The Old English Verse Line in Translation: Steps Toward a New Theory of Page Presentation

Abstract

This short essay examines the practice of printing translations of Old English poems in the predictable displays of full- and half-line lineation. While the Old English verse line cannot be said to exist as a visual construction, any prosodic system in present-day English into which an Old English poem might be translated must have visual lineation as a feature of its prosody. Accordingly, this essay insists that the interplay between the aural and visual constructions of lines should be of central concern to the verse translator.

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