(5) Accentual verse derives its musical qualities from its flexibility with unstressed syllables and tends to follow the natural speech patterns of English.
Accentual verse was a traditionally common prosody in Germany, Scandinavia, Iceland and Britain.
[2] Anglo-Saxon poets made frequent use of epithets to achieve the desired alliteration, and had various other more complex rules and forms, though these have not been as popular in later poetry.
Accentual verse lost its dominant position in English poetry following the Norman conquest of England when French forms, with their syllabic emphasis, gained prominence.
Accentual verse experienced a revival in the 19th century with the development ("discovery") of sprung rhythm by Gerard Manley Hopkins.