Correlative verse explained
Correlative verse is a literary device used in poetry around the world; it is characterized by the matching of items in two different pluralities. An example is found in an epigram from the Greek Anthology: "You [wine, are] boldness, youth, strength, wealth, country [first plurality] / to the shy, the old, the weak, the poor, the foreigner (second plurality]".[1] Another example is found in a couplet by 16th-century poet George Peele: "Beauty, strength, youth, are flowers but fading seen; / Duty, faith, love, are roots, and ever green".[2]
Characteristically notorious for correlative verse is Old Norse poetry, which proffers such cryptic examples as Þórðr Særeksson's:[3]
where the elemental pattern is ABCDABCD, i.e. "Norse, Old: Varð sjálf sonar...Goðrún bani" (Became herself of her son Guðrún the slayer), etc.
See also
Further reading
- Fucilla . Joseph G. . A Rhetorical Pattern in Renaissance and Baroque Poetry . Studies in the Renaissance . 1956 . 3 . 23–48 . 10.2307/2857099 . 2857099 .
Notes and References
- Book: Mignani, Rigo. Alex Preminger. Frank J. Warnke, O. B. Hardison, Jr.. Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics. 1965. Princeton UP. 978-0-691-01308-4. 155. Correlative verse. https://books.google.com/books?id=ID1dDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA155.
- Book: Cuddon. J. A.. J. A. Cuddon. Preston. C. E.. The Penguin Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory. 4. 1999. Penguin. London. 9780140513639. 181–82. Correlative verse. registration. https://archive.org/details/penguindictionar00cudd/page/181.
- Book: Faulkes, Anthony. Poetical Inspiration in Old Norse and Old English Poetry.. 1997. London. 29.
