty Victor to Spend all his rage, II, l##
Unless th' Almighty Maker them ordain II, 915
Now had th' Almighty Father from above, III, 56

£3.

77

Wondering; but soon th' Almighty thus repli'd:
III, 273

No sooner had th' Almighty ceas't, but all III, 3##
Made visible, th' Almighty Father shines, III, 386

th' Almighty Father
Now had th' Almighty Father from above, III, 56
Made visible, th' Almighty Father shines, III, 386

His only Son
His only Son; on earth he first beheld III, 6#

Thus to his only Son foreseeing Spake III, 79

the wall of Heav'n

Coasting the wall of Heav'n on this side Night
III, 71

Up to the wall of Heaven a Structure high, III, 503

begotten Son
Only begotten Son, seest thou what rage III, 80
Begotten Son, Divine Similitude, III, 38#

deSperate revenge
Deeperate revenge, and Battle dangerous II, 107

On deSperate revenge, that shall redound III, 85

Mercy and Justice
The other none: in Mercy and Justice both, III, 132
Of Mercy and Justice in thy face discern'd,III, #07

 

through

78
Heav'n and Earth

Through Heav'n and Earth, so shall my glory excel,
III, 133

By his permissive will, through Heav'n and Earth:

III, 685

Heav'n and Earth

Spirits

the Son

Gods, yet confest later than Heav'n and Earth
I, 509

Now lately Heaven and Earth, another World II,100#

Through Heav'n and Earth, so shall my glory excel;
III, 133

For which both Heav'n and Earth shall high extol
III, 1#6

0 thou in Heav'n and Earth the only peace III, 27#

New Heav'n and Earth, wherein the just shall dwell

III, 335
By his permissive will, through Heav'n and Earth:

III, 685
elect
All Heav'n and in the blessed Spirits elect

III, 136
With these that never fade the Spirits elect

III, 360
of God

Beyond compare the Son of God was seen III, 138
By doom severe, had not the Son of God, III, 22#

the Adversary

Meanwhile the Adversary of God and Man, II, 629
0r shall the Adversary thus obtain III, 156

grim a... «3.5.

79
whom the great Creator
To whom the great Creator thus repli'd. III, 167

On whom the great Creator hath bestow'd III, 673

the great Creator

The great Creator? But thir Spite still serves
II, 385

To whom the great Creator thus repli'd. III, 167

On whom the great Creator hath bestow‘d III, 673

obedience due
To pray, repent, and bring obedience due.III, 190

to prayer, repentance, and obedience due,III, 191

.high Supremacy
And put to proof his high Supremacy, I,132
Against the high Supremacy of Heav'n, III, 205

'the multitude of
Then with the multitude of my redeem'd III, 260
The multitude of Angels with a shout III, 3#5

to mortal men
To mortal men, hee with his horrid crew I, 51

To mortal men, above which only shone III, 268

merit more than
Could merit more than that small infantry I, 575

By Merit more than Birthright Son of God,III, 309

’fl_. ‘3. ; Ha‘..'flmw

80
worthiest to be
Found worthiest to be so by being Good, III, 310

Pleasant to know, and worthiest to be all III, 703

for ever shut

These Gates for ever shut, which none can pass

II, 776
Thence forth shall be for ever shut. Meanwhile
III, 333
regal sceptre
Then thou thy regal Sceptre shalt lay by, III, 339

For regal Sceptre then no more shall need,III, 3#0

Without number
Though without number still amidst the Hall I, 791
Loud as from numbers without number, sweet
III, 3#6
for man' s offense

Began to bloom, but soon for man's offense

III, 355
For man's offense. 0 unexampl'd love III, #10

the glorious
And hazard in the Glorious Enterprise, I, 89

Amidst the glorious brightness where thou sit'st
III, 376

to execute
At thee ordain'd his drudge, to execute II, 732

To execute fierce vengeance on his foes: III, 399

81
so strictly, but much more to pity

So strictly, but much more to pity incline:
III, #02

So strictly, but much more to pity inclin'd
III, #05
the neighboring moon

Not in the neighboring Moon, as some have dream'd;

III, #59
Night would invade, but there the neighboring Moon
III, 726
of Paradise
And they who to be sure of Paradise III, #78

Just o'er the blissful seat of Paradise, III, 527

TABLE IV
This table contains five charts which will, when
compared, lend clarity to the present study by putting its
results into scholarly perspective. Three of the charts,

two by Parryl, and one by Magoun2

, are here reproduced be-
cause they represent the heart of their respective research
on formulas and oral composition. In the first two Parry
traced and recorded repetitions in the Opening lines of
first The Iliad and then Th3 Odyssey as they appeared in the
corpus of Homer; in the third, Magoun, following Parry but
with significant adaptations, traced and recorded repeti-
tions in the Opening 25 lines of Beowulf as they appeared
in all Anglo-Saxon poetry, a rough equivalent of the length
of the two Homeric epics combined--about 30,000 lines. Ac-
cording to the pattern established by Parry and adopted by
Magoun, similar charts have been constructed for both Chau-
cer and Milton. A comparison of the five charts and their
"Supporting Evidence" shows that with respect to the use of
repetitions the four poets fall into three distinct groups:
(1) Homer, (2) the Beowulf poet and Chaucer, and (3) Milton.

