Breaking the Syllabic-accentual Monotony

Abstract

Ants Oras’s innovation was not confined to the sphere of language, he also has an important role in the enrichment of Estonian metrics and systems of versification. His sources were mainly the forms of different European poetic cultures, which he introduced in his translations. In the paper, two meters are studied, which Oras tried to create in his translation of Goethe’s Faust, in order to adequately convey the original’s rhythm. These verse meters are German national form, Knittelvers, and adoneus derived from ancient and medieval verse. One common characteristic for these meters is the breaking of syllabic-accentual monotony.