{{short description|Icelandic stanzaic poetic form}} {{italic title}} '''''Ferskeytt''''' (literally 'four-cornered') is an Icelandic stanzaic poetic form. It is a kind of quatrain, and probably first attested in fourteenth-century ''rímur'' such as ''Ólafs ríma Haraldssonar''. It remains one of the dominant metrical forms in Icelandic versifying to this day.<ref>Vésteinn Ólason, '[http://opac.regesta-imperii.de/lang_en/anzeige.php?buchbeitrag=The+Middle+Ages.+Old+Icelandic+poetry&pk=2438241 Old Icelandic Poetry]', in ''A History of Icelandic Literature'', ed. by Daisy Nejmann, Histories of Scandinavian Literature, 5 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2006), pp. 1-63 (pp. 55-59).</ref>
''Ferskeytt'' comprises odd-numbered, basically trochaic lines with four stresses in the pattern / x / x / x /, alternating with even-numbered trochaic lines with three stresses in the pattern / x / x / x. In each line, one unstressed syllable may be replaced with two unstressed syllables. Stanzas are normally of four lines, and rhyme aBaB. In the first line, two heavily stressed syllables alliterate with the first heavily stressed syllable of the second line, and so on in the usual alliterative pattern of Germanic alliterative verse.<ref>Richard Ringler, ''Bard of Iceland : Jónas Hallgrímsson, poet and scientist'' (Madison, Wisc.: University of Wisconsin Press, 2002), §III.2, http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/Jonas/Prosody/Prosody-II.html.</ref>
An example of the form is this verse by Jónas Hallgrímsson, with a translation into the same metre by Dick Ringler.<ref>Richard Ringler, ''Bard of Iceland : Jónas Hallgrímsson, poet and scientist'' (Madison, Wisc.: University of Wisconsin Press, 2002), §III.2, http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/Jonas/Prosody/Prosody-II.html.</ref> Alliteration is '''emboldened''' and rhyme is ''italicised'': {{Verse translation|italicsoff=y| {{lang|is|'''H'''óla bítur '''h'''örkub''ál'', '''h'''rafnar éta g''orið'', '''t'''ittlingarnir '''t'''ýna s''ál'', '''t'''arna' er ljóta v''orið''!|italic=unset}} | Hillsides '''r'''aked by '''r'''aging fr''ost'', '''r'''avens eating ''offal'', buntings '''g'''iving up the '''g'''h''ost'' — '''G'''od, this spring is ''awful''!}}
There are many variations on ''ferskeytt'', whose common principle is that they are quatrains with some kind of alternate rhyme. A poem in this metre is called a ''ferskeytla'' ('four-cornered [poem]'). Metres which share these properties belong to the ''ferskeytluætt'' ('ferskeytla-family').<ref>Richard Ringler, ''Bard of Iceland : Jónas Hallgrímsson, poet and scientist'' (Madison, Wisc.: University of Wisconsin Press, 2002), §III.2, http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/Jonas/Prosody/Prosody-II.html.</ref>
==References==
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==External links== * [https://www.ismus.is/i/audio/id-1047293 Hólmfríður Pétursdóttir singing in ''ferskeytt'': 'Þegar vetrar þokan grá'] * [https://www.ismus.is/i/audio/id-1031227 Ingibjörg Friðriksdóttir singing in ''ferskeytt'': 'Ferskeytlan er lítið ljóð'] * [https://www.ismus.is/i/audio/id-1026707 Gunnar Helgmundur Alexandersson singing in ''ferskeytt'': 'Ferskeytlan er Frónbúans']
Category:Poetic devices Category:Medieval poetry Category:Old Norse poetry Category:Icelandic literature Category:Music of Iceland Category:Rímur