Perry's results clearly show that Th2 Iliad with 38

1”Studies in the Epic Technique of Oral Verse-Mak-
ig :21: Homer and the Homeric Style," HSQE, XLI (1930),

2"Oral Formulaic Character of Anglo-Saxon Narrative
Poetry," Speculum, XXVIII (1953), #6#-65.

82

- . .
. ._. C II

"I

83
formulaic phrases that appear well over 200 times and Th3
Odyssey with #8 that appear over 300 times in the corpus
of Homer are much more formulaic and repetitive than the
rest of the poems under study. What makes those figures
even more remarkable is that Parry regarded as a formula
or formulaic phrase nothing less than four words or five
syllables.3 Magoun himself admitted in his work that such
a restriction "could not be applied to Anglo-Saxon verse."h
He therefore expanded the definition of an Anglo-Saxon form-
ula to "a word group of any size or importance that appears
elsewhere in Beowulf or other Anglo-Saxon poems unchanged
or virtually unchanged."5 Granting Magoun the right to
broaden Parry's definition to suit a different language in
a different age allows him to designate as formula or form-
ulaic almost any repeated combination of two or more syll-
ables. The recurrence of these phrases in the corpus of
Anglo-Saxon poetry he records in his "Supporting Evidence."
The evidence here, however, is difficult to discern because
he lists, along with the exact repetitions, near repetitions
and close parallels. A rough count shows that he has 35 half-
lines repeated about a hundred times elsewhere in Anglo-
Saxon poetry. These figures would have to be appreciably

higher to warrant Magoun's bracketing Beowulf with the Hom-

 

3Perry, I, 8#-85, n. 3.

“Magoun, p. #61, n. 29.
51bid., p. ##9.

 

8#
eric epics in the use of formulas and repetitions.

Magoun's figures tend rather to show Beowulf as
little more repetitive than Chaucer. The Chaucer chart
shows that in the first 25 lines of the Miller's 1313,
there are 20 phrases repeated #9 times in the body of Chau-
cer's poetry-~about 35,000 lines. Although these figures
seem lower than Magoun's, it must be recalled that with
Chaucer the count was limited to phrases of four or more
consecutive syllables in no fewer than two words and that
only exact repetitions were recorded. If the definition of
"phrase" were broadened, say, to any three consecutive syll-
ables in one word or more, the number of repeated phrases
in Chaucer might well be higher than that in Beowulf. Even
adhering more closely to Parry's conservative idea of a
phrase, this study of Chaucer offers evidence for group-
ing the Beowulf poet and Chaucer together as about equally
formulaic and repetitive, but both far less so than the
Homeric epics.

The Milton chart shows only five phrases in the
first 25 lines of Paradise ngt, Book III, that are repeated
elsewhere in Milton's poetry--about 17,000 lines-~and they
are repeated only once each. The results merely bear out
what everyone has known for centuries and are included here
to illustrate the drastic difference between the artificial
diction and non-formulaic language of Milton and the nor-

malized diction of Chaucer.

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[22:]

[88]

464 Oral-Formulaic Character of Anglo-Saxon Poetry

CHART I
(Béowulf,ll.1-25)
met, wé Gar-Dena on géar-dagum
‘béodocyningn brymm geirugnon,
lht’i b6 ucficlingas ellen frcmcdon.
6ft ScielcFSiEfing sceai‘Sena bréatum,

6 manigum mzégfium medu-setla oftéah,
egesode Lorie, sibban érest went-b
iéasceait iunden; hé has iréire gcbéd,
wéo; Enair wolcmlm, weorb myndum béh.
ob beat him i‘ghwelé ymbsittendra

10 oicr hrnn-rédc hicran scolde,
Ea-mban gioldan; beet woes god cyning!

' bém cnfora wees miter conned

geong on gcardum, bone God sende '1
folce to iréfre; firen- bearfe ongeat

16 be hie ér drugon ealdorléase
lange hwile; him 511:3 Um,
wuldres Wealdend weorold-ére forgeaf
Béow wees brémc — hiéd wide sprang —
§ciEldes eaiora Scedch-Bndum on.

20 - S-wifscmong éhfnaWyréan
iramum icoh- giftum on finder bearme
bet hine on ieide cit gewunien_ - _

will gcsifias banne wig cume,

léode gelésten; loi-dédum sceal
25 on mégtia gehwém man gebfin.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

