ACCENTUAL-SYLLABIC HEXAMETER IN ESTONIAN POETRY AT THE END OF THE 19TH CENTURY – THE BEGINNING OF THE 20TH CENTURY

1. Introduction In most European poetical traditions, dactylic hexameter is almost always the first ancient metre to become employed systematically. The same happened in Estonian poetry: here too the verse technique of hexameter was the first to gain special attention. The developers of the Estonian hexameter proceeded mostly from the German and Russian tradition. Although the German theorists had discussed the possibilities of the quantitative hexameter in modern languages already since the beginning of the 19th century (for details, see, e.g. Lotman 1976, 1987), the Estonian hexametrists still proceeded from the principle offered by Johann Christoph Gottsched in the 18th century. According to this principle, the strong positions were to be filled with stressed syllables and weak positions with unstressed ones: such rules resulted in the accentual-syllabic hexameter. The aim of the present paper is to give a synopsis of the Estonian accentual-syllabic hexameter from the second half of the 19th century to the beginning of the 20th century. The material comprises the translation of the first song of "The Odyssey" by Jaan Bergmann (i.e. 444 verses), Friedrich Kuhlbars' stichic hexameters (72 verses) and elegiac distichs (208 verses), Villem Ridala's elegiac distichs (456 verses) and several other attempts of dactylic hexameters in the earlier Estonian poetry. The main attention will be paid to three different aspects of versification, that is, to the prosodical, metrical and rhythmical structures. 2. Jaan Bergmann's hexameter 2.1. Prosody Jaan Bergmann was the first Estonian author who in order to diversify Estonian poetry (1) systematically wrote stichic hexameters and thus developed the principles of accommodating hexameter into the Estonian language. Jaan Bergmann uses in his hexameter several techniques which are characteristic of the Estonian poetry in the 19th century. The most conspicuous are the following. 1) The monophthongization of diphthongs. (2) In the earlier Estonian poetry, regardless of verse metre, diphthongs and long vowels can turn into monophthongs whenever required by versification rules. For example, in the following iambic tetrameter by Karl Eduard Soot (from the poem "They said ."--"Nad utlesid .") we encounter the word 'kaod' which would normally be considered a monosyllabic word containing a diphthong, but in this particular case is monophthongized and thus fills two metrical positions: x X x X x X x X x Nad utlesid, sa kaod ara. There are numerous examples of such device in Jaan Bergmann's hexameters as well. For example, in the following verse: X x x X x x X X x x X x X xx X x Et tema nimi saaks tutvaks ja ausaks kuulsate reas (1, 95), the last foot is filled with the word 'reas', which is normally a monosyllabic word. In this case the diphthong 'ea' is monophthongized and becomes a disyllabic word: re-as. The other diphthongs like this are, e.g. ea, oa, eo, ao in the following verses: X x x X x x X x X X x X x x Xx Ning et ta kusida voiks, kas isast ei midagi teaks (1, 135), X x x X x x X x x X x x X x x X x Koledas koopas ja teinud tast omale viimase roa (2, 20), X x x X x x X x X x x X x x X x Kuna teid endid on hulk, et jataksid joledad teod (2, 241), X x x X x x X x X x x X x x X x Koiki mu kaaslasi hirm siis kohutas kahvatuks naost (12, 243). At the same time, diphthongs can be retained as such, cf 1, 216: X x x X(x) x X x x X x x X x x X x Seda ei tea. Sest ukski ju ise ei tea, kust ta parit where the word 'tea' occurs in the verse twice. In the first case its prosody can be interpreted in two possible ways: it either fills the strong position of the second foot as a diphthong or is monophthongized and fills the strong position and the first element of the weak position in a dactylic foot. …