Reconstructing Alliterative Verse: The Pursuit of a Medieval Meter
Ian Cornelius
The poetry we call "alliterative" is recorded in English from the seventh century until the sixteenth, and includes Caedmon's "Hymn", "Beowulf", "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight", and "Piers Plowman". These are some of the most admired works of medieval English literature, and also among the most enigmatic. The formal practice of alliterative poets exceeded the conceptual grasp of medieval literary theory; theorists are still playing catch-up today. This book explains the distinctive nature of alliterative meter, explores its differences from subsequent accentual-syllabic forms, and advances a reformed understanding of medieval English literary history. The startling formal variety of "Piers Plowman" and other Middle English alliterative poems comes into sharper focus when viewed in diachronic perspective: the meter was in transition; to understand it, we need to know where it came from and where it was headed at the moment it died out.
年:
2017
出版商:
Cambridge University Press
語言:
english
ISBN 10:
1107154103
ISBN 13:
9781107154100
系列:
Cambridge Studies in Medieval Literature, 99
文件:
PDF, 1.36 MB
IPFS:
,
english, 2017