SUPPORTING EVIDENCE

le-2b cht, wé icon and néah / gefrigen habbab (E10 l);Hw1et,wé gefrugnon / on
fyrn dugum (And 1); Hwazt, wé bet gehierdon / burh hélge béé (FAp 63, Ele 864, 852);
cht, wé éac gehierdon / be Iéhanne (F Ap 23); Hwaat, wé n6 gehierdon / hi1 bet Hélu-
beum (Chr 586, with whose gehierdon cp. Bu}! 2b—311 geirugnon 11111); met, wé hierdon
oft / but so hélige wer (Glc 108); Hwaat, wé butt gehierdon / haalcb eahtian (Jul 1); chl,
wé Ebréisce é leomodon / 126 on iym-dagum iaederas 01’1‘60n (Ele $97-98). 1b XS! 367,
Wan 44. Cp. Chr 251 be on géar-dagum; Bwf 1854 borne on géar-dagum, 2233 swé hie on
géu—dagum. Note also instrum. use without on: And 1519 gieium géar-dagum;Ele 290
pct 36 géur-dagum, 834 swé hie géar-dagum (also Bwf 2233). Note closely related formulas:
on fym-dagum, on ér-dagum, and on eald-dagum (Chr 303, SR 1). 2a Nam. pl. Gen 1966
bead-cyning” / brymme miécle; gen. sg. Bwf 2694 11616 eat bearfe gefmgn / béod-cyninges;
[Hp 18 Ne héodode hé fore brymme / béod-cyninges; Edw 34 hes-be bear-f was / ha
béod-cyninges. 2b See 1—2 above for combination of formulas to express the idea of ‘hau'ng
heard or learned long ago.’ 32 FAp 3 116 176 cfielingas / ellen cyfidon, 85 bus 116 afielingu;
Rid 49, 7 b6 afielinges. Cp. without def. art. but with a preceding word, usually of light stress
Gen 1069 but-be aficlingas, 1647 116 116 aficlingas, 1868 elior afielingu; Dan 689, And
806 Pt! afielingee, 857 Him 126. afielingas. 31) And 1208 Scealt M1, Andrus, / ellen hem-
men. 4!) Jul 672 eceefiena bréate; cp. 010 902 iéonde bréatum.

5: Bwf 76 manigre mégfie, 1771 manigum mégfie. 6b Bwf 1947; cp. 1775 sibban Grendel
m); Be 913 siphon indium wéox. Note the more general metrical scheme involving Ii»!!!
plus a two- or three-syllable word plus verb: And 1223 gibbon ge-ypped wee; Ele 18 Ii)!"

[89]

Oral-Formulate Character of Anglo-Saxon Poetry 465

wiper: shot, 841 sibban béeeen geseeh; Rm] 1077, 2124 sibban morgen (mergen) c6m,
1133 si Inn éien 06m, 1689 sibben 66d 0isl6g. 7s Cp. And 181 onfindap iéasceaitne.
3; Cm 1702 wéox b5 under wolcnum; cp. Bwf 714 W6d under wolcnum; Phat 27 wridab
under wolcnum; Gen 1438 wére under wolcnum; Phs: 247 awierde under wolcnum.
3b Em 258 weorb-myndum spree. 9e Ele 865 ob-btet him gccyfidc, 885 ob-bwt him uppan.
9|, Bugf 2734, Etc 33. Up. other inflections: dot. pl. ymbsittendum PPs 78, 4; 88, 35; fern.
ace. pl. Met 35, 14 ymbsittenda. Cp. closely related Gen 2490 ymbstnndendra; PPs 140, 4
ymbstandende.

102 Gen 205 geond hrsn-rhde; And 266, 821 on hran-réde. Cp. Bwf 200, Etc 996 ofer
swan-ride; Jul 675 011 swan-rhde;Bu1f 1429 on segl-rhde. 101) Dan 185; Ele 367; Met 9, 45;
list 1, 31 hieran scoldon. 112 Gen'1977b-7811 niede scoldon, / gomban gicldan. 11b Etc!
863, 2390. Cp. Bwf 1885 but was 411 cyning; Jul 224 best is 361) cyning; 060 23 but was
grimm cyning; Wid 67 Naes but séne cyning, and further Bwf 1075 beet woes geémru ides,
1812 but was m6dig secg; Met 26, 35 (P) but was ge6 cyning, etc. 122 Gen 1188 1188 Se
«lore was / Enoc httten. Note and cp. Bwf 123—b eeiora . . . cenned with Gen 1159 M
wear}: on éfile / eaiora iéded, 2394 of idese bib / esiora wmcned. 12b Cp. Card 8 after téode;
[lid 40, 44 and i6 giestran geong conned. 13: Pk: 355, 647; Chr 201 geongre on geerdum.

