A New Theory of Old English Meter by David L. Hoover (review)

102Rocky Mountain Review The first two-thirds of this study are taken up by an overview of English-German contrasts with numerous examples, concluding in a brief summary of the author's conclusions concerning the "unity of contrasts." The last third examines in more exhaustive detail the specific contrast area of verb position in the two languages. Hawkins successfully argues that the two basic parts of a language's grammar exist inherently in tension: the more complex the rules which generate linguistic forms, the simpler the rules assigning meaning, and vice versa. A thorough understanding of this principle is indispensable for effective contrastive analysis of German and English by language teachers, literary scholars, students, translators, artificial intelligence specialists, typologists, generative grammarians, historical and applied linguists. Regrettably, although the discipline of linguistics has made enormous strides in the past 25 years, not all linguists are as articulate as was Sapir back in 1921 . Hawkins unfortunately formulates interesting premises and persuasive arguments in support of his ideas in a jargon-laden style which obscures rather than enlightens. Much of this book is awkwardly written, and this means that the book's considerable worth may be overlooked. In this sense, despite the sophistication of Hawkins' arguments, derived from the most recent research in order to refine what earlier linguists have asserted, the obscurantist arcana-mongering of the writing style deletes a great deal from the book. Still, to the extent that Hawkins succeeds in elucidating the complex interrelationships of contrasts and similarities between German and English in such a way that systematic regularities become apparent and describable, this typology is a valuable contribution. RICHARD J. RUNDELL New Mexico State University DAVID L. HOOVER. A New Theory of Old English Meter. New York: Peter Lang, 1985. 191 p. In A New Theory ofOldEnglish Meter, David L. Hoover sets forth a startling thesis: alliteration, not rhythm, provides the conceptual basis of Old English metrical practice . Over the course of 170 pages Hoover presents a tightly reasoned critique of traditional theories, arguing that their well attested difficulties and limitations stem from a misguided effort to force the random stress of Old English poetry into a four-member, two-lift verse requirement. Thus a variety of verse-types are invented to accommodate different "patterns" of stress, while the complicated processes of resolution and anacrusis must be enlisted to produce the conventional four-member verse. By shifting our attention from rhythm to alliterating stress, Hoover hopes to offer a simplified, internally consistent metrical theory that "makes the composition of Old English poetry comprehensible again" (162). Hoover's "simple proposal" is simple enough in outline. Redefining the lift as an alliterating stress, he permits either one or two lifts in the A verse, followed by a mandatory one-lift B verse. Hoover discards the concept of the "drop" (an unstressed unit following the lift) and instead permits any number of non-alliterating syllables (stressed or unstressed) to surround the lift. There are a few qualifications', the first stress of the A verse must alliterate with the first stress of the B verse (or with the second if the first B verse stress is weak). The second stress of the A verse Book Reviews103 may co-alliterate. At least one non-alliterating syllable must follow the lift in onelift A verses, and at least two such syllables must follow the B verse lift. There must be a minimum of four syllables per verse (see Hoover's rules, 149-50). While Hoover's system is internally consistent and demonstrates significant predictive power in categorizing verses, one may argue that it is not really a metrical system at all. Hoover asserts that since "meter" is nothing but "a way of ordering and conditioning prose" (47), or more elaborately, "a set of the abstract patterns and a set of the rules that specify if and how stretches of language fit those patterns" (47), there is no logical need to posit rhythm as the ordering principle of meter. This is a dubious claim. Hoover's definition is so broad that it would allow us to categorize the rhyme scheme of the Shakespearean sonnet as a constituent of its meter, much as Hoover makes alliteration...