> Robin, do you think Mark is trying to make a
> medievalist of you? (Ahhhh, run for your life!)
Well, neither Mark nor I are trained medievalists, so it may be more a case
of passing the buck.
... though I had meant to draw attention to his blatant chauvanistic
blindness to the existence of alliterative poetry in Scotland well into the
sixteenth century, at least a century after it dies down in England.
William Dunbar's "Tretis of the Twa Meriit Wemen and the Wedo" is probably
the best-known example, but there are also a whole set of less well-known
alliterative poems employing the bob-and-wheel stanza, a la Gawain.
I was interested in what you said about the greater formality of the
alliterative rules in medieval poetry as contrasted to Beowulf. Hadn't
known (or recognised) that. Would it apply to Langland as well as the
Gawain poet? I had a sort of an idea that Piers Plowman comes out of the
Aelfric/Wulfstan prose rather than the strict poetic tradition. Which might
link to Peter's point about the degree of alliteration in Harman's _Caveat_,
and the idea of preaching prose, though there, it's decorative rather than
structural. You made a similar point in your earlier post, I think.
Ouch -- my sentences above are wandering all over the place!
Robin
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