This article1 provides an overview of the processes of structural change in poetic form(s), and aims to put those processes into a diachronic and conceptual framework. It is argued here, with reference to a wide range of examples drawn mainly (though not exclusively) from English, that poetic change can be seen to fall into four broad categories, adaptive change, assimilative change, typological change, and reactive change. The article concludes with an analysis of the reactive changes involved in the coming of non-metrical verse to the English poetic canon.
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