Traditional Rules: A Summary

Earlier in this chapter we attempted to predict the kinds of phraseological structures that might be expected to form under the aegis of the idiosyncratic

[70] For example, the mere fact that a substitution system can be posited as the structure underlying a given verse is insufficient to count that verse a formulaic system if the pattern is highly generic and no essential idea can be located. As explained by example above, these instances are the issue of traditional rules and not of substitution systems.

[71] Of course, some theorists would join Fry (1967b, 1974) in assuming that all formulas are necessarily products of systems, making separation of these categories impossible.

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Old English alliterative meter. As expected, our subsequent analysis revealed not one but a variety of types of diction: alongside the classical half-line phrase stand single words, whole-line patterns, multi-line patterns, collocations, clusters, and themes. Likewise, even within these different categories not all members are equivalent; some formulaic systems are more variable than others, some larger patterns more restrictive than others, and so on. Then too, we found a number of elements that had more than one compositional identity, as when a phrase could serve as a half-line unit by itself or join with another word or words to make up a verse. In most cases, even if we could realistically posit a formulaic system underlying a given phrase, simple reporting of that proposed system proved insufficient to a complete understanding of the phrase as an element of traditional phraseology. In short, the synchronic model of half-line substitution systems, while a valuable first step in assessing the character of Old English poetic diction, does not go far enough; the simplification it offers is purchased at the price of incomplete analysis and therefore of an unsound basis for aesthetic investigation. At the same time, the wide spectrum of traditional forms uncovered in the passage from Beowulf analyzed above, while fulfilling what was predicted about the diction, begs the question of how the poet and tradition could have managed to handle so many apparently diverse forms concurrently.

The first response to this question must be a general one, but one that is not often enough appreciated by those involved in the analysis and explanation of oral traditional phraseology. Most simply put, the diction we encounter in

Beowulf and Old English poetry—and in the oral epics of Homer and the Yugoslav guslar —is by its very nature not a set of substitution systems. Even if we were to hypothesize (quite unrealistically) that at some point in the distant past of a poetic tradition the Kunstsprache was made up entirely of equivalent elements, so that one formulaic system, for example, was always and everywhere equal to all others, the dimension of diachrony that separates us from that Ur-diction would demand a reinterpretation. Over time, some systems and other structures will develop differently from others, and this inherently uneven evolution must produce some structures that permit extensive variation, some that permit none, and many that fall somewhere in between these two poles. Likewise, the same evolution (and the natural-selection model may not be entirely inaccurate for the process) must yield structures of different "sizes" and complexity, with certain phraseological relationships "growing" from one size to another, perhaps retaining the original form, but perhaps not. And we must also introduce into this same equation the dimension of different singers versus the local tradition and the tradition as a whole—what were called idiolect, dialect, and language in relation to the Serbo-Croatian poems. Although we lack the background information and textual records to apply this kind of discrimination to Beowulf , we have in fact noticed some structures that seem, on the basis of available information, to be idiolectal.

What the dimension of diachrony indicates is thus another level of complexity in a diction, another reason to analyze carefully what is really there instead of settling for a convenient and simple model that partially explains a healthy percentage of the cases we encounter. Of course, evolution of traditional forms will be guided both by the conservatism of tradition in general and by the prosodic filter of the poetry in particular, but we should not expect the text we are interpreting to submit tamely to a synchronic analysis. The language of Beowulf is a highly complex and resonant instrument, one that carries with it enormous internal resources of associative meaning and yet is also pliable enough to respond to the poet's individual craft, one that harmonizes well with Yeats's notion of the poet as "both finger and clay."

While we cannot reduce the complexity of this spectrum of traditional phraseology and still hope to provide a firm foundation for aesthetic interpretation, we can nonetheless rationalize the diversity of many forms to a single set of traditional rules that, like the corresponding inventory in the poetic idioms of Serbo-Croatian and ancient Greek epic, are neither as situation-specific as those governing the formula and system nor as general as metrical constraints. Lying in between these two extremes and built, as indicated above, on the logic of the tradition-dependent prosody, traditional rules are inscribed in every half-line and line, whatever category of structure that half-line or line falls into. They serve both as regulators of incoming phraseology and as continuing supports for the morphology of that diction which the poet is accustomed to employing. In a word, these rules supersede the synchronic

dimension, for they are not phrase-specific or even category-specific; rather, they connect all phraseological patterns—no matter how small or large, how simple or elaborate—by serving as the group criteria of what is (and becomes) traditional.

