Ælfric's (Un)Changing Style: Continuity of Patterns from the Catholic Homilies to the Lives of Saints

by Gabriella Corona, University of York

Stylistically, most of Ælfric's Lives of Saints epitomize a sort of golden-mean, with their neatly balanced end-stopped lines of variable syllable-number. In his introduction to the Supplementary Homilies, John C. Pope points out that "[s]everal of Ælfric's half-lines fit exactly the requirements of Sievers types A, B, and C, and the line fleah to his foton. friðes biddende is a perfect combination of types A and D, alliteration and all." Pope further comments that later developments of the patterns found in this line show experimentation with vocabulary and syntax but that in so doing Ælfric disturbs the metrical balance. Indeed, experiments on alliterative patterns involving the verb biddan and f-alliteration appear in the First Series of Catholic Homilies and regularly throughout Ælfric's work. Thus in the Life of Thomas the Apostle lexical and syntactical changes leave the alliterative patterns intact, but create some space for variation (LS 36, l. 337): "[h]eo feol þa to his fotum fulluhtes biddende" (she fell at his feet begging for baptism). This line is characterized by double alliteration on f and a rhythm which is reminiscent of, but not identical to, that of the poetry.