Chaucer, Gower, and the History of the Hendecasyllable

Author / Editor
Duffell, Martin J.

Title
Chaucer, Gower, and the History of the Hendecasyllable

Published
C. B. McCully and J. J. Anderson, eds. English Historical Metrics (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996), pp. 210-18.

Description
Surveys the development and scholarship of hendecasyllabic meter, identifying the innovations whereby Chaucer produced the first English iambic pentamenter and Gower experimented with variable caesura in hendecasyllabic lines to produce Anglo-Norman iambic pentameter.

Alternative Title
English Historical Metrics.

Chaucer Subjects
Style and Versification.