This volume discusses current issues in Old English metrics and Middle English alliterative verse from a variety of different perspectives, ranging from the generative theory of metrics to philological studies of individual texts and editing. A distinguished team of contributors combines recent insights from nonlinear phonology with more traditional philology and work on editorial practice to produce a well-integrated view of English historical metrics.

Acknowledgements; 1. Introduction C. B. McCully and J. J. Anderson; 2. Clashing stress in the meters of Old, Middle, and Renaissance English Thomas Cable; 3. Purely metrical replacements for Kuhn's laws Geoffrey Russom; 4. Domain-end phenomena and metrical templates in Old English verse C. B. McCully; 5. Can Old English rhythm be reconstructed Wolfgang Obst; 6. On recent theories of metrics and rhythm in Beowulf Robert P. Stockwell; 7. Non-primary stress in Middle English accentual-syllabic verse Donka Minkova; 8. Systematic sound-symbolism in the long alliterative line in Beowulf and Sir Gawain Marie Borroff; 9. Non-aa/ax patterns in Middle English alliterative long-line verse A. T. E. Matonis; 10. The prosody of Middle English Pearl and the alliterative lyric tradition Richard H. Osberg; 11. Alliterative patterning and the editing of Middle English poetry Gerrit H. V. Bunt; 12. Reconsidering Chaucer's prosody Gilbert Youmans; 13. Chaucer Gower and the history of the hendecasyllable Martin J. Duffell; 14. Libertine scribes and maidenly editors: meditations on textual criticism and metrics Hoyt N. Duggan; References; Index.