0p. Jul 35 scans on ghste; Bwf 2446 geong on gealgan. 13b Dan 525 be bidet God sende;
ep. Gen 1371 Dryhtcn sende. 142 E20 88; And 606; Ele 1142; Men 228 iolcum to ir6ire;
Etc 502 folce to ir6ire; Rid 39, 19 manigum to ir6ire; Men 57, Ps 60 148 mannum to ir6ire.
15: B10] 831, 1875; Chr 615 be wé ér drugon; Jud 158 be gé lange drugon. 151) Up. Bwf
2935; And 405 hlhiordléase. Ealdorléas is ordinarily used in the sense ‘liieless.’ 16: Bur]
2159, 2780; Dan 660; DrR 24; Jul 674; Rid 28, 9; Met 4, 46. For numerous formulas to
express a ‘long’ or ‘short time’ cp. DrR 70 géde hwile, also miéele, lytle, sume hwile, and
with iii-age: ealle, lytle, lange, sume, also énige stunde. 16h Cp. E20 271 and éow Lit-free;
0hr 27 hwsnne is Lii-iréa. 17: 3101' 183, 1752; Dan 14;And 193, 539. 182 Sol 182 Salomon
was brémra; Dan 104 D5 wees bréme; Sol 238 béé sind bréme. 18b FAp 6 Lof wide sprang;
cp. Bwf 1588 hréw wide sprang; Jul Lead wide sprang; also M as: I 194 wide gesprungen.
192 Bwf 897 Wielses eaiora; 1847 Hrétiles eaioran; Gen 1183 Séthes eaiora, 2054 lures
onion; Met 26, 36 Iébes (‘Jooe’s') eaiora; Men 136 Zebedes eafora. Cp. also Gen 1578
«store N bes, 2834 eaiors Dires. 19b Bwf 2357 Fris-landum on; Gen 1052 éast-landum on. '
Cp. Jul 83 win-(wynn P) burgum on.

202 Bwf 1172, 1534 SW5 sceal man dOn; cp. 2066 Swt. sceal még d611, 2590 swh sceal
fighwelé mum. 21b Cp. Bwf 35, Etc 375 on bearm scipes, 896 bar 011 bearm scipes, 214011
bearm nacan. Note related formula with icfim: Bwf 188 and to Feeder fefimum; Mac It
061 on Feder icfim; And 616 on banan icfime; Ele 765 on drscan icfime. 22.-b 0p. Fall
00 and on ielde eit / eadig weorfian. 22b See 22e—b, also PM 481 long gewunien. 23: Con
2003. 252 Pro 74 lithe ha- 011 1116161.- gehwém.

[901

33190

23195

3:2(30

91

Chaucer's Miller's Tale
First twenty-five lines

Whilom ther was dwellynge at Oxenford

 

A riche gnof, that gestes heeld to bord,

And of his craft he was a carpenter.

 

With hym ther was dwellynge a povre scoler,

 

Hadde 1erned art, but all his fantasye

 

Was turned for to lerne astrologye,

And koude a certeyn of conclusiouns,

To demen by interrogaciouns,

If that men asked hym in certein houres

 

Wham that men sholde have droghte or elles shoures,

 

Or if men asked hym what sholde bifalle

 

 

Of every thyng; I may nat rekene hem alle.

 

This clerk was cleped hende Nicholas.

 

0f deerne love he koude and of sales;

 

And thereto he was sleigh and ful privee,

And lyk a mayden make for to see.

A chambre hadde he in that hostelrye

 

g; I. .3129;

92

Allone, withouten any compaignye,

 

33205 Ful fetisly ydight with herbes swoote;

 

And he hymself as sweete as is the roots

or lycorys, or any cetewale.

His Almageste, and bookes grete and smale,

 

 

His astrelabie, longynge for his art,

.3210 His augrym stones layen fairs apart,

0n shelves couched at his beddes heed;

 

Supporting Evidence

£3187 Whilom ther was dwellynge in my contree
*(D. Fri. 1299)

Whilom ther was an irous potestat, (D. Sum. 2017)

Whilom ther was dwellynge in Lumbardye
(E. Mch. 12a5)

With hym ther was dwellynge a povre scoler,
(A. Mil. 3190)
132189 How that bigyled was a carpenteer, (A. Rv. 3915)
He was a wel good wrighte, a carpenter(A. Prol 614)
Bothe of a carpenter and of his wyf, (A. Mil. 3152)
But if he koude a carpenter bigyle." (A. Mil. 3300)
*These capital letters are the standard designa-
tions for groups of tales in The Canterbury Tales. The ab-

BreViations of The 23353 and line numbers are taken from
augh's edition—51' Chaucer.

hik.’ . gnaw-«1! i

3190

3191

3195

3196

.3197

3198

3 199

93
With a thredbare cope, as is a povre scoler,
(A. Prol. 260)
The folk gan laughen at his fantasye-
(A. Mil. 38A0)

Thanne wolde she suffre hym doon his fantasye

(B. Mk. 3h75)

Agayn his choys, this was his fantasye.
(E. Mch. 1610)

That wonder was to here his fantasie.
(TC. 5. 261)

But lat hym worthen with his fantasie.(TC. 5. 329)
Was absent, 10, this was his fantasie,(TC. 5. 561)

Or if men asked hym what sholde bifalle
(A. Mil. 3197)

Wher-so yow lyst, in droghte or elles shoures,
(F. Sq. 118)

Upon the sterres, what ther sholde bifalle,
(A. Mil. 3A59)

I may not rekene hem alle though I wolde.

(A. Kn. ZOAO)

That on a day this hende Nicholas (A. Mil. 3272)
She loveth so this hende Nicholas (A. Mil. 3386

Now ber thee wel, thou hende Nicholas,
(A. Mil. 3397)

And hende Nicholas and Alisoun (A. Mil. 3501)
.Me reweth soore of hende Nicholas. (A. Mil. 3h62)
And atte laste this hende Nicholas (A. Mil. 3L8?)

