Some Observations of English Binary Metres

Author / Editor
Duffell, Martin J.

Title
Some Observations of English Binary Metres

Published
Language and Literature 17 (2008): 5-20.

Description
Provides statistical analysis of 300-line samples from the verse of eight poets who wrote in English (Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, Pope, Wordsworth, Tennyson, Longfellow, and Browning), comparing percentages of inversion and "erosion" among iambic pentameter, iambic tetrameter, and trochaic tetrameter. Applies principles derived from Russian metrical analysis and from parametric theory. The Chaucerian sample is the opening of GP.

Chaucer Subjects
Style and Versification
General Prologue to the Canterbury Tales