Language and Meter

In Language and Meter, Dieter Gunkel and Olav Hackstein unite fifteen linguistic studies on a variety of poetic traditions, including the Homeric epics, the hieratic hymns of the Ṛgveda, the Gathas of the Avesta, early Latin and the Sabellic compositions, Germanic alliterative verse, Insular Celtic court poetry, and Tocharian metrical texts. The studies treat a broad range of topics, including the prehistory of the hexameter, the nature of Homeric formulae, the structure of Vedic verse, rhythm in the Gathas, and the relationship between Germanic and Celtic poetic traditions. The volume contributes to our understanding of the relationship between language and poetic form, and how they change over time.

Dieter Gunkel is Assistant Professor of Historical Linguistics at the University of Richmond. He earned his Ph.D. in Indo-European Studies from the University of California, Los Angeles (2010), and held the position of Akademischer Rat in Historical and Indo-European Linguistics at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München (2010–2017). He has published on various topics in Indo-European Linguistics, including prosody and meter in ancient Greek, Vedic Sanskrit, and Tocharian.

Olav Hackstein (Dr. phil. 1993, Universität Freiburg im Breisgau; Habilitation 1999, Universität Halle an der Saale) held positions in Historical and Indo-European linguistics at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia (visiting lecturer, 1989), and the Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg (1994 Assistant Professor, 1999 Associate Professor). Since 2008 he has been full professor, and chair in Historical and Indo-European Linguistics at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München.

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