"Why, yis, for Gode,” quod hende Nicholas,
(A. Mil. 3526)

3200

3203

3205

3205

3208

.32208

\

01?

~

96

"A berd! a berd!" quod hende Nicholas,
(A. Mil. 37A2)

With hende Nicholas and Alisoun. (A. Mil. 3832)
Of Absolon and hende Nicholas, (A. Rv. 3856)

In bisynesse of myrthe and of solas,(A. Mil. 3654)
Of myrthe and of soles; (B. Th. 1905)
I am so ful of joys and of solas (B. N.P. 9360)

At nyght was come into that hostelryeiA. Prol. 23)

When we were in that hostelrie alyght'
(A. Prol. 722)

Forth with his knave, into that hostelrye
(D. Sum.l779)

Allone, withouten any compaigne. (A. Kn. 2779)

With lokkes blake, ykembd ful fetisly. (A. 00. #36)
And with gold beten ful fetysly (R.R. 837)*
Reds in his Almageste, and take it there."
(0. ws.183)
That seith this proverbs in his Almageste:
(D. we. 325)
For he shall fynde enowe, grete and smale,
(A. Mil. 3178)

Safe al this compaignye, grete and smale!
(A. Rv. #323)

Amonges alle his gestes, grete and smale,
(B. Sh. 1214 )

Were a1 forstraught with houndes gret and smale.
(B. Sh. 1295)

*Sincefigugh's edition does not contain The Romance
Rose, this line was taken from the 2nd edition 0

 

‘ 14. Robinson.

aux—K! .‘ phi. I."

3211

95

Ther Spryngen herbes grete and smale,
(B. Th. 1950)

Late youre othes, bothe grete and smale.
(c. Pard. 659)

And sette hire ful of nowches grete and smale.
(E. 01. 382)
For hym was levere have at his beddes heed

(A. Prol. 293)

And fond, as hap was, at his beddes hed,
(T.C. 2. 1696)

11)

15

FIRST TWENTY-FIVE LINES
OF
MILTON'S PARADISE LOST, BOOK III

 

Hail holy Light, offspring of Heav'n first-born,

 

Or of th' Eternal Coeternal beam

May I eXpress thee unblam'd? since God is Light,

And never but in unapproached Light

Dwelt from Eternity, dwelt then in thee,

Bright affluence of bright essence increate.

Or hear'st thou rather pure Ethereal stream,

Whose Fountain who shall tell? before the Sun,

Before the Heavens thou wert, and at the voice

Of God, as with a Mantle didst invest

The rising world of waters dark and deep,

Won from the void and formless infinite.

Thee I revisit now with bolder wing,

 

Escap't the Stygian Pool, though long detain'd

 

In that obscure sojourn, while in my flight
96

20

25

13

115

19

2C)

97

Through utter and through middle darkness borne

With other notes than to th' Orphean Lyre

I sung of Chaos and Eternal Night,

Taught by the heav'nly Muse to venture down

 

The dark descent, and up to reascend,

 

Though hard and rare: thee I revisit safe,
And feel thy sovran vital Lamp; but thou
Revisit'st not these eyes, that roll in vain
To find thy piercing ray, and find no dawn;

80 thick a drop serene hath quencht thir Orbs,

Supporting Evidence

"OffSpring of Heav'n and earth, and all earth's
Lord, (2L, IX, 273)

Though hard and rare. Thee I revisit safe,
(25, 111,21)

Both glorying to have scaped the Stygian Flood
(2;, I. 239)

What the sage Poets taught by th' Heav'nly Muse
(Com 3, 515)

Hath emptied Heav'n, shal fail to reascend

(2L, 1, 633)

331.11! is

CHAPTER IV

The results of this comparative study of recurring
phrases in Chaucer and the Beowulf poet that tend to bracket
the two together as about equally repetitive and at the same
time set them apart from Milton,l who seemed consciously to
avoid such repetition, suggest some significant conclusions,
pose some questions, and provide areas for further research.

First, this study invalidates Magoun's evidence for
saying Beowulf was orally composed in the act of recitation
on the basis of the repetitions and formulas it contains.
.Magoun's contention is, briefly, that the degree of repeti-
tion in Beowulf is totally unlike the degree of repetition
in the works of all known literate authors. Loosely adapt-
:ing the Parry-Lord methodology to his purposes, he chose

éid hoc and subjectively as a basis for counting what seemed

 

