In prosody, alliterative verse is any of a number of closely related
verse forms that are the common inheritance of the older Germanic
languages. This was the verse form in which the Old English epic
Beowulf was written, as well as most of the other Old English poetry;
so were the Bavarian Muspillo and the Old Saxon Heliand. A modified
form of alliterative verse is found in the Elder Edda. Alliterative
verse exists from the earliest attested monuments of the Germanic
languages; extended passages of alliterative verse are attested in
Old English, Old Norse, Old High German, and Old Saxon. The basic
shape of the inherited form of alliterative verse is that a line of
verse is divided into two half-lines by a cæsura, and each half-line
has two strongly stressed words, or "lifts."
Read the rest of this article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alliterative_verse
Today's selected anniversaries:
* 1331 - Stefan Dušan declared himself king of Serbia
(
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stefan_Dusan)
* 1636 - A vote of the Great and General Court of the Massachusetts
Bay Colony establishes Harvard College as the first college
founded in the Americas.
(
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvard_University)
* 1900 - Galveston Hurricane of 1900: A powerful hurricane hits
Galveston, Texas killing about 8,000 people.
(
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galveston_Hurricane_of_1900)
* 1941 - World War II: Siege of Leningrad begins - German forces begin
a siege against the Soviet Union's second-largest city, Leningrad.
(
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Leningrad)
* 1978 - Iranian Revolution: Mass protests in Tehran were met with
military tanks and helicopter gunship on Black Friday.
Hundreds of demonstrators were killed.
(
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iranian_Revolution)
Wikiquote of the day:
"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that
matter." -- Martin Luther King, Jr.
(
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Martin_Luther_King%2C_Jr.)