The Rule and the Norm: Halle and Keyser on Chaucer's Meter

Author / Editor
Wimsatt, W. K.

Title
The Rule and the Norm: Halle and Keyser on Chaucer's Meter

Published
College English 31 (1970): 774-88.

Description
Challenges Morris Halle and Samuel J. Keyser's theory of Chaucer's iambic pentameter (particularly their application of the notion of "stress-maximum"), and poses a theoretical distinction between "norms" and "rules" in discussing prosodic practice, especially as modified by actual reading performance. Reprinted with a "Discussion of Wimsatt's Paper" by various unnamed commentators in Seymour Chatman, ed. Literary Style: A Symposium (London: Oxford University Press, 1971), pp. 197-220.

Contributor
Chatman, Seymour, ed.

Alternative Title
Literary Style: A Symposium.

Chaucer Subjects
Style and Versification