The Cambridge History of English and American Literature in 18 Volumes (1907–21).
Volume III. Renascence and Reformation.
§ 1. The prosody of the fourteenth century
I
The prosody of the fourteenth century, after its very earliest periods, is a subject of very complex interest as well as of extreme importance; and its complexity is not really difficult to disentangle. It is from the neglect to study it as a whole, more, perhaps, than from any other cause, that general views of English prosody, in the not very numerous cases in which they have been taken at all, have been both haphazard and confused. Yet the facts, if only a little trouble be taken with them, offer their own explanation most obligingly, and illustrate themselves in a striking and, indeed, almost unique manner.