Editing Alliterative verse (section)

== Middle English "alliterative revival" ==
{{main|Alliterative Revival}}

Just as rhyme was seen in some Anglo-Saxon poems (e.g. ''[[The Rhyming Poem]]'', and, to some degree, ''[[The Proverbs of Alfred]]''), the use of alliterative verse continued (or was revived) in [[Middle English]], though which it was—continuation, or revival—is a matter of some debate.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Cornelius |first1=Ian |title=Review Essay: Alliterative Revival: Retrospect and Prospect |journal=The Yearbook of Langland Studies |date=January 2012 |volume=26 |pages=261–276 |doi=10.1484/J.YLS.1.103211 }}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Salter |first=Elizabeth |date=1978 |title=Review of The Alliterative Revival |journal=The Review of English Studies |volume=29 |issue=116 |pages=462–464 |doi=10.1093/res/XXIX.116.462 |jstor=514837 }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Feulner |first1=Anna Helene |title=Eric Weiskott. 2016. English Alliterative Verse: Poetic Tradition and Literary History. Cambridge Studies in Medieval Literature 96. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, xiv + 236 pp., 6 figures, £ 64.99 |journal=Anglia |date=11 November 2019 |volume=137 |issue=4 |pages=670–678 |doi=10.1515/ang-2019-0060 |s2cid=208140633 |url=http://edoc.hu-berlin.de/18452/27975 }}</ref> [[Layamon]]'s ''Brut'', written in about 1215, uses what seems like a loose alliterative meter in comparison with pre-Conquest alliterative verse.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Brehe |first1=S. K. |title=Rhyme and the Alliterative Standard in LaƷamon's Brut |journal=Parergon |date=2000 |volume=18 |issue=1 |pages=11–25 |doi=10.1353/pgn.2000.0004 |s2cid=143059624 }}</ref> Starting in the mid-14th century, alliterative verse became popular in the English North, the West Midlands, and a little later in Scotland.<ref name="Weiskott 2016">{{Cite book |last=Weiskott |first=Eric |title=English Alliterative Verse |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=2016}}</ref> The [[Pearl Poet]] uses a complex scheme of alliteration, rhyme, and iambic metre in his ''[[Pearl (poem)|Pearl]]''; a more conventional alliterative metre in ''[[Cleanness]]'' and ''[[Patience (poem)|Patience]]'', and alliterative verse alternating with rhymed quatrains in ''[[Sir Gawain and the Green Knight]]''.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Prior |first=Sandra Pierson |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1vUK08NjQdYC&dq=%22pearl+poet%22+%22verse+forms%22&pg=PA14 |title=The Fayre Formez of the Pearl Poet |date=2012-01-01 |publisher=MSU Press |isbn=978-0-87013-945-1 |language=en}}</ref> [[William Langland]]'s ''[[Piers Plowman]]'' is another important English alliterative poem; it was written between ''c''. 1370 and 1390.<ref>{{cite book |doi=10.1525/9780520908314 |jstor=jj.2711592 |title=A Companion to Piers Plowman |date=1988 |publisher=University of California Press |isbn=978-0-520-90831-4 |editor-last1=Alford |editor-first1=John A. }}{{page needed|date=December 2023}}</ref>

