This book traces the development of hypermetric verse in Old English and compares it to the
cognate traditions of Old Norse and Old Saxon. The study illustrates the inherent flexibility
of the hypermetric line and shows how poets were able to manipulate this flexibility in
different contexts for different practical and rhetorical purposes. This mode of analysis is
therefore able to show what degree of control the poets had over the traditional alliterative
line what effects they were able to produce with various stylistic choices and how attention
to poetic style can aid in literary analysis.
