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Alliteration in Modern and Middle English: “Piers Plowman”

Paper · 2014 · Peter Sutton

Summary

The article explains the alliterative metre of William Langland's fourteenth-century Piers Plowman, a metre descended from Old English. The author is preparing a modern alliterative translation of the poem. He first outlines the poem's content and manuscript history. He then contrasts it with end-rhymed verse of the period: Chaucer, early songs, and the York, Chester and Towneley miracle plays. Next he sets out the metrical rules in detail, using lines from the Skeat edition of the B text and from other alliterative poems.

The main finding is that Langland follows the scheme loosely. Alliteration sometimes falls on the wrong stress, on weak function words, or on no stressed syllable at all. Even so, he stays alert to sound patterns throughout. The author then traces alliteration into present-day English, in fixed phrases, invented names, political slogans, and poets such as Hopkins, Dylan Thomas, U.A. Fanthorpe and Kenneth Steven. He argues that alliteration outlived the formal metre and remains a deep habit of the language.

Key points

  • Piers Plowman runs to about 8000 lines (around 75,000 words). It contains over 300 Latin quotations and is divided into a Prologue plus 20 sections called passus.
  • About sixty early copies survive. Late-nineteenth-century scholars sorted them into three main groups, and later editors (Kane and Donaldson 2002; Schmidt 1995) identified an earlier draft called Z.
  • Core rule: at least three of the four stressed syllables in a line share an initial sound, or the line has two alliterating pairs (Y/Y/R/R). Any vowel alliterates with any other vowel, and H is sometimes ignored. A caesura splits the line at a natural grammatical pause.
  • Constraints on unstressed "dips", following Inoue and Stokes 2012:
    • a line opens with 0–3 unstressed syllables;
    • an ordinary dip has 2–3 syllables, and up to 4 are allowed in the first half-line;
    • a four-syllable dip may not contain a heavy lexical item (a content word that would normally take stress);
    • a line ends on a stress or with at most one unstressed syllable.
  • Langland's departures include:
    • alliterating on stresses 1, 2 and 4;
    • placing the alliterating sound on a weak closed-class word;
    • alliterating on unstressed syllables, possibly on the first word of each phrase instead;
    • carrying sounds across lines, though without the Old English habit of making the fourth sound dominant in the next line.

Interesting ideas

  • I1. Alliteration is judged by spoken onset, not spelling: all vowels count as equal, a lost letter maps to modern G or Y, and H may be silent. A sound-based onset feature is therefore more reliable than the first letter of a word.
  • I2. The caesura is valid only where it falls between grammatical structures. This makes a metrical judgement depend on constituent boundaries.
  • I3. Whether a word can carry stress follows from its word class: heavy lexical items carry it, closed-class words like "to" do not.
  • I4. When a line breaks the stated rule, the author tests a rival explanation (alliteration on the first word of each phrase) instead of simply calling it an error.
  • I5. Modern fixed pairs, names and slogans keep alliteration alive outside formal verse, so sound patterning marks memorable, idiom-like expressions.

For Mova

How these ideas could serve Mova, our small open language model — its files, stages and tests:

  • I1 (tokens): the en crate could attach a phonological onset class to each token, so that sound-play detection does not depend on orthography.
  • I2 (tree): a UD parse can check whether a proposed pause point splits a subtree, which gives an explainable test for prosodic or line-break placement.
  • I3 (tokens): UPOS tags could drive a simple, transparent stress predictor, useful for verse analysis or for spotting emphasis in text.
  • I4 (learn): when a rule fails on real data, Mova could propose and evaluate alternative rule variants as candidate self-induced repairs, rather than discarding the cases as noise.
  • I5 (back): generation could optionally prefer alliterative wordings for headlines or summaries, with the sound choice logged so it stays explainable.

Our summary of the paper, in our own words — not its text. The work belongs to its authors; read it at the links above.

📚 Shelves 3The field of science this work belongs to (OpenAlex fields).Arts and Humanities · 9,296 worksLanguage and Linguistics · 9,206 worksClassics · 67 works

🧭 Topics 2Research subjects and languages the work is about.English · 1,373 worksHistorical linguistics & language change · 159 works

Cite

Cite as Peter Sutton. 2014. Alliteration in Modern and Middle English: “Piers Plowman”. Armenian Folia Anglistika 10.

The paper itself, not this page. BibTeX from the library's record of the work. DOI 10.46991/afa/2014.10.1-2.054

@inproceedings{sutton2014alliteration,
  title = {{Alliteration in Modern and Middle English: “Piers Plowman”}},
  author = {Peter Sutton},
  booktitle = {Armenian Folia Anglistika 10},
  year = {2014},
  doi = {10.46991/afa/2014.10.1-2.054},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.46991/afa/2014.10.1-2.054}
}

References

16 references, 0 of them with a card of ours. ↗ leads to the work, «find» searches for one we have no id for yet.

