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In prosody, alliterative verse is a form of verse that uses alliteration as the principal ornamental device to help indicate the underlying metrical structure, as opposed to other devices such as rhyme. The most commonly studied traditions of alliterative verse are those found in the oldest literature of the Germanic languages, where scholars use the term 'alliterative poetry' rather broadly to indicate a tradition which not only shares alliteration as its primary ornament but also certain metrical characteristics. The Old English epic ''Beowulf'', as well as most other Old English poetry, the Old High German ''Muspilli'', the Old Saxon ''Heliand'', the Old Norse ''Poetic Edda'', and many Middle English poems such as ''Piers Plowman'', ''Sir Gawain and the Green Knight'', and the ''Alliterative Morte Arthur'' all use alliterative verse. Alliterative verse can be found in many other languages as well. The Finnish ''Kalevala'' and the Estonian ''Kalevipoeg'' both use alliterative forms derived from folk tradition. Traditional Turkic verse, for example that of the Uyghur, is also alliterative. ==Common Germanic origins and features== The poetic forms found in the various Germanic languages are not identical, but there is sufficient similarity to make it clear that they are closely related traditions, stemming from a common Germanic source. Knowledge about that common tradition, however, is based almost entirely on inference from later poetry. One statement we have about the nature of alliterative verse from a practicing alliterative poet is that of Snorri Sturluson in the ''Prose Edda''. He describes metrical patterns and poetic devices used by skaldic poets around the year 1200. Snorri's description has served as the starting point for scholars to reconstruct alliterative meters beyond those of Old Norse. There have been many different metrical theories proposed, all of them attended with controversy. Looked at broadly, however, certain basic features are common from the earliest to the latest poetry. Alliterative verse has been found in some of the earliest monuments of Germanic literature. The Golden horns of Gallehus, discovered in Denmark and likely dating to the 4th century, bear this Runic inscription in Proto-Norse: x / x x x / x x / x / x x ek hlewagastiʀ holtijaʀ || horna tawidō (I, Hlewagastiʀ () of Holt, made the horn.) This inscription contains four strongly stressed syllables, the first three of which alliterate on Originally all alliterative poetry was composed and transmitted orally, and much went unrecorded. The degree to which writing may have altered this oral art form remains much in dispute. Nevertheless, there is a broad consensus among scholars that the written verse retains many (and some would argue almost all) of the features of the spoken language. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「alliterative verse」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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