Gawain is typical of Middle English alliterative poems in that it is composed in lengthy alliterative lines that adhere to the essential metrical rules of Old English verse. Each long line is divided into two halves, each with two stressed syllables and a variable number of unstressed syllables. The first half of the line usually contains four or five words, while the second half usually contains three. Alliteration is the repetition of initial letters or sounds in words within a line or sequence of lines. In this poem, many words begin with the letter "g" such as glory, grief, guilt, and gossip. These repeated letters create an effect known as "ring composition". Meter is the system of pronunciation guidelines used by poets to organize and structure their work. In English poetry, meter refers to the pattern of feet (units of sound) used to construct a poem. There are several different types of meters used by English-language poets including iambic pentameter, trochaic tetrameter, hendecasyllabics, and others. Meter is important because it affects how our ears respond to the poem; specifically, how much stress each word receives. By knowing when a word should be stressed and when it should not, a poet can help guide the reader through the poem with confidence.