Literary Kalevala-Metre and Hybrid Poetics in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Century Finland

Abstract

This article examines the blurred boundaries between different oral and literary poetics in early modern Finland. Both the first written examples of traditional Finnic oral poetry (in so-called Kalevala-metre with no rhymes or stanza structures) and the first rhymed and stanzaic poems originate from this very same period, often in various hybrid forms. Ambiguity and the hybrid character of poems means the contemporary audiences may have interpreted individual poems as relating to several poetic traditions.The material demonstrates that the elites had knowledge of oral poetics that they both avoided and applied in various ways. In Lutheran hymns, the features of traditional oral poetry were first avoided, but, from the 1580s onwards, alliteration and some other features were incorporated into rhymed, iambic stanzas. At the same time, the clergymen and scholars also created a rhymed, heavily alliterated and trochaic genre of literary poems, which was apparently conceived as a version of the oral Finnish poetic form. Later scholars have often interpreted this learned, literary form as a misunderstanding of traditional oral poetics. In this article, it is understood as an intentional, hybrid form of rhymed couplets and Kalevala-metre. The various hybrid uses indicate that -contrary to the later scholarly views -the early modern writers did not conceive the old oral form as a conclusively pagan metre that should be strictly avoided.Keywords: ethnopoetics, Finnic oral poetry, hybrid poetics, Kalevala-metre, literary history, Lutheran hymns, rhymed coupletsThe first texts in Finnish derive from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Apart from some oral-derived charms and mocking songs in the court registers, the poems in the earliest Finnish sources were mostly written by the clerical, literary elite, who created the new genres of Lutheran hymns and literary poetry. The hybrid and oral-literary character of these earliest sources has resulted in a rather small interest in these materials both among the folklorists and literary scholars. Yet, the contemporary discussions on the interfaces between oral and literary traditions, ethnopoetics, and song metrics have created some new possibilities for interpreting early modern vernacular poetics.

Rhyme and Rhyming in Verbal Art, Language, and Song

“…ey, too, sometimes invented a word or shortened it to create a rhyme and accepted also partial rhymes. (Häkkinen 2005;2017b.) e situation changed from the second half of the 17th century on.…”

“…Although the hymn is nowadays a marginalized genre of poetry, at least from the point of view of the literary canon, it was signi cant and exceptionally widespread during earlier centuries. Moreover, hymn poetry served as an experimentation platform for the development of Finnish poetics and metrics up to the end of the 19th century Kallio 2017;Laitinen 2003: 165-166, 205).…”

Vernakulaarin monta tasoa

“…Näitä siirtymiä on viime aikoina tarkasteltu esimerkiksi suullisen ja kirjallisen välisen vuorovaikutuksen sekä kirjallistumisen tutkimuksen saroilla (esim. Kallio et al 2017;. Sanaparien jälkimmäiset osat -matala, kansa, epävirallinen, suullinen, epämuodollinen, arkinen -ovat puolestaan viime aikoina tulleet käsitellyiksi myös vernakulaarin käsitteen alla (esim.…”

“…Riimin ja kalevalamitan piirteiden yhdistämistä on mahdollista tarkastella myös suullisen mitan kirjallistamisena ja kirjallisuudellistamisena: vanhaa suomalaista suullisen runon muotoa muokattiin aikakauden kirjallisiin tarpeisiin sopivaksi. (Kallio 2017. ) Ilo-Laulu oli osa tätä kirjallisuudellistumisen ja kirjallisen runouden luomisen jatkumoa, mutta myös selkeä käännekohta: ensimmäinen suullisen kaltaisella riimittömällä kalevalamitalla kirjoitettu laajemmalle yleisölle suunnattu painotuote.…”

Individual Rhythmic Variation in Oral Poetry: The Runosong Performances of Seto Singers

“…Concerning changes in the Estonian language see e.g.,Viitso 2003, Sarv 2011a. Further on the subtraditions and changes in the versification system of runosong seeSarv 2015, Kallio 2017…”