inversions in poetry

[abu nuwas]

Sorry Ed, but you are incorrect. Grammarians had for the longest time been trying to shoehorn English into Latin grammar because they thought English was a Romance language. Of course now we know differently, that English is a Germanic language. This was due in large part to the fact that 60% of English words were derivative of the Old French, which wasn't much more than a dialect of Latin at the time of the Norman invasion in 1066.

"The Norman conquest of England in the 11th century gave rise to heavy borrowings from Norman French, and vocabulary and spelling conventions began to give the appearance of a close relationship with those of Latin-derived Romance languages (though English is not a Romance language itself)."

Baugh, Albert C. and Cable, Thomas (1978). "Latin Influences on Old English". An excerpt from Foreign Influences on Old English. Retrieved 5 September 2010.

There is a nice little article here English Language Wiki

That is a lot easier to read than me having to pull out my text from two semesters of "The History of the English Language", in which I was forced to learn Old English enough to recite and interpret "Beowulf" and enough Middle English to do the same with Chaucer's the "Canterbury Tales".

"I find that the Romance languages have no strong tradition of anastrophe"

Well of course not, why should they. I never said that the Latin speaking poets reversed syntax in their language, I said that the influence of the courts which spoke Old French influenced English poets to use anastrophe to imitate the court language. This continued for many years as not only was the court French, but also the Church.

Here is the facts of the case. Inversion was practiced in English poetry, we only have to look as far as Shakespeare to prove that. The question then is why? As you have said, such inversion was not practiced in the romance languages, why would it be practiced in English, a Germanic language? The answer is quite simple, it is the same reason English is rife with Old French derived words, and why the German word for the same thing is considered vulgar. This is all due to the influence of the Norman conquest, as well as other Latin influences such as the Church which continued up until the time of Shakespeare. In fact it was not until the Protestant Reformation, that England broke away from the heavy influence of the Latin, or about 500 years. The more absurd stance would be to say that these things had no influence on the English language, and that poetry shows no sign of such impact.

I was in a bit of a hurry writing this, but I have to go pick up my children from school. However, I think you get the gist of what I am saying, so please keep your logical rebuttal to that.

Thank you,

For Erthona, by dale the good

Jekyll, my dear old thing, this is really not to be borne a moment longer -although, as Dickens remarked, it is often found that things which cannot be tolerated for one further moment, are often seen to be still in place, three hundred years later. Charles and I had our disagreements, but over that, we were at one. Nevertheless:

1. Of course English and German have common roots. I did not suggest otherwise.
2 I endeavoured to demonstrate that Anglo-Saxon, like German, had verbs at the end of clauses -- the hated anastrophe, but there because that is how those languages worked.
3 Not relevant, but worth noting that Anglo-Saxon itself, as written by the monks, often acquired Latin features, and a glance at a vocabulary will show many words imported from Latin.
4 The Normans were not French, and neither, to a large extent, were the French, at the time of the Conquest. The Teutonic Franks were still recent, and the Gallicisation had a way to proceed. Anglo-Norman did become more properly French as the years passed.
5 Once you accept that the main verb came at the end, in Anglo-Saxon, it matters little what happened with Anglo-Norman. You may however be interested to know that the surviving languages of Northern France and Belgium are heavily laced with Germanic words and speech-patterns. For example, having been brainwashed by my teachers to know that in French one used 'to be' instead of 'to have' with verbs of motion (J'suis allé, Je suis venue, monté, descendu etc), I recall being linguistically shocked when I had a little flat in Boulogne, to hear folk say 'J'ai allé and such, using 'have' after all. The accent in those parts can become v guttural. I take them for a blend of Saxons, Friesians, Franks and Vikings.

I think we may possibly agree, in which case, I apologise for my lack of lucidity and comprehension. I am interested in the idea that a notion of a poetic language' used to create a suspension of belief in the mundane words used, or perhaps to appeal to a kind of ancient language-memory, should endure, not necessarily among writers, but among 'ordinary people', as seems to be the case.

I also wonder whether this inversion really was the language of Coleridge's contemporaries. Certainly it pops up, as it still does (viz 'said he' 'said Rowena') But wasn't he pushing 'the envelope' ?

The sun rose up upon the left
Out of the sea came he!
And he shone bright and on the right
Went down into the sea.

Who would want to deprive him of the opportunities for end-rhymes and internal rhymes which this allows? Or any later Coleridge?

Now do me a favour, and kick that Erthona's fat arse for me!

I fear I have learnt, but I doubt anyone else has. So thanks for being forbearing.