=== Historical context ===
The survival—or revival—of alliterative verse in 14th Century England makes it, like Iceland, an outlier in medieval Christian culture, which came to be dominated by Latin and Romance verse forms and literary traditions.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Pearsall |first1=Derek |last2=Burrow |first2=J. A. |title=Medieval Writers and Their Work: Middle English Literature and Its Background 1100-1500 |journal=The Modern Language Review |date=January 1986 |volume=81 |issue=1 |pages=164 |doi=10.2307/3728781 |jstor=3728781 }}</ref><ref name="Weiskott 2016"/> Alliterative verse in post-Conquest England had to compete with imported, often French-derived forms in rhyming stanzas, reflecting what must have seemed like the common practice of the rest of Christendom.<ref>{{cite book |doi=10.1093/oso/9780198827429.001.0001 |title=The Oxford History of Poetry in English |date=2023 |isbn=978-0-19-882742-9 |editor-last1=Cooper |editor-last2=Edwards |editor-first1=Helen |editor-first2=Robert R. }}{{page needed|date=December 2023}}</ref> Despite these disadvantages, alliterative verse became the preferred English meter for historical romances, especially those concerned with the so-called Arthurian "Matter of Britain",<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Kossick |first1=Shirley |title=Epic and the Middle English Alliterative Revival |journal=English Studies in Africa |date=September 1979 |volume=22 |issue=2 |pages=71–82 |doi=10.1080/00138397908690761 }}</ref><ref>{{cite book |doi=10.1515/9783110432466-005 |chapter=Text-Types and Formal Features |title=Handbook of Arthurian Romance |date=2017 |last1=Moran |first1=Patrick |pages=59–78 |isbn=978-3-11-043246-6 }}</ref> and to be a common mode for political protest, through Piers Plowman and a variety of  allegories, satires, and political prophesies.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Weiskott |first1=Eric |title=Political Prophecy and the Form of Piers Plowman |journal=Viator |date=January 2019 |volume=50 |issue=1 |pages=207–247 |doi=10.1484/j.viator.5.121362 |s2cid=225004957 }}</ref><ref>{{cite book |doi=10.4324/9780203392737_chapter_xv |chapter=Piers Plowman and Other Alliterative Poems |title=The Middle Ages |series=A Literary History of England |date=1967 |pages=240–248 |isbn=978-0-203-39651-3 |editor1-first=Albert C. |editor1-last=Baugh |editor2-first=Kemp |editor2-last=Malone }}</ref> However, as with Icelandic [[Rímur|rimur]], many 14th-Century poems combine alliteration with rhyming stanzas.<ref name="Duggan 1977 223–247">{{cite journal |last1=Duggan |first1=Hoyt N. |title=Strophic Patterns in Middle English Alliterative Poetry |journal=Modern Philology |date=February 1977 |volume=74 |issue=3 |pages=223–247 |doi=10.1086/390723 |s2cid=161856195 }}</ref> Increasingly, however, the alliterative verse tradition was marginalized relative to other English verse traditions, most notably the metrical, rhyming tradition associated with Geoffrey Chaucer.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Weiskott |first=Eric |title=Meter and Modernity in English Verse, 1350-1650 |publisher=University of Pennsylvania Press |year=2021}}{{page needed|date=December 2023}}</ref>

=== Types of Middle English alliterative verse ===
Middle English (and Scots) alliterative verse fell into several typical categories. There were the Arthurian romances, such as [[Layamon's Brut|Layamon's ''Brut'']], the ''[[Alliterative Morte Arthure|Alliterative Morte Arthur]]'', ''[[Sir Gawain and the Green Knight]]'',  ''[[The Awntyrs off Arthure|Awyntyrs off Arthure]]'', ''[[The Avowing of Arthur]]'', ''[[Sir Gawain and the Carle of Carlisle]]'', ''[[The Knightly Tale of Gologras and Gawain]]'', and ''Charlemagne and Ralph the Collier''. There were accounts of warfare, like the ''Siege of Jerusalem'' and ''Scotish Feilde''. There were poems devoted to Biblical stories, Christian virtues, and religious allegory, and religious instruction, like ''[[Cleanness]]'', ''Patience'', ''Pearl'', ''[[The Three Dead Kings]]'', ''[[The Castle of Perseverance]]'', the [[York Mystery Plays|York]], [[Chester Mystery Plays|Chester]], and other municipal [[mystery play]]s, ''[[St. Erkenwald (poem)|St. Erkenwald]]'', the ''Pistil of Swete Susan'', or ''Pater Noster''. And there were a variety of poems falling in a space that ranged from allegory to satire to political commentary, including ''[[Piers Plowman]]'', ''[[Wynnere and Wastoure|Winnere and Wastoure]]'', ''[[Mum and the Sothsegger]],'' ''The Parlement of Three Ages'', ''The Buke of the Howlat, [[Richard the Redeless]]'', ''[[Jack Upland]]'', ''[[Friar Daw's Reply]]'', ''Jack Uplands Rejoinder, The Blacksmiths, [[Tournament of Tottenham|The Tournament of Tottenham]], Sum Practysis of Medecyne'', and ''The Tretis of the Twa Mariit Women and the Wedo''.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Middle English Alliterative Poetry |url=https://mediakron.bc.edu/alliterativepoetry/timeline-of-poems |access-date=2024-01-25 |website=mediakron.bc.edu}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=McClure |first=J. Derrick |date=January 2008 |title=The Prosody of the Middle Scots Alliterative Poems |url=https://utpjournals.press/doi/10.3138/flor.25.009 |journal=Florilegium |language=en |volume=25 |issue=1 |pages=193–216 |doi=10.3138/flor.25.009 |issn=0709-5201|url-access=subscription }}</ref>

