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Abstract:
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This study contributes to the search for metrical order in the 90 ,000 extant long lines of the late fourteenth -century Middle English Alliterative Revival . Using the 'Gawain' -poet's 'Patience' and 'Cleanness' , it refutes nineteenth - and twentieth -century scholars who mistook rhythmic liveliness for metrical disorganization and additionally corrects troubling missteps that scholars have taken over the last five years . 'Chapter One : Tame the "Gabble of Weaker Syllables"' rehearses the traditional , but mistaken view that long lines are barely patterned at all . It explains the widely -accepted methods for determining which syllables are metrically stressed and which are not : Give metrical stress to the syllables that in everyday Middle English were probably accented . 'Chapter Two : An Environment for Demotion in the B -Verse' introduces the relatively stringent metrical template of the b -verse as a foil for the different kind of meter at work in the a -verse . 'Chapter Three : Rhythmic Consistency in the Middle English Alliterative Long Line' examines the structure of the a -verse and considers the viability of verses with more than the normal two beats . An empirical investigation considers whether rhythmic consistency in the long line depends on three -beat a -verses . 'Chapter Four : Dynamic "Unmetre" and the Proscription against Three Sequential Iambs' posits an explanation for the unusual distributions of metrically unstressed syllables in the long line and finds that the 'Gawain' -poet's rhythms avoid the even alternation of beats and offbeats with uncanny precision . 'Chapter Five : Metrical Promotion , Linguistic Promotion , and False Extra -Long Dips' takes the rest of the dissertation as a foundation for explaining rhythmically puzzling a -verses . A -verses that seem to have excessively long sequences of offbeats and other a -verses that infringe on b -verse meter prove amenable to adjustment through metrical promotion . 'Conclusion : Metrical Regions in the Long Line' synthesizes the findings of the previous chapters in a survey of metrical tension in the long line . It additionally articulates the key theme of the dissertation : Contrary to traditional assumptions , Middle English alliterative long lines have variable , instead of consistent , numbers of beats and highly regulated , instead of liberally variable , arrangements of metrically unstressed syllables . |