What kind of verse is Beowulf composed in?

What kind of verse is Beowulf composed in? Beowulf is composed in alliterative verse.

The poem uses the traditional metre of Old English and other early Germanic poetry. Each line is divided by a pause, or caesura, into two half-lines, usually with two strongly stressed syllables in each half. Repeated initial sounds link the half-lines, creating the poem’s rhythm without relying on end rhyme.

This is different from blank verse, which uses unrhymed iambic pentameter, and from heroic couplets, which pair rhyming lines. Ottava rima is an Italian stanza form of eight lines and is unrelated to Beowulf’s native poetic structure.

Beowulf contains 3,182 lines and survives in the Nowell Codex, a manuscript written in Old English. Its style also features kennings—compact metaphorical compounds such as “whale-road” for the sea—and formulaic phrases suited to oral performance. Modern translations may use prose, rhyme, or other verse forms, but the original poem is alliterative.