Chaucer and the Study of Prosody.

Author / Editor
Halle, Morris, and Samuel Jay Keyser.

Title
Chaucer and the Study of Prosody.

Published
College English 28 (1966): 187-219.

Description
Explores the assumptions about stress that underlie prosodic scansion, and demonstrates that Chaucer's decasyllabic verse is built upon a contrastive rather than an absolute distinction between stressed and unstressed syllables. Considers elision, the pronunciation of final-"e," the influence of French accent, and Chaucer's artful manipulations of various "conditions" of spoken Middle English, drawing examples for various works.

Contributor
Keyser, Samuel Jay.

Chaucer Subjects
Style and Versification
Language and Word Studies