Tolkien and Alliterative Verse

First impressions of The Collected Poems of J.R.R. Tolkien, and a couple of alliterative poems.

Tolkien believed that alliterative verse shouldn’t be limited to the medieval past — and a couple of recent publications are demonstrating that such poetry is still a form that interests writers today.

Our Secondary Sources page is currently divided into several sections, including “Medieval Alliterative Poetry in Tolkien,” “Tolkien and Philology,” and “New Old English.” The team also plans to expand the page to include sources on Tolkien’s interaction with Middle English alliterative poetry.

A significant publication for anyone interested in Tolkien’s alliterative poetry or his views on Old English metre is Peter Grybauskas’s recent edition of Tolkien’s Battle of Maldon together with The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth Beorhthelm’s Son and ‘The Tradition of Versification in Old English’. That’s quite a title, but it indicates the important contents of this volume, most of which have only been available in manuscript before this. We’ll be commenting on other parts of this edition here in the weeks to come, but today I want to point out an important resource for researchers looking into Tolkien’s alliterative poetry,… Read more: Tolkien lecture now in print

In the process of compiling, writing, and designing this website, the team has been attuned to the idea of “woven words” (as in the blog title). Dr. Smol pulls this title from “The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth,” a modern English alliterative verse drama inspired by, and written in the metre of, the Old English poem, “The Battle of Maldon.” Tolkien imagines two characters, Tidwald (Tida) and Torhthelm (Totta), sent by the abbot to collect Beorhtnoth’s body from the wreckage of his defeat, their experience leading to various reflections on the nature of heroism and heroic verse. Totta is passionate about… Read more: Some Thoughts on Site Design