Operation Rhyme Crime

[fianaclare]

So I'm working on a new poem about a knight named Palladine. It's going to be for story-telling, and I've been playing with a new form, the alliterative long lines and bob-and-wheel construction, used in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. I've got the plot worked out, and I got about a stanza and a half written last night.

But I have a little

Comments

[fianaclare]

Actually, once, on a challenge, I wrote one beginning, "There once was a squire from Nantucket."

[rising_moon]

I would suggest, and humbly, not having entered any A&S competitions myself, that in the act of choosing one of the three you are behaving as Spenser did, and therefore your act of choosing marks the choice as Period whichever choice actually you make. (Is that weasly of me? :D) In documenting all three options, plus contributing an anecdote about Spencer, you establish the authenticity of the craft itself. It's Meta-Authentic. :)

That said, pick the version you like best. The "keen" version sounds to my ear sharp and sinister, the "line" version expansive and lugubrious. I don't know which direction you're heading...

[eveglass]

You beat me to it. I second everything, except for the "not having entered any A&S competitions" part.

If you know what the options are, and you have no feasible way of determining the actual pronunciation (short of borrowing a time machine), then you pick the one that a) you like best, b) you think is most accurate, or c) that fits YOUR rhymes best, and leave it at that. No judge is going to take away points just for the lack of a time machine.

[peteyfrogboy]

It seems to me that, if he were writing in "Chaucer's English", he would be using the ME pronunciation for the whole poem, not just for the names. In which case, you'd have to alter the pronunciation for all the vowels in the poem when you recite it. Not a problem for you, I imagine, but it could be rough on the unprepared listener.

[fianaclare]

Well, I'm not going to write in Middle English. I could conceivably do that, but it's for storytelling, and as you say, that's tough on the listener.