The Corpus of British and Other English-Language Pattern Poetry

Abstract

There exists considerably more pattern poetry in the English language and literature than is usually believed, well over a hundred pieces, dating from the late sixteenth to the eighteenth century, with a few light pieces from the nineteenth century. Most of it is relatively unknown. What is unusual is that almost all of it is in shapes prescribe in Puttenham’s Arte of English Poesie (1587), especially shapes that are also known from the Hellenistic Greek. No labyrinths are known in English except two nineteenth century pieces. Almost all is in books, with very few broadsides and strictly occasional verse, unlike, for instance, German pattern poetry where most pieces were published in those forms. Many pieces are stanzaic, unlike the Neo-Latin pattern poems. Curiously, in all these respects it parallels Swedish pattern poetry, even to the point where "lovers’ knots" are unique to these two languages.