1Milton is almost certainly even less formulaic
‘tlian he appears to be in this study, since this study has
deemed it cautious to include certain phrases written as
«fkiur-syllables but very likely pronounced as three. "The
Stygean" and "The glorious" for metrical needs were pro-
f'lounced as three-syllable eXpressions; for the same reason
53131rits elect" was pronounced as "Sprites elect." Still
811c1ther group of phrases, like "Heav'n and Earth," which
because of the erratic use of the apostrophe by Milton or
,SLES editors, has once again been cautiously included in the
I“*31-i1.‘t.on.cou.nt. Eliminating these as having only three syl-
lables would mark a significant reduction in the number of
Copntable phrases Milton repeats and serve to separate him
st>1lll.further in this regard from Chaucer and the Beowulf
EOet. In addition it might be stated here that this study
fas discovered nothing in Milton that has not been known
agr centuries; however, it has objectively answered doubts
111:th whether gill poetry can be shown to be based on form-
98

whirls. O9i1jx‘w
1

99
to be formulas. Broadening Parry-Lord's restrictive prin-
ciples, he was able to include in his count virtually any
phrase of two or more syllables, even occasionally single
words that recurred elsewhere in Old English poetry. The
evidence he presents to support his theory is insufficient
because his method is inapprOpriate. It is readily admit-
ted, of course, that the results of the present study are
perhaps thin and Open to question, but it is surely sounder
to choose as a basis for counting what seems to be an ap-
propriate length of repeated text (four consecutive sylla-
bles in no fewer than two words) than to be as arbitrary as
Magoun. As this method is sounder, the evidence it pro-
duces is at least more conclusive than the evidence the Old
English Specialists espousing Magoun's theory have provided
for ghgig work. There is simply no escaping the fact that
Chaucer is too close to the Beowulf poet in the use of re-
<:urring phrases for Magoun to say with conviction that B33-
‘zflggf contains a significantly higher number of repetitions
tJian any lettered poet.

Secondly, this study gives rise to a number of
‘Qtlestions that require answers. It might be asked, first
le‘ all, why certain phrases in Chaucer--phrases like "a
Carpenter," "this carpenter," "this Absolon," "this Nicho-
las," "Alisoun and Nicholas," "Nicholas and Alisoun"--should
"(>t3 be excluded from the total count, since they are uncon-
v1l’lcing as formulas and assert nothing of value about Chau-

cer. Yet the same question can be asked of Magoun, for

lOO
phrases like "secgan meahte," "men ne cunnon," and "madma

menigo" are equally unconvincing.2 If one method is undis-

criminating by being overinclusive, so is the other. It

seemed advantageous not to attempt to "purify the evidence,"
so to Speak, and run the risk of invalidating the compari—

son. It might be asked, too,that since Magoun remarks on

the Beowulf poet's use of variation in his formulaic sys-

tem,3 why variations were not included in the Chaucer list

of recurring phrases, or at least discussed as part of
Chaucer's poetic method. First, the variations Chaucer
uses even in the BOOO-line sampling are so numerous as to
make listing them highly impracticable; and second, in the

interest of objectivity it was decided to exclude them from
the list of repetitions. To be brief and over-simple,

Chaucer's variations can be grouped roughly into three cat-

egories. First, there is the simple inversion of word or-

cier in inclusive phrases, as with "smale and grete" instead

(of the more common "grete and smale." Second, there is the

clue or two-word substitution or omission to suit metrical
needs and sometimes rhyme without a change in meaning, as
ijtth "within a litelshyle" and "within a Space," or "witha
<>Lrten wordes mo" and "withouten any wordes mo," or, again

for the sake of variety, as with "within a Space" and "with-

y

2In this reSpect those phrases of Milton, few though
‘tljéiy be, are least convincing of all, as for example, "His
only Son" and "to reascend."

N 3Magoun, "Oral Formulaic Character of Anglo-Saxon
‘arPative Poetry," Speculum, XXVIII (1953), 1.51-52.

101
in a Stounde." The third group is the most complex. Here
Chaucer often uses a basic phrase, like "bigan to Springe,"
to which he attaches certain prefix words, like "day,"
"sonne," "merci" and "love," depending on his meaning.
Sometimes he Shortens his basic phrase to "gan to Springe,"
or changes it to "gan for to springs" to suit his metrical
needs. These groupings, only loosely definitive and not
mutually exclusive, are illustrated here merely to Show
that Chaucer, like the Beowulf poet, varied his repetitions
perhaps as often as his predecessor and with at least equal
Skill. The apparently larger Size of his vocabulary--drawn
from French as well as from native English--made the lan-
guage more flexible, and this would seem to militate against
his use of repetitions. The increased flexibility, however,
Chaucer seems to have seen fit to utilize in his variations.
It might also be asked, if Magoun is incorrect in
contending that the Beowulf contains formulas because it
*waS orally composed, why the Beowulf poet, and Chaucer for
tihat matter, did use formulas. For one thing, the demands
(If their respective verse forms explain in part their de-
pendence on formula. Many of the formulas in Beowulf are
Ilssed to Sustain the four-stress alliteration that was es-
sential to Old English quantitative verse. To illustrate,
I~{Jr‘othgar's hall, Heorot, is referred to variously as "win
€313rx," "medo mrn," "beor mrn," "ealuzern" (Sometimes the
Word "heall" is substituted for the word "earn" in these

