SOURCE: McIntosh, Angus. “Wulfstan's Prose.” Proceedings of the British Academy 35 (1949): 109-42.

In the following excerpt from a lecture delivered on 11 May 1949, McIntosh identifies five principle styles of Old English writing, including the unique two-stress phrasing of Wulfstan's prose, which he reserves for special analysis.

When the British Academy honoured me with an invitation to deliver this lecture, I thought at first of speaking about the alliterative measure. It was on the poetry written in the various forms of this measure that Sir Israel Gollancz worked for the greater part of his life, to the advantage of all who have come after him, and it would have been a fitting act of commemoration to consider something with which he was so nearly concerned. But the alliterative measure, though by no means completely understood, has received much attention, and I do not feel that it would be easy to say...