Correlative verse is a

literary device A narrative technique (known for literary fictional narratives as a literary technique, literary device, or fictional device) is any of several specific methods the creator of a narrative uses to convey what they want —in other words, a stra ...

used in

poetry Poetry (derived from the Greek ''poiesis'', "making"), also called verse, is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language − such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre − to evoke meanings i ...

around the world; it is characterized by the matching of items in two different pluralities. An example is found in an epigram from the ''

Greek Anthology The ''Greek Anthology'' ( la, Anthologia Graeca) is a collection of poems, mostly epigrams, that span the Classical and Byzantine periods of Greek literature. Most of the material of the ''Greek Anthology'' comes from two manuscripts, the ''Pa ...

'': "You ine, areboldness, youth, strength, wealth, country irst plurality/ to the shy, the old, the weak, the poor, the foreigner (second plurality]". Another example is found in a couplet by 16th-century poet

George Peele George Peele (baptised 25 July 1556 – buried 9 November 1596) was an English translator, poet, and dramatist, who is most noted for his supposed but not universally accepted collaboration with William Shakespeare on the play ''Titus Andronicus' ...

: "Beauty, strength, youth, are flowers but fading seen; / Duty, faith, love, are roots, and ever green". Characteristically notorious for correlative verse is

Old Norse Old Norse, Old Nordic, or Old Scandinavian, is a stage of development of North Germanic languages, North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and t ...

poetry, which proffers such cryptic examples as Þórðr Særeksson's: Varð sjálf sonar— Became herself of her son— nama snotr una— Did not come to love— Kjalarr of tamði— Kjallarr (Óðinn) tamed— kváðut Hamði— It is said that Hamðir did not— —Goðrún bani —Guðrún the slayer —goðbrúðr Vani —the bride of the gods the Vanr —heldr vel mara —rather well horses —hörleik spara. —bow-warfare hold back. where the elemental pattern is ABCDABCD, i.e. "Varð sjálf sonar...Goðrún bani" (Became herself of her son Guðrún the slayer), etc.

See also

References

Further reading