Sir Gawain and the Green
Webster, K. G. T. Excerpt from Sir Gawain and the Green: Piers the PloughmanThe chief accent fell on the alliterative syllables, of which there could be three, as in the examples given, or two these being the commonest types, or four, or none these rarer. The number of unaccented syllables was immaterial, but a line con sisted normally of four feet, with a caesural pause in the middle. In our poem we find somewhat the same conventions, as in line 3.About the Pu...