ИСТИНА

The combination of material and visual components is often reflected in Old Irish literature. Reichenau Primer is an example of such a synthesis. It consists of 8 sheets and contains some Old Irish poems. Special attention should be paid to the poem Pangur Bán. In Pangur Bán the location in manuscript and organization of the text immediately attracts attention. It was undoubtedly important for the author to show the poetic structure of the text. At first, he does not seem to attach importance to the form and writes down the first couple of lines as if he continued writing a prosaic text. However, immediately after the initial lines, the author tries to build a visual poetic form and tries to arrange the remaining eight quatrains in verse form (two lines each). Each new quatrain begins with a pronounced capital letter, the second line of each quatrain has a small indentation, which also gives the reader a visual understanding of the semantic division of the phrase. Special attention should be paid to alliteration, which in the Old Irish language also has a visual orientation, because it involves alternating initial consonants. Pangur Bán reflects the development of Old Irish poetry, which is expressed both in the construction of a handwritten text in the manuscript (at the material level) and in the use of alliteration (at the visual level).