The Founding of English Metre

Book excerpt: From the Introduction: The literary materials of the study are chosen from the works of the poets and the collections of poetry that were regarded in their own day and have been regarded since as the most important of the period for their contribution to literature. These include, of course, writers who were competent or outstanding in their metrical practice but exclude those like Thomas Tusser whose works provide chiefly metrical curiosities. Poetry which was not written within the literary tradition of educated men, folk rhymes, ballads, popular religious verse, I have also excluded, although these things doubtless influenced the literary tradition, and a complete history of sixteenth-century metres would have to include them. Such a history would also have to include a consideration of the influence of music on verse. Most of the poems considered here do not seem to have been intended for song; yet music, like verse in foreign languages, surely had some influence on the development of English verse.---pages 1-2.