Reconstructing Alliterative Verse

The poetry we call ''alliterative'' is recorded in English from the seventh century until the sixteenth, and includes Caedmon''s ''Hymn'', Beowulf, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and Piers Plowman. These are some of the most admired works of medieval English literature, and also among the most enigmatic. The formal practice of alliterative poets exceeded the conceptual grasp of medieval literary...