The importance of metrical analysis to the broad work of textual criticism and literary analysis cannot be overstated. In the thirty years since the publication of R. D. Fulk’s A History of Old English Meter, metrical theory has been brought to bear on questions of poetic style, dating and literary history, linguistics and language history, editing practice, manuscript analysis and scribal practice. The essays in this collection include contributions from both new scholars and established metrists. They focus on the application of metrical study to literary criticism and manuscript studies, engaging with current debate and offering new perspectives on the crucial role of metre to Old English scholarship.

Rachel A. Burns is a Lecturer in medieval literature at Hertford College, University of Oxford. She previously worked on the CLASP project in the Oxford English Faculty. Her research on Old English poetry has been published as articles in Anglia and The Review of English Studies.
Rafael J. Pascual is a Departmental Lecturer in English Language and Literature at the University of Oxford. Previously he held postdoctoral research positions at CLASP and at Harvard University. He specializes in medieval English language and literature (with a particular focus on Old English poetry).

Introduction, by Rafael J. Pascual
Metre as an Editorial Concern in The Anglo-Saxon Poetic Records, with Particular Reference to the Old English Soul and Body Poems, by Robert Fulk
The Dream of the Rood: 'not on the whole metrically deficient'?, by Jane Roberts
On the Metre of Exodus, by Peter J. Lucas
The Battle of Maldon and the Vengeance of Offa, by Mark Griffith
Rhyme and Reason in The Battle of Maldon, by Mark Atherton
Hypermetric Narrative in the Old English Daniel, by Megan E. Hartman
Elene 582–89: Hypermetrics, Revelation, and Judgment, by Matthew D. Coker
Single Half-Lines and Heavy Hypermetric Verses in Maxims I Reconsidered, by Kazutomo Karasawa
Anaphora and Stylistic Flexibility in the Metrical Charms, by Caroline R. Batten
Struggling to Find the Point: The Scratched Metrical Pointing of Guthlac A in the Exeter Book, by Simon C. Thomson
Mind the Gap: Inter-word Spacing and Metrical Organization in Old English Verse, by Rachel A. Burns
Metre vs. Rhythm: John C. Pope Reads Sievers, by Haruko Momma
The Mystery of Old English Type A2k, by Geoffrey Russom
Appendix 1: Alan Bliss, 1921–1985, by Peter J. Lucas
Appendix 2: Some Corrections to Alan Bliss’s Indices to The Metre of Beowulf, together with his last known views on the Metre of the Poem, by Mark Griffith
Appendix 3: A Glossary of Metrical Terms, by Rafael J. Pascual
Select Bibliography