A History of English VersificationSchipper, J. (Jakob)
History
A History of English Versification
Schipper, J. (Jakob)
English language -- Versification; English poetry -- History and criticism
The same modification of types took place later in other parts of the
Midlands, as appears from two works of the early sixteenth century,
_Scottish Field_ and _Death and Life_ (Bishop Percy's Folio MS.,
edited by Furnivall and Hales, i. 199 and iii. 49). The last
North-English or rather Scottish poem, on the other hand, written in
alliterative lines without rhyme, Dunbar's well-known Satire, _The twa
mariit wemen and the wedo_, has, apart from the normal types occurring
in the North-English poems, many variants, chiefly in the first
hemistich, which are characterized by lengthy unaccented parts both at
the beginning of the line, before the second arsis, and after it;
frequently too syllables forming the thesis have a secondary accent and
even take part in the alliteration, as e.g. in the following examples:
_=Ȝ=aip and =ȝ=íng, in the =ȝ=ók | ane =ȝ=éir for to dráw._ 79.
_Is =b=àir of =b=lís and =b=áilfull, | and greit =b=árrat wírkis_.
51.
Sometimes the second hemistich participates in this cumulation of
alliterating words, which not unfrequently extends over several, even as
many as six or seven consecutive lines:
_He =g=ráythit me in =g=áy silk | and =g=údlie arráyis,
In =g=ównis of in=g=ránit clayth | and =g=reit =g=óldin chénȝeis._
365-6.
This explains how King James VI came to formulate the metrical rule
mentioned above (p. 89) from the misuse of alliteration by the last
poets who used the alliterative line, or the alliterative rhyming
line to be discussed in the next paragraph, which shares the same
peculiarity.
B. The alliterative line combined with rhyme.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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