THE RHYME AND THE FORMULA IN POPULAR FAROESE POETRY

Abstract

The main means which organizes the verse in popular Faroese poetry is end rhyme. In four-line stanzas the rhyme connects the second and the fourth lines, in two-line ones both present lines. The Faroese rhyme is not strict. It is enough only to repeat the stressed vowel, the consonant following after might vary. The part of the word which follows the stressed vowel may undergo significant changes. The masculine ending sometimes rhymes with the feminine one. Even the stressed vowel might vary to some extent. The Faroese rhyme is often trivial. The ballads on the Faroese Isles were oral. So, some special formula technique was applied for their transition. The means of the formula technique are formulas and repetitions. The formulas are metrically conditioned reproducible word groups having the length of one line, meanwhile the repetitions are metrically non-conditioned sequences of different length. The formulas and repetitions, as well as they perform the same function of the building material for the oral poetic text, also possess the same structure. They both are composed from permanent end variable parts. In repetitions their entwinement takes different forms. They may follow one another, usually first comes the permanent part then the variable one. The permanent part sometimes occupies the second half of one stanza and then the first half of the following stanza. The permanent end variable parts might cross one another. In this case the permanent part occupies unpair lines and the variable part occupies pair ones. The distribution of these parts of both formulas and repetitions is tied to the rhyming places of the verse. The rhyming word is usually located in the variable part but sometimes it is found in the permanent part. This one more time proves that there is no impenetrable boundary between formulas and repetitions. Refs 8.