Poul Anderson and the American Alliterative Revival

Although Poul Anderson is best known for his prose, he dabbled in poetry all his life, and his historical interests led him to become a major—if unacknowledged— contributor to the twentieth-century alliterative revival. This revival, most often associated with British poets such as W. H. Auden, J. R. R. Tolkien, and C. S. Lewis, attempted to adapt medieval Germanic alliterative meter into modern English. Yet Anderson, a firmly libertarian Enlightenment-style writer, imbued his alliterative poetry with a rationalistic spirit that implicitly accepted (with appropriate qualifications) a narrative of historical progress. This article analyzes the alliterative verse that Anderson wrote and uncovers how the demands of the pulp market shaped what poetry he could produce.

REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT OF A POETICAL TRADITION: FOREIGN INCLUSIONS AS A LITERARY DEVICE (stylistic aspect)

Scottish alliterative poetry, which can be regarded as a regional variety and at the same time the final step in the evolution of the alliterative tradition in England and Scotland, was composed in the second half of the 15th century, the period that marked the gradual decline of the tradition. In Scotland the alliterative verse was mainly employed for ironic or satirical purpose. The Buke of Howlat by Richard Holland, the earliest Scottish poem, can provide an example of using alliterative style in allegory and parody. The paper deals with how elements of a foreign language, as well as imitation of foreign speech can be employed as a literary device. By means of abracadabra, imitating the sounding of Scottish Gaelic, parody of Seanchas, or Gaelic genealogy, and the wrong transmission of Gaelic terms of poetry, the author creates a caricature on a Gaelic poet and the ancient oral Celtic poetical tradition, which was unjustly neglected by early Scottish writers.

Old English and the Germanic languages

First, an account of two main features that set all the Germanic languages off against the rest of the Indo-European family (Grimm’s Law, and the creation of a system of strong and weak verbs) gives readers a chance to see how linguists group languages together on the basis of shared innovations. The chapter then turns to Old English in particular, discussing first how Old English, with its greater number of grammatical endings, is still a bit more like its sister languages Greek and Latin than is its modern descendant, before considering the individual words of a verse of the Old English Bible to see in detail what causes it to look so different to the contemporary anglophone. Finally, it works through six lines of Beowulf, not only as a continued illustration of what makes Old English different but also to show how it exploits features like compound nouns and alliterative verse for poetic effect.