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Bob-and-Wheel
The
bob-and-wheel is a structural device common in the Pearl
Poet's poetry. The example below comes from the first stanza
of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. The bob
appears in red, and the wheel
appears in blue. Alliterative
components are in bold print, and rhyming components
are in italic print.
-
Sithen the sege and the
assut was sesed at Troye,
The borgh brittened and
brent to brondes and askes,
The tulk that the trammes of tresoun
ther wroght
Was tried for his tricherie, the trewest
on erthe--
Hit was Ennias the athel and highe
kynde,
That sithen depreced provinces and patrounes
bicome
Welneghe of al the wele in the west iles.
Fro riche Romulus to Rome ricchis
hym swythe,
With gret bobbaunce that burghe he biges
upon fyrst,
And nevenes hit his aune nome, as hit
now hat.
Ticius to Tuskan and teldes bigynnes,
Langaberde in Lumbardie lyftes up homes,
And fer over the French flod Felix
Brutus
On mony bonkkes ful brode
Bretayn he settes with
wynne,
Where werre
and wrake and wonder
Bi sythes has
wont therinne,
And oft bothe blysse
and blunder
Ful skete has
skyfted synne.
The
final five rhymes--wynne, wonder, therinne,
blunder, synne--have an ABABA
rhyme pattern. The phrase with
wynne is the bob; it bridges the alliterative
section and moves the poem into the final rhyming section
in each stanza. The bob-and-wheel structure is not common
in the poetry of Chaucer, though even he uses it for parody
in Sir Thopas.
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