The most far-reaching of these rules, word-type placement , furnishes a prime example. This set of constraints governs the recurrence of words not on the bases usually prescribed for the formula and system (those of lexicon and semantics "under the same metrical conditions") but on the basis of the word's metrical and grammatical type. Indeed, this is exactly what we would expect in a prosody that emphasizes not the syllable and the colon but rather the sequence of stresses. For example, we found during the earlier analysis that monosyllabic preterite verbs consistently occupied first or last position in a verse; this phenomenon was a result not of any one verb or (primarily) of any particular formulaic system, but of a rule that applies to a metrical-grammatical category of words. To summarize, I list below the various kinds of word-type placement encountered in the passage from Beowulf :^[72]

1. Monosyllabic preterite verbs are either verse-initial or verse-final

2. Metrically more extensive word-types seek verse-end (suspended by rule #1)

3. Attributive-specifier : any sequence involving a specifying word and a dependent attributive (partitive genitive, dative of respect, participle plus instrumental, etc.) will occur in the order attributive followed by specifier

4. Finite verbs in general seek verse-final position

5. Prepositional phrases seek verse-final position (subject to the priority of rules #1-4)

6. Single stressed words seek verse-final position (subject to the priority of rules #1-4)

7. Any sequence rules are subject to inversion in the first half-line if (a) the verse has double alliteration and (b) the inversion corresponds more closely to normal prose word-order

8. WTP at the level of the half-line or verse in general obeys the metrical laws of the alliterative line (as symbolized, e.g., in Sievers's Five Types)

9. WTP at the level of the whole line in general follows the predisposition of the metrical formulas described in chapter 3

These rules are arranged in approximate order of descending importance; that is, #2 is regularly superseded by #1, as in 719b (healpegnas fand ), and #4 by #2, as in 712a (mynte se manscaða ). Constraint #3 is a very powerful and general stricture, accounting for phrases as apparently diverse as 721a (dreamum bedæ>led ), 722a (fyrbendum fæst ), and 730a (magorinca heap ). Prepositional phrases are essentially treated as the single words they linguistically are and positioned

[72] This list of WTP rules is not intended to be complete, but is offered as a beginning statement of the sorts of constraints one can expect. Further investigation, especially of poems other than Beowulf , may suggest the need not only to add more rules, but perhaps to define certain of these nine further and more individualistically, as well.

at the ends of units, unless another rule supervenes that localization. Note also that the first verse in any line shows special flexibility in allowing reversal of the usual patterning if conditions are right. Correspondingly, the second verse provides a regular locus for a non-alliterating fourth stressed element, and many second-verse phrases take advantage of this provision. Rules #8 and #9 apply at the prosodic level to virtually all of Beowulf ; even if no other constraint orders a given phraseological element, the verse meter and whole-line metrical formula will prescribe pattern in the involved diction.

Other rules, compositionally analogous to the second-level "focusing" features discussed in relation to Serbo-Croatian epic phraseology, also contribute to the poet's and tradition's structuring of the phrase and line:^[73]

1. Collocation (alliterating pair of words or roots)

2. Cluster (association of words outside of the alliterative constraint)

3. Theme (narrative structure)

4. Special "rhetorical" structures (e.g., litotes)^[74]

The Beowulf passage has given us examples of all these rules in action, from the quite common pairing of alliterating words through the cluster of morphs and on to the theme and rhetorical figures. These influences are much more telling on the actual phraseology than is usually recognized, especially because the conventional model assumes a simple inventory of formulas and systems for thematic units.^[75] These rules, just like the word-type placement rules, contribute both uniformity and variety to traditional phraseology: the most fundamental aspects of structure remain consistent, while the absolute verbal shape of any one instance—or even one set of instances—varies considerably.^[76]

Finally, the point needs to be made that the discovery of traditional rules and of their significance at the deepest levels of composition does not in any sense invalidate or call into question the permanently useful research done on the formula and system—for traditional rules do not supersede these structures; they simply rationalize them. Instead of settling for an approximation of phraseological patterning, a convenient explanation that has the

[73] See the discussion of Serbo-Croatian traditional phraseology in chapter 5.

[74] I call such structures "rhetorical" in that they seem to be native Anglo-Saxon verbal tropes and need not necessarily be ascribed to the Latin rhetorical tradition. There is of course no reason why Latin figures could not have become part of the Old English poetic tradition, but literary history has, I feel, too often jumped to the conclusion of borrowing without considering whether such figures might be of native origin. See Campbell 1966, 1967, 1978; Bonner 1976.

[75] In this respect Calvert Watkins's idea that the theme serves as the "deep structure" for the formula (see, e.g., G. Nagy 1979, 3-5) is a liberating first step, but one must also take account of the inequivalence of traditional units and the dimension of diachrony, not to mention variance among idiolect, dialect, and language.

[76] One may compare the "tension of essences" that Lord (1960, 98) describes as holding together complexes of themes.

advantage of simplicity, we can now go further and explain what different formulas and systems have in common among themselves and even what they share with ostensibly non-formulaic (but still traditional) diction. We need not be burdened with conflicting definitions of the formula, none of which captures all of the half-lines in Beowulf and explains fully their traditional character; indeed, we can see that, given the tradition-dependent nature of Anglo-Saxon prosody, such a definition is an impossibility. Most importantly, by recognizing that formulas and systems have their roots in traditional rules, we are basing our understanding of the poetry on the idiosyncratic reality of the individual poetic tradition, as well as on a comparative perspective on oral epic poetry as a whole. By placing the broadly comparative concept of formulaic structure against the distinctly tradition-dependent background of traditional rules, in other words, we are creating a responsible interpretation of the diction of Beowulf , one that will serve faithfully as the foundation for later aesthetic investigation.