===Formal features===
====Meter and rhythm====
The form of alliterative verse changed gradually over time.<ref>{{cite book |last=Eric|first=Weiskott |title=English Alliterative Verse: Poetic Tradition and Literary History |date=9 November 2016 |isbn=978-1316718674 |location=Cambridge |oclc=968234809 }}{{page needed|date=January 2021}}</ref> Layamon's Brut retained many features of Old English verse, along with significant changes in meter. By the 14th Century, the Middle English alliterative long line had emerged, which was rhythmically very different from the Old English meter. In Old English, the first half-line (the on-verse, or a-verse) was not very different rhythmically from the second half-line (the off-verse, or b-verse). In Middle English, the a-verse had great rhythmic flexibility (so long as it contained two clear strong stresses), whereas the b-verse could only contain one "long dip" (sequence of two or more unstressed or weakly stressed syllables).<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Cable |first1=Thomas |title=Progress in Middle English Alliterative Metrics |journal=The Yearbook of Langland Studies |date=January 2009 |volume=23 |pages=243–264 |doi=10.1484/J.YLS.1.100478 }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Inoue |first1=Noriko |last2=Stokes |first2=Myra |title=Restrictions on Dip Length in the Alliterative Line: The A-Verse and the B-Verse |journal=The Yearbook of Langland Studies |date=January 2012 |volume=26 |pages=231–260 |doi=10.1484/J.YLS.1.103210 }}</ref> These rules applied to unrhymed alliterative long lines, typical of longer alliterative poems. Rhyming alliterative poems, such as ''Pearl'' and the densely structured poem ''[[The Three Dead Kings]]'', were generally built, like later English rhyming verse, on patterns of alternating stresses.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Cole |first=Kristin Lynn |title=Rum, ram, ruf, and rym: Middle English alliterative meters |publisher=The University of Texas at Austin |year=2007}}{{page needed|date=December 2023}}</ref>

The following lines from ''Piers Plowman'' illustrate the basic rhythmic patterns of the Middle English alliterative long line:

{{lang|enm|<blockquote><poem style="font-style:italic;">
A feir <u>'''f'''</u>eld full of <u>'''f'''</u>olk {{pad|1em}} <u>'''f'''</u>ond I þer bitwene,
Of alle <u>'''m'''</u>aner of <u>'''m'''</u>en, {{pad|1em}} þe <u>'''m'''</u>ene and þe riche,
<u>'''W'''</u>orchinge and <u>'''w'''</u>andringe {{pad|1em}} as þe <u>'''w'''</u>orld askeþ.
</poem></blockquote>}}

