Old English Meter and Oral Tradition:
Three Issues Bearing on Poetic Chronology

by R.D. Fulk, Indiana University

The study of metrical means of gauging the relative antiquity of Old English poems is founded on the assumption that language change should be reflected in scansional differences among poems of various ages. The relation between meter and chronology, however, is not an unmediated one: metrical conservatism does not unambiguously indicate archaic composition, because in respect to nearly every chronological variable that has been proposed, the influence of oral tradition must be taken into account. It is this remarkably conservative tradition that insulates the language of verse from the immediate effects of change, allowing archaic language forms to persist in poetry long after they have been lost from everyday speech, disappearing slowly as the tradition evolves. The implications of this mediating role of poetic tradition must continually be kept in mind in connection with chronological studies.