English

Noun

rosc ‎(countable and uncountable, plural roscada)

1. An ancient form of unrhymed Old Irish verse that uses alliteration and meter.
   • 1995, Calvert Watkins, How to Kill a Dragon: Aspects of Indo-European Poetics, ISBN 0198024711, page 255:

     Liam Breatnach observed in an important article (Breatnach 1984, with references) that 'Old Irish texts appear in three forms: prose, rhyming syllabic verse, and rosc. The simplest definition of rosc is that it is neither of the other two.'

   • 1997, Maria Tymoczko, The Irish Ulysses, ISBN 0520209060, page 307:

     Elsewhere we find descriptions of the most archaic Irish poetry, the passages of obscure poetry called rosc. Sigerson analyzes rosc as rhythmical though unrhymed verse designed to express or to stir up vehement enthusiasm and claims it is the first example of blank verse {Bards of the Gael and Gall 25); Hull characterizes rosc as a declamatory, alliterative blank verse where changes of meter correspond to changes of idea (Text Book I: 202-4).

   • 2005, Theodore William Moody, ‎Dáibhí Ó Cróinín, & ‎Francis X. Martin, A New History of Ireland - Volume 1, ISBN 0198217374, page 446:

     Likewise, the 'Cauldron of poesy' and 'Bretha Déin Chécht' both contain prose, rosc, and rhyming syllabic verse.

   • 2016, Maria Tymoczko, Translation in a Postcolonial Context, ISBN 1134958676:

     Until the last few decades, however, many of the roscada were interpreted as prose, but recent scholarship has suggested that most, if not all, are poems composed according to archaic metrical principles that had been largely superseded by the eighth century.

Old Irish

Noun

rosc n

1. eye

Inflection

This noun needs an inflection-table template.

Descendants

• Middle Irish: rosc

References

• “rosc” in Dictionary of the Irish Language, Royal Irish Academy, 1913–76.