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Alliterative Revival
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A collective term for the group of alliterative poems written in the second half of the 14th cent. in which alliteration, which had been the formal basis of Old English poetry, was again used in poetry of the first importance (such as Piers Plowman and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight) as a serious alternative to the continental form, syllabic rhyming verse. As well as their common formal elements, many of the poems are linked by a serious interest in contemporary politics and ethics (Wynnere and Wastoure, Death and Liffe, The Parlement of the Three Ages, Piers Plowman).
