English alliterative verse : poetic tradition and literary history

Author(s)

• Weiskott, Eric

Bibliographic Information

English alliterative verse : poetic tradition and literary history

Eric Weiskott

（Cambridge studies in medieval literature, 96）

Cambridge University Press, 2016

• : hardback

Note

Summary: "The chapters of this book form an essay in a type of history I call 'verse history,' a concept not covered by any of the usual terms applied to the study of literature. Verse history is the history of a tradition of composing poems in a certain meter. It is distinct from literary history, because two works from one genre, place, or time, even two works by one poet, may be in different meters. The inverse is also true, in that verse history can connect poems from very different local contexts. The relationship between Elizabeth Barrett Browning's "How do I love thee? Let me count the ways" and a twenty-first-century sonnet on supercomputers is more general than literary influence, a genre, or a school" -- Provided by publisher

Bibliography: p. 210-227

Includes index

Description and Table of Contents

Description

English Alliterative Verse tells the story of the medieval poetic tradition that includes Beowulf, Piers Plowman, and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, stretching from the eighth century, when English poetry first appeared in manuscripts, to the sixteenth century, when alliterative poetry ceased to be composed. Eric Weiskott draws on the study of meter to challenge the traditional division of medieval English literary history into Old English and Middle English periods. The two halves of the alliterative tradition, divided by the Norman Conquest of 1066, have been studied separately since the nineteenth century; this book uses the history of metrical form and its cultural meanings to bring the two halves back together. In combining literary history and metrical description into a new kind of history he calls 'verse history', Weiskott reimagines the historical study of poetics.

Table of Contents

• 1. Beowulf and verse history
• 2. Prologues to Old English poetry
• 3. Lawman, the last Old English poet and the first Middle English poet
• 4. Prologues to Middle English alliterative poetry
• 5. The Erkenwald poet's sense of history
• 6. The alliterative tradition in the sixteenth century.

by "Nielsen BookData"

Details

• NCID: BB22481377
• ISBN:
  • 9781107169654
• LCCN: 2016025929
• Country Code: uk
• Title Language Code: eng
• Text Language Code: eng
• Place of Publication: Cambridge
• Pages/Volumes: xiv, 236 p.
• Size: 24 cm
• Classification:
  • LCC : PR201
  • DC23 : 821.009
• Subject Headings:
  • LCSH : English poetry -- Old English, ca. 450-1100 -- History and criticism
  • LCSH : English poetry -- Middle English, 1100-1500 -- History and criticism
  • LCSH : English language -- Versification
  • LCSH : Alliteration -- Poetry
  • LCSH : Poetics -- History -- To 1500
• Parent Bibliography ID:
  • BA04238256