How deliberate is deliberate verbal repetition?

The verbal repetition which is such a striking feature of the style and diction of The Phoenix has elicited opposing critical responses. Norman Blake, an editor of the poem, unsympathetically refers to the poem as ‘verbose’ and cites as evidence its dense verbal repetition. ¹ Daniel Calder, in contrast, interprets the fourteen appearances of the term frœtwe ‘ornaments, treasures’ in The Phoenix as evidence that the word is the poem’s ‘leitmotif and that the repetition of frcetwe lies at the centre of the meaning of the poem. ² These comments draw attention to the two poles of critical response to verbal repetition in Old English verse. At one extreme, verbal repetition has been interpreted as an indication of immediate – some would even say oral – composition while, at the other, critics have often put forth interpretations of individual poems which rely on lexical repetition, often of a single word, being the result of conscious design on the part of the poet. My chief concern in this paper will lie with this second response to verbal repetition, which is part of a widespread acceptance among critics of the notion of deliberate verbal repetition. ³