What type of verse is Beowulf written in?

Beowulf is written in alliterative verse. Its Old English lines rely on repeated initial sounds and a strong rhythmic pattern rather than end rhyme as the main organizing principle.

A typical line is divided by a pause, or caesura, into two half-lines. Stressed words in the first half-line establish an alliterative sound that links with a stressed word in the second half. The poem’s metre is based on patterns of stressed and unstressed syllables, giving the verse a forceful, speech-like movement.

This form belongs to the wider Germanic poetic tradition and appears throughout Old English literature. Beowulf is not written in blank verse, which is unrhymed iambic pentameter, nor in heroic couplets or terza rima, forms associated with later literary traditions. Modern translations may use rhyme, prose, or modern alliteration, but the original poem’s defining verse form remains Germanic alliterative metre.