compounds), depending on whether the poet is alliterating

102

on w, fl:.§: or g. Or again, for the word "sea" there are,
among other words, "brim," "flod," "holm," "lagu," "mere,"
"sund," and "water," each of which the poet can substitute
for any other to accommodate his alliterative line. The
principle is clear, although it does not seem to have oc—
curred to Magoun and his followers: the poet surmounts the
problem of alliteration by having many synonyms that alli-
terate in different ways. Chaucer, of course, writing
qualitive verse instead, found the use of formulas conven-
ient for working out his rhymes. In the first twenty-five
lines of the Miller's Tale, there are formulas, like
"droughte or elles shoures," "and of solas," "grete and
smale," and others, that he uses for the sake of rhyme. In
addition, in the large sample of 3000 lines there are scores
upon scores of formulas he uses for the same reason. They
range from the immediately recognizable and familiar, like
"for the nones," "as I gesse," "out of doute," "in al the
toun," "as in this cas," to the lesser known, like "and
welawey," "withouten wordes mo," "I wol not lye," "for to
dye," and others. While neither poet confines his use of
formulas to the external demands of his verse form, it is
clear that both poets found formulas a convenient solution
to problems presented by their reSpective poetic vehicles.

It might further be asked, Since Magoun notes in
his examination of Beowulf certain Significant differences

between the language of the traditional Old English heroic

103

A why

poems and that of the Old English Christian poems,
there is no discussion in this study of the difference be-

tween the language of the Knight's Tale and that of the

 

Miller's Tale and Reeve's Tale. Two such different genres

 

as the high chivalric romance and the fabliau represented
by these tales would seem to demand the use of vastly dif-
ferent languages. Yet, there is no difference in language
other than might be eXpected when any author turns from one
subject to another. That is to say, allowing for the change
from the somber and dignified subject of the Knight's Iglg
to the robustly vulgar subject of the Miller's Tale and
Reeve's Tale, there is nothing in this study that helps
distinguish the language of the Knight from the language of
the Miller and Reeve. Moreover, apart from Chaucer's hav-
ing John the Carpenter miSpronounce the words "astonomye"
and "Noe's" as "astromye" and "Noellis," and apart from
Chaucer's attempt to give Allen and John a northern brogue,
it is impossible, on the basis of this study, to distin-
guish the language of any of the stories' participants, one
from another. The repeated phrases, recurring as they do
in the 3000-line sample, militate against one's saying that
the Knight Speaks differently from the Miller, even if it
is felt that he somehow should, although no attempt was
made in this study to tabulate repetitions on the basis of

individual Speakers.

 

h"0ral Formulaic Character of Anglo-Saxon Narrative
Poetry," pp. #56-57.

10h

This admission brings us to the third and final part
of the results of this study. To take this point just dis-
cussed first, it would be a logical and, I think, profitable
endeavor to regroup all the Spoken lines in these tales un-
der consideration according to Speaker--both pilgrims and
characters in the tales--and scrutinize these lists to de-
termine to what extent Chaucer uses these apparently useless
words and recurring phrases for characterizing his actors.
It would be valuable to try to discover differentiating
Speech patterns of some sort as a means of character delin-
eation by Chaucer. It is entirely possible that a careful
analysis of this seemingly indiscriminate use of tags,
phrases, and formulas will reveal an instinctive sense for
individuation of his leading characters, perhaps even a con-
scious attempt at variety.5 Such evidence could then gen-
erate similar analyses of the rest of the Canterbury Tales
as well as Chaucer's other works, which might well shed fur-
ther light on Chaucer's narrative techniques, that is, on

such scholarly controversies as Chaucer's relationship to

 

5To cite a case in point, any such positive finding
would serve to clarify the known, but not altogether ac-
cepted, theory that the Miller's Tale is a careful and con-
scious parody of the Knight's Tale, a parody of theme, situ-
ation, character, and courtly love conventions. The parody
of courtly love conventions, by juxtaposing conventional
courtly love language with precipitous action by Nicholas
and Speedy acquiescence by Alisoun that are anything but
courtly, already demonstrates a knowledge of the subtleties
of language. It is not unreasonable to assume that Chaucer
is equally subtle with the colloquial Speech patterns of his
characters. Such discovery might well substantiate the re-
lationships between the reSpective members of the two love
triangles in the tales.

105

his audiences, and to his various narrators, and the rela-
tionship between his narrators and the tales they tell.6

Second, the present study has made manifest the
need for the formulation and development of new methodol-
ogies for solving the problems of English prosody. The
methodology of Parry and Lord as they applied it to Greek
and South Slavic narrative poetry has proved extremely
fruitful, but the results of this study strongly indicate
that this methodology, that is, the underlining technique,
is Simply not suited to English poetry. Some further styl-
istic criteria may well be sought to supplement that of the
Sheer repetition of short passages. The Parry-Lord-Magoun
techniques, for one thing, will not reveal that Chaucer's
verse contained many rhyme pairs that he used regularly and
predictably. To illustrate his extensive use of what might
be called "split formulas," a few examples may be cited.
In the 3000-line sample he uses the words "love" and "above"

twelve times each to end a line, and in every instance they

form rhymes. Again in that same sample the word "grace" ap-

 

6To cite another case in point, if it can be shown
that the pilgrim Knight's repeated use of phrases like
"saugh I," "maistow se," and many others he uses to describe
the matter of Thebes as an eye witness, are more than hap-
hazard asseverations are more than "mere devices for vivid-
ness of eXpreSSion" (F. N. Robinson, p. 677); if it can be
shown that these eXpressions are consciously and carefully
inserted by Chaucer, then the Knight can be seen either as
a man who, carried away by his story, loses himself in it,
or as a man who knows how to tell a story and usesa these
devices to draw the pilgrims closer to it. AS the Knight
approaches his audience, of course, Chaucer approaches his.

