But from the middle of the fourteenth century onward we have a large number of poems composed in regular alliterative verse, e.g. King Alisaunder (Als.) and William of Palerne (W.), both in E. E. T. S., Extra-Ser. No. 1; Joseph of Arimathie (J.A.), E. E.T. S. 44; Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (Gr.), E.E. T. S. 4; Piers Plowman (P. P.), by W. Langland, E. E. T. S., Nos. 17, 28, 30, 38, 54; Pierce the Plowman’s Crede (P. P. Cr.), E. E. T. S. 30; Richard the Redeles (R. R.), E. E. T. S. 54; The Crowned King (Cr. K.), ibid.; The Destruction of Troy, E. E.T. S. 39, 56; Morte Arthure, E. E. T. S. 8; Cleanness and Patience, E. E. T. S. 1; The Chevalere Assigne, E. E.T. S., Extra-Ser. 6; and others of the end of the fifteenth and the beginning of the sixteenth centuries: see Prof. W. W. Skeat’s list in ‘Bishop Percy’s Folio MS.’, London, 1867 (ed. Furnivall and Hales), vol. iii, p. xi, and many recent publications of the Early English Text Society.
On the structure of this metre the opinions of scholars differ a good deal less than on that of the progressive or free form of the alliterative line. Yet there are a few adherents of the four-beat theory who apply it to the alliterative line of this epoch, amongst others Rosenthal (‘Die alliterierende englische Langzeile im 14. Jahrhundert,’ Anglia, i. 414 ff.). The two-beat theory, on the other hand, has been upheld also for this form of the alliterative line by Prof. W. W. Skeat, Essay on Alliterative Poetry, Percy Folio MS. 1867 (ed. Furnivall and Hales), by the present writer in Englische Metrik, i, pp. 195–212, and by Prof. Luick, Anglia, xi, pp. 392–443 and 553–618, and subsequently in Paul’s Grundriss, ed. 2, II. ii, pp. 161–3.
§ 53. The use and treatment of the words in the verse is on the whole the same as in the Old English period. The chief divergence is, that in this period of the language the difference between long and short syllables was lost, in consequence of the lengthening of short vowels in open syllables which had taken place in the interval, and that consequently the substitution of a short accented syllable and an unaccented one for a long accented syllable (the so-called resolution) was no longer admissible. Otherwise syllables with a primary accent, syllables with a secondary accent, and unaccented syllables are treated just as in the Old English poetry. Accented syllables are as a rule placed in the arsis, as are also second parts of compounds. Other syllables with secondary accent (derivative and inflectional syllables) are only in exceptional cases placed in the arsis of a verse.
It is of special interest, however, to notice that words of Romanic origin which in the course of time had been introduced into the language are in many cases accented according to Germanic usage. Words of which the last syllable was accented in French have in their Middle-English form the chief accent thrown on a preceding, frequently on the first, syllable, and in consequence of this the originally fully accented syllable in trisyllabic words receives the secondary accent and is treated in the rhythm of the verse in the same way as syllables with a secondary accent in English words. The laws, too, which in Old English affect the subordination and position of the parts of speech in their relationship to the rhythm of the verse and to the alliteration, remain, generally speaking, in force. It is remarkable that ‘if an attributive adjective is joined to a substantive, and a verb to a prepositional adverb, the first part of these groups of words still has the chief accent’ (Luick). The relationship, on the other hand, of verse and sentence is changed. While in Old English poetry run-on-lines were very popular and new sentences therefore frequently began in the middle of a line, after the caesura, we find that in Middle English, as a rule, the end of the sentence coincides with the end of the line. Hence every line forms a unity by itself, and the chief pause falls at the end, not, as was frequently the case in Old English times, after the caesura.
§ 54. Alliteration. On the whole, the same laws regarding the position of the alliterative sounds are still in force as before; it is indeed remarkable that they are sometimes even more strictly observed. In the Destruction of Troy, e.g. triple alliteration according to the formula a a a x is employed throughout.
Now of Tróy forto télle | is myn entént euyn,
Of the stóure and þe strýfe, | when it distróyet wás.
Prol. 27–8.
Alongside of this order of alliteration we find in most of the other poems the other schemes of alliteration popular in Old English times, e.g. a x a x, x a a x, a b a b, a b b a: