An investigation of teaching alliteration in the ancient monuments: Samples of the epics of Song of the Nibelungs, Beowulf, The Saga of Igor Polk & Kitabi-Dada Gorgud

Abstract

In ancient monuments, alliteration manifests itself at different levels. In particular, if alliteration exists as an archetype of syllable and rhyme such as in “Song of the Nibelungs” and “Beowulf”, it is already about to give way to the rhyme system. Besides, the alliteration system in “The Saga of Igor Polk” weakens. Therefore, it can be said that it differs from the ancient Germanic epics and it appears in a stylistic-pragmatic essence. In addition, alliterations have episodic remains of the rhyming substitute function in “Kitabi-Dada Gorgud” epics as in “Beowulf”, which shows they had similar functions in ancient times. In this study, it is aimed to investigate teaching alliteration to unerstand the functions of some samples such as “Song of the Nibelungs”, “Beowulf”, “The Saga of Igor Polk” & “Kitabi- Dada Gorgud”. For this purpose, the harmony of vowels and consonants in the words in the monuments were examined in terms of certain segments of textual pragmatics and repetition of sounds. The results have revealed that the parts where the full version of alliteration (archaic) are preserved, and that the parts where the alliteration is weakened and broken are replaced by the rhyme system. As a consequence teaching alliteration requires a clear presentation of the sound and ryme system in each monument.