In modern spelling:
<blockquote><poem style="font-style:italic;">
A fair <u>'''f'''</u>ield full of <u>'''f'''</u>olk {{pad|1em}} <u>'''f'''</u>ound I there between,
Of all <u>'''m'''</u>anner of <u>'''m'''</u>en {{pad|1em}} the <u>'''m'''</u>ean and the rich,
<u>'''W'''</u>orking and <u>'''w'''</u>andering {{pad|1em}} as the <u>'''w'''</u>orld asketh.
</poem></blockquote>

In modern translation:
<blockquote><poem>
Among them I found a fair field full of people
All manner of men, the poor and the rich
Working and wandering as the world requires.
</poem></blockquote>

The 'a' verses contain multiple unstressed or weakly stressed syllables before, between, and after the two main stresses. In the 'b' verses, the long dip falls immediately before or after the first strong stress in that half-line.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Duggan |first=Hoyt N. |date=1986 |title=The Shape of the B-Verse in Middle English Alliterative Poetry |journal=Speculum |volume=61 |issue=3 |pages=564–592 |doi=10.2307/2851596 |jstor=2851596 |s2cid=162879708 }}</ref>

==== Rules for alliteration ====
In the Middle-English 'a'-verse, the two main stresses alliterate with one another and with the first stressed syllable in the 'b'-verse. There are thus a minimum of three alliterations in the Middle English long line,<ref name="Cable"/> a fact that is implicitly recognized by the comment made by the parson in the [[Parson's Prologue]] in the [[The Canterbury Tales|Canterbury Tales]] that he did not know how to "rum, ram, ruf, by letter".<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Sutherland |first1=A. |title=Review: Alliterative Revivals |journal=The Review of English Studies |date=November 2004 |volume=55 |issue=222 |pages=787–788 |doi=10.1093/res/55.222.787 }}</ref> In the 'a'-verse, additional, secondary stresses can also alliterate, as seen in the line quoted above from [[Piers Plowman]] ('a fair field full of folk', with four alliterations in the 'a'-verse), or in ''[[Sir Gawain and the Green Knight|Sir Gawain]]'' l.2, "the borgh brittened and brent" with three alliterations in the 'a'-verse). Only the first stress in the 'b'-verse normally alliterates,in line with the general Germanic rule that the last stress in the line does not alliterate. However, in Middle English alliterative poems, the final stress occasionally alliterates with other strong stresses in the line (as in the first line of [[Piers Plowman]]: "In a somer seson, whan softe was þe sonne,").<ref name="Duggan 1977 223–247"/>

====Diction====
Middle English alliterative verse maintained a stock of poetic synonyms, many of them inherited from Old English, though it was no longer characterized by the rich use of [[kenning]]s.<ref>{{cite book |doi=10.1515/9783110525328-014 |chapter=Literary Language |title=Middle English |date=2017 |last1=Arnovick |first1=Leslie K. |pages=261–291 |isbn=978-3-11-052532-8 }}</ref> For example, a Middle English alliterative poem could refer to men by such a variety of terms as ''were, churl, shalk, gome, here, rink, segge, freke, man, carman, mother's son, heme, hind, piece, buck, bourne, groom, sire, harlot, guest, tailard, tulk, sergeant, fellow,'' or ''horse''.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Ciszek |first1=Ewa |title=The Middle English Suffix -Ish: Reasons for Decline in Productivity |journal=Stap |date=June 2012 |volume=47 |issue=2–3 |pages=27–39 |doi=10.2478/v10121-012-0002-z |s2cid=170790181 |doi-access=free }}</ref>

===Death of the alliterative tradition===

After the fifteenth century, alliterative verse became fairly uncommon; possibly the last major poem in the tradition is [[William Dunbar]]'s ''[[The Tua Mariit Wemen and the Wedo|Tretis of the Tua Marriit Wemen and the Wedo]]'' (c. 1500). By the middle of the sixteenth century, the four-beat alliterative line had completely vanished, at least from the written tradition: the last poem using the form that has survived, ''Scotish Feilde'', was written in or soon after 1515 for the circle of [[Thomas Stanley, 2nd Earl of Derby]] in commemoration of the [[Battle of Flodden]].