On the Difference between Rhythm and Meter in Poetry: Beowulf as a Case in Point

Eduard Sievers sorted Old English verses with acceptable linguistic patterns into five categories called verse types. Taking the most compact realization of each type as basic, he defined type A as a falling rhythm with two trochaic feet, type B as a rising rhythm with two iambic feet, and type C as a rising-falling rhythm with an iambic foot followed by a trochaic foot.¹ His types D and E employed monosyllabic feet with no inherent rhythm and trisyllabic feet of an unfamiliar kind. Sievers made no attempt to analyze foot rhythm in types D and E but observed that they had falling verse rhythm.² Andreas Heusler and William Ellery Leonard led an attack on the five-types system, arguing that it was rhythmically incoherent.³ To obtain a consistent rhythm, they disregarded Sievers's language-based rules for scansion. At this point John Collins Pope intervened. He conceded that Heusler and...