Wynnere and Wastoure - Poetic Form

Poetic Form

Wynnere and Wastoure is written in a four-stress unrhymed alliterative line, usually thought to be a late development, or perhaps revival, of the alliterative line used in Old English poetry.

Bot I schall tell yow a tale that me bytyde ones

Als I went in the weste, wandrynge myn one,

Bi a bonke of a bourne; bryghte was the sone

Undir a worthiliche wodde by a wale medewe:

Fele floures gan folde ther my fote steppede.

I layde myn hede one ane hill ane hawthorne besyde;

The throstills full throly they threpen togedire,

Hipped up heghwalles fro heselis tyll othire,

Bernacles with thayre billes one barkes thay roungen,

The jay janglede one heghe, jarmede the foles. (31-40)

(Rough translation: "But I shall tell you a tale that once happened to me / As I went in the west, wandering on my own / By a bank of a stream; bright was the sun / Under a beautiful wood by a pleasant meadow: / Many flowers unfolded where my foot stepped. / I laid my head on a bank beside a hawthorn / The thrushes vigorously competed in song / Woodpeckers hopped between the hazels / Barnacles struck their bills on bark, / The jay jangled on high, the birds chirped.")

Wynnere and Wastoure is the earliest datable poem of the so-called "Alliterative Revival", when the alliterative style re-emerged in Middle English. The sophistication and confidence of the poet's style, however, seems to indicate that poetry in the alliterative "long line" was already well established in Middle English by the time Wynnere and Wastoure was written.