The Elusive Transformation of Alliterative Meter

Abstract

ABSTRACT That Old English meter evolved directly into Middle English alliterative meter is a newly won consensus position among metrical specialists. Exactly how it did so remains elusive. The changes, at the level of metrical patterning, are few yet far-reaching, transforming a meter in mirrored half-lines of four metrical positions apiece into a long-line meter with asymmetry between its halves. This essay fills in further details, taking up the challenge to infer from surviving texts how one state of a metrical system slowly became another. Specifically, it is argued that four difficult elements in Old English meter guided metrical evolution. Metrical resolution, the conflicted treatment of verbal prefixes, rare verses of five metrical positions, and a special extended metrical style known as hypermeter pulled against the four-position framework of Old English meter and accelerated and directed metrical change.