This book traces the development ofhypermetric verse in Old English andcompares it to the cognate traditions of OldNorse and Old Saxon. The study illustratesthe inherent flexibility of the hypermetric lineand shows how poets were able tomanipulate this flexibility in differentcontexts for different practical and rhetoricalpurposes. This analysis shows what degree ofcontrol the poets had over the traditionalalliterative line, what effects they were ableto produce with various stylistic choices, andhow attention to poetic style aids literaryanalysis.