Normally, elision is not indicated in writing, although some examples to the contrary have been documented in inscriptional evidence. One of the features of classical Latin poetry which invariably proves the most baffling to young students of the classics is the practice known as elision, or synaloephe, which, in the regular usage of the classroom, means that the final vowels of words are left unpronounced before words with an initial vowel. Although Anglo-Latin practice regarding elision differs markedly from that of earlier classical and post-classical verse, it is apparent that at least some of its characteristics can be attributable to some less-known metrical practices of late antiquity. The purpose of this paper is to shed light on some ostensible idiosyncrasies which are typical, above all, of Aldhelm’s Latin verse and to find a plausible historical explanation for them. The individual solutions which Aldhelm, abbot of Malmesbury and bishop of Sherbourne (640–709), and the Venerable Bede (673–735), the earliest Anglo-Latin authors on metre, found in tackling this problem are reflected in the respective poetic works of these two scholars. An additional difficulty inherent in quantitative verse was the practice of syllable fusion and/or apocopation known as elision or synaloephe, which, at least judging by some results, was even more difficult to grasp for the Anglo-Saxon scholars. This was no mean feat, as the classical system of syllable quantity had long since disappeared from spoken Latin even on the European continent, and the proper syllable lengths had to be gleaned laboriously from grammars and earlier verse (Lapidge 1979: 210 1999: 272–273). The Anglo-Saxons are acknowledged as the first non-Romance nation to compose Latin verse in the quantitative metres of the classical Graeco-Roman poetic tradition. The present paper studies this discrepancy between Anglo-Saxon prosodists’ views on hiatus and the prevailing verse technique of the same period and suggests that some seeming idiosyncrasies in Aldhelm’s use of elision are, in fact, probably based on certain less-known practices of Late Latin hexameter verse. Bede’s reluctance to recognise hiatus for a contemporary rather than a pre-Christian feature reflects his attempts to show Christian verse in as favourable light as possible, although, in a roundabout way, he probably also tried to regularise the prosodic practices of Anglo-Latin verse. In his metrical treatise De arte metrica he went so far as to condemn hiatus as a ‘pagan’ feature, a view which he attempted to corroborate with examples of Vergil’s artful deviations from the rules of elision. Bede took an opposite line in his strenuous avoidance of hiatus in his own verse. This is a noticeable feature, above all, in the verse of Aldhelm and his followers, although Aldhelm himself gives a detailed description of elision in his treatise on metrics ( De metris). The avoidance of hiatus is a feature of most medieval verse, as well, but early insular verse forms a notable exception: hiatus is abundant in many rhythmical Irish and Anglo-Latin hymns, and even in much of Anglo-Latin hexameter poetry elision is not systematically observed. In classical Latin, hiatus is eliminated by a process known as elision, or synaloephe, where the final vowel of the preceding word is fused with the following one or left unpronounced. A central prosodic feature of nearly all Latin verse, classical and medieval alike, is the avoidance of hiatus, where a word with a final vowel, or in classical verse, a final m, is followed by a word with an initial vowel, (or, in classical verse, an initial h).
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