Page "learned" Paragraph 1147

Yet, if the argument is turned awry, there may be found a great deal in Bryan's view, after all.

A formulaic element need not be held meaningless merely because it was selected with little conscious reflection.

Time-servers, though the periphrastic expressions are, they may nevertheless be handsome or ironic or humorous.

A long evolution in an oral tradition caused the poetic language of the heroic age to be based upon formulas that show the important qualities of things, and these formulas are therefore potentially rather than always actually accurate.

True, we do not know how they were regarded in their day, but we need not believe the epic audience to have been more insensitive to the formulas than the numerous scholars of modern times who have read Germanic or Homeric poetry all their lives and still found much to admire in occasional occurrences of the most familiar phrases.

Nouns and adjectives in a written tradition are chosen for the nonce ; ;

in an oral tradition they may be chosen for the entire epic corpus, and tend towards idealization rather than distinctive delineation.

Reliance is therefore not to be placed upon the archaeological particulars in an oral poem ; ;

no-one today would hope to discover the unmistakable ruins of Heorot or the palace of Priam.

A ship at dry-dock could be called a foamy-necked floater in Anglo-Saxon or a swift ship in Greek.

Even when defenseless of weapons the Danes would be Gar-Dene ( as their king is Hrothgar ) and Priam would be EUMMELIHS.

Achilles, like Siegfried in The Nibelungenlied, is potentially the swiftest of men and may accordingly be called swift-footed even when he stands idle.

In Coriolanus the agnomen of Marcius is used deliberately and pointedly, but the Homeric epithets and the Anglo-Saxon kennings are used casually and recall to the hearer `` a familiar story or situation or a useful or pleasant quality of the referent ''.

The epic language was not entirely the servant of the poet ; ;

it was partly his master.

The poet's intentions are difficult to discern and, except to biographers, unimportant ; ;

the language, however, is a proper object of scrutiny, and the effects of the language are palpable even if sometimes inevitable.