“Un’intenzione di bellezza”: sull’uso degli aggettivi nel Heliand

Abstract

In ancient and medieval poetry the adjective was often treated as a conventional addition to a given noun. As a consequence, its use was not always aimed at semantic clarification and had no ambition of poetic embellishment. Moreover, the typical recourse to formulas determined the preservation of fixed expressions which in religious texts attained to a sort of sacral fixity, and this is certainly the case in Heliand. At the same time, it seems quite evident that the author of the Old Saxon poem tries to give adjectives a different claim. The use of adjectives in Heliand is to a certain extent determined by the Germanic verse tradition – based on the alliterative pattern, formulas and variation – but it very often assumes unconventional and creative traits, which are fully coherent with the general concept and the stylistic strategies of the poem.