  1. Elliott, R.W.V. (1969) The Langland Country. // Piers Plowman. Critical Approaches. / Ed. by S.S. Hussey. London: Methuen, 226-244. find
  2. Fanthorpe, U.A. (1982) Standing To. Liskeard: Harry Chambers/Peterloo Poets. find
  3. Ford, B. (ed.) (1959) The Age of Chaucer. // Pelican Guide to English Literature. Vol.1. London: Penguin. find
  4. Hopkins, G.M. (1953) A Selection of his Poems and Prose by W.H. Gardiner. Harmondsworth etc. London: Penguin. find
  5. Inoue, N. and Stokes, M. (2012) Restrictions on Dip Length in the Alliterative Line. // The Yearbook of Langland Studies. / Ed. by F. Somerset and L. Warner. Vol. 26. Turnhout: Brepols, 231-260. find
  6. Kane, G. and Donaldson, E.T. (eds.) (2002) Piers Plowman: The B Version - Will’s Visions of Piers Plowman, Do-Well, Do-Better and Do-Best: An Edition in the Form of Trinity College Cambridge MS B.15.17, Corrected and Restored from the Known Evidence, with Variant Readings (Revised Edition). London and Los Angeles: Continuum. find
  7. Knight, S.T. (1969) Satire in “Piers Plowman” (1969) // Piers Plowman. Critical Approaches. / Ed. by S.S. Hussey. London: Methuen, 279-309. find
  8. Oxford Book of English Verse. Oxford: Oxford University Press, first published 1900. find
  9. Pollard, A.W. (ed.) (1923) English Miracle Plays, Moralities and Interludes. Oxford: Clarendon Press. find
  10. Quiller-Couch, Sir Arthur (1917, reprinted 2012) On the Art of Writing. / Lectures Delivered in the University of Cambridge. Cambridge: CUP, Dodo Press. find
  11. Schmidt, A.V.C. (ed.) (1995) William Langland, The Vision of Piers Plowman. / A Critical Edition of the B-Text based on Trinity College Cambridge MS B.15.17. 2nd ed. London: J.M. Dent Everyman. find
  12. Skeat, W.W. (ed.) (f.p. 1886, 10th ed. 1923, reprinted 1968) William Langland, The Vision of William concerning Piers the Plowman in Three Parallel Texts together with Richard the Redeless. Vol. I: Text; Vol. II: Notes. Oxford: OUP. find
  13. Speirs, J. (2007) A Survey of Medieval Verse. // The Age of Chaucer. Pelican Guide to English Literature. Vol.1. / Ed. by B. Ford. London: Penguin, 17-67. find
  14. Steven, K. (2007) Salt and Light. Edinburgh: Saint Andrew Press. find
  15. Thomas, D. (1966) Miscellany Two. London: J.M. Dent. find
  16. Trigg, S. (1989) The Rhetoric of Excess in Winner and Waster. // The Yearbook of the International Piers Plowman Society. / Ed. by J.A. Alford and M.T. Taormina. Vol. 3. East Lansing, MI: Colleagues Press, 91-108. ´³Õ³Ó³ÛÝáõÛÃÁ ųٳݳϳÏÇó ÙÇçÇÝ ³Ý·É»ñ»ÝáõÙ.ä»ï»ñ ÑáÕ³·áñÍÇ ï»ëÇÉùÁ 14-ñ¹ ¹³ ñÇ μ³ Ý³ë ï»ÕÍ ìÇÉ Û³Ù È»Ý· É»Ý ¹Á Çñ ä»ï»ñ ÑáÕ³·áñÍÇ ï»ëÇÉùÁ 8000 ïá ÕÇó μ³Õϳó³Í μ³ Ý³ë ï»Õ ÍáõÃ Û³Ý Ù»ç û· ï³ ·áñ ÍáõÙ ¿ ÑÇÝ ³Ý· É» ñ» ÝÇ μ³ Õ³ Ó³Û ÝáõÛ Ã³ ÛÇÝ Ñ³Ý ·³ íá ñáõÙ` Ûáõ ñ³ ù³Ýã Ûáõñ ïá ÕáõÙ ß»ßï í³Í ãáñë í³Ý Ï» - ñÇó ³éÝ í³½Ý » ñ» ùÁ ëÏëíáõÙ »Ý ÝáõÛÝ ÑÝãÛáõ Ýáí: ú ñÇ Ý³Ï Ý» ñÁ óáõÛó »Ý ï³ ÉÇë, áñ Ȼݷ É»Ý ¹Á ×ß·ñïá ñ»Ý ãÇ Ñ»ï¨áõ٠ϳ ÝáÝ Ý» ñÇÝ, ë³ Ï³ÛÝ, ³Û Ýá õ³ Ù» Ý³Û ÝÇí, ݳ ѳ Ù³ñ íáõÙ ¿ μ³ Õ³ Ó³Û ÝáõÛ Ã³ ÛÇÝ ã³ ÷³ Íá Å³Ý ñÇ í» ñ³ÍÝÝ ¹Ç ݳ ˳ ѳÛñ: л - ï³ ·³ û ñÇ Ý³Ï Ý» ñÁ óáõÛó »Ý ï³ ÉÇë, áñ μ³ Õ³ Ó³Û ÝáõÛ ÃÁ »ñ μ»ù ³Ù μáÕ çáõà ۳Ùμ ãÇ ÷á ˳ ñÇÝ í»É í»ñç ݳ Ñ³Ý ·³ íáñ Ù³Ùμ áõ ¹»é¨ë å³Ñ å³Ý íáõÙ ¿ ³Ý· É» ñ» ÝÇ ï» Õ³ - Ï³Ý μ³ñ μ³é Ý» ñáõÙ åá» ½Ç³ ÛáõÙ, ãݳ Û³Í Ñ³Ý ·³ íáñ Ù³Ý ëË» Ù³Ý Ñݳ ó³Í ¿: ²ÛÝ Ëá ñÁ ³ñ Ù³ï Ý»ñ áõ ÝÇ ³Ý· É» ñ»Ý É»½ íÇ Ï³ éáõó í³Í ùáõÙ Ñá ·» μ³ ÝáõÃ Û³Ý Ù»ç: Àëëèòåðàöèÿ â ñîâðåìåííîì àíãëèéñêîì è ñðåäíåàíãëèéñêîì: Âèäåíèå î Ïåòðå Ïàõàðå find

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