106

pears eight times at the end of a line, and seven times it
rhymes with "place"; the word "lyf" appears sixteen times,
and fifteen times it rhymes with "wyf"; the word "deed" ap-
pears eight times, and seven times it rhymes with "heed."
A complete list of rhyme pairs, or "Split formulas," is too
extensive to appear here. It is sufficient to indicate that
Chaucer not only answers to Beowulf on the basis of recur-
ring phrases, but also contains this further kind of formu-
la that is undiscoverable by the older methodology. It is
suggested also for further research that for four-stress
alliterative verse, a careful examination of alliterative
patterns (single alliteration versus double alliteration,
for example) might prove valuable; for rhymed verse, lists
of chevilles might be collected and analyzed. Beyond that,
a comparative study of French, Irish, Welsh, Icelandic, and
perhaps still other texts would be significant. The point
is that further stylistic criteria, of different kinds for
different prosodic bases and perhaps for different genres,
Should be sought and deve10ped in order to help illuminate
both the poetry and the processes that gave birth to it.
The new capacity for rapid production of concord-
ances that the high Speed computer offers could well pro-
vide tools for such studies, after preliminary eXploration
to determine hopeful bases. In Old English, for example,
a beginning has been made in a series of indexes of alliter-

ating words of Old English poems by Winfred P. Lehmann

107

and others.7

This study, in presenting Chaucer and Milton as
comparisons to Beowulf with reSpect to the use of recurring
phrases and formulas, refutes the validity of the Parry-
Lord-Magoun methodology as it is applied to English litera-
ture and has therefore accomplished its main purpose. Just
as Brodeur has said that there is much more to Beowulf than

8 so it

Magoun and his formula counting leave the poet with,
must be said also that there is much more to Chaucer's style
than this study, limited by its methodology, takes into ac-
count. There is more to his style than Manly and his study
of rhetorical influences, than Muscatine and his study of
the formal French influences, even than Crosby and her
study of the popular romance influences, more than any of
the studies, individually or collectively,have asserted.
True, they have contributed to the sum of knowledge
on Chaucer, but as study to try to decipher the mysteries
of Chaucer's prosody continues, it becomes increasingly
evident that if ever we are to discover exactly what in-

forms Chaucer's style, we will do it only by first accept-

ing Chaucer's nearly total dependence--deSpite the fact

 

7See, for example, W. P. Lehmann and Virginia F.
Dailey, The Alliterations g£_Thg Christ, Guthlac, Elena,
Juliana,—Fates pi the Apostles, and Dream 92 Egg Rood,
KuStin: University of Texas, 1960;“W. P. Lehmann and Take-
mitsu Tabusa, Alliterations 9f Egg Beowulf, Austin: Univer-
Sity of Texas,—195B; W. F. Lehmann, "Alliterations in Old
Saxon Poetry" in Nprsk Tidskrift £93 Sprogsvidenskap, Sup-
plementary Vol. III (19537.

 

 

 

 

 

8The Art 9; Beowulf, p. 70.

108
of his composing in the lettered tradition-~on an easy,
bantering, colloquial language, heavily larded with repe-
tition and formula, and then proceed to investigate the
possibility of subtle differences and subtle variations
within that usage that thus far, because we know almost
nothing of fourteenth-century Spoken language and levels of

usage, have escaped us.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Baldwin, Charles 8. Medieval Rhetoric and Poetic. New
York, 1959.
Bassett, Samuel E. The Poetry 23 Homer. Berkeley, 1938.
Baugh, Albert C. Chaucer's Major Poetry. New York, 1963.

Bloomfield, Joan. "The Style and Structure of Beowulf,"
Review 92 English Studies, XIV (1938), 395-h03.

Bonjour, Adrien. The Digressions in Beowulf. Medium Aevum
Monographs, V. Oxford, 1955.

 

Bowra, Cecil M. "The Comparative Study of Homer," American
Journal 9: Archaeology, LIV (1950), 18A-92.

 

. Heroic Poetry. London, 1952.

 

Brodeur, Arthur G. The Art 2; Beowulf. Berkeley, 1960.

. "The Structure and Unity of Beowulf," PMLA,
LYVIII (1953), 1183-95.

 

Bronson, Bertrand. "Chaucer's Art in Relation to his Audi-
ence," Universit of California Publications 13
Englishj‘VTif (19h57, 1-5 .

Brusendorf, Aage. The Chaucer Tradition. Copenhagen, 1925.

Bush, Douglas. The Complete Poetical Works g£_John Milton.
BOStOn , I965 o

 

Campbell Alistair. Review of Singer of Tales b Albert E.
Lord, Modern Language Review, LVII (I962), 76-77.

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