syllabic rhymed verse during this period, such as Geoffrey Chaucer, John Gower, and John Lydgate, almost nothing is known about the authors of alliterative poetry. The greatest of them, the Gawain Poet, author of Pearl and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and that of Alliterative Morte Arthure are both completely anonymous, though the former has been tentatively identified as a John Massey, member of a Cheshire landowning family. Even William Langland, the author of the hugely influential Piers Plowman, has been identified largely through conjecture. The longest poem of the Revival (over 14,000 lines), The Destruction of Troy, is ascribed to a John Clerk from Lancashire, but little else is known about him. A notable exception to this lack of information is Scottish court poet William Dunbar; Dunbar generally wrote in syllabic metres, but displays a masterful use of the alliterative line in one poem at the very end of the period. One man known to have appreciated alliterative verse during the time it was still being composed was Robert Thornton, a 15th-century landowner from North Yorkshire. Thornton's efforts in copying these poems, for the use of himself and his family, resulted in the preservation of several valuable works. Chronology The first alliterative poem after the Brut for which a date can be established is Wynnere and Wastoure, which from internal evidence is usually dated to around 1352, though the Alexander A and B fragments have been suggested to be as early as 1340. The last, Scottish Ffielde, was composed in c. 1515. From in between these dates, a number of examples of verse have survived, of which some are listed below: c. 1352 Wynnere and Wastoure, unrhymed allegorical debate (anonymous; dialect appears to point to a poet from north Cheshire) c. 1360, perhaps revised until the 1390s Piers Plowman, very long allegorical and satirical dream vision (author conjecturally identified as William Langland, west or southwest Midland dialect) c. 1365, though later 14th century also suggested The Alliterative Morte Arthure, unrhymed Arthurian romance (anonymous; probable dialect of east Midlands) c. 1370 The Parlement of the Thre Ages, unrhymed allegorical poem (anonymous, Midland dialect; some commentators have argued it may be written by the author of Wynnere and Wastoure) c. 1380 (works attributed to the Gawain Poet) Pearl, allegorical poem in rhymed stanza (anonymous; dialect of the Gawain Poet, sometimes identified as a John Massey, is of Cheshire / Staffordshire)