Dennis Wilson Wise, University of Arizona – Discovering the Modern Alliterative Revival

A form of poetry that’s been out of style for centuries may be making a comeback.

Dennis Wilson Wise, professor of practice at the University of Arizona, explains why.

Dennis Wilson Wise is a professor of practice at the University of Arizona, and he has published dozens of research articles on fantasy, science fiction, and modern alliterative verse. His first book was Speculative Poetry and the Modern Alliterative Revival: A Critical Anthology (Fairleigh Dickinson UP, 2024). Wise’s public writing has appeared in the Los Angeles Review of Books, The Conversation, and elsewhere.

Discovering the Modern Alliterative Revival

For anyone who’s ever studied medieval poetry like Beowulf, you might recognize it as being in something called the alliterative meter. In fact, some medieval poems belonged to a revival of this meter in the 14^th century, but otherwise, since the Renaissance, alliterative verse has mostly disappeared from English-language poetry.

However, in the last ninety years or so, there’s arisen a “modern” revival of this verse form. This movement’s best-known practitioner is probably J. R. R. Tolkien, but recent research is uncovering a much wider movement than anyone has previously realized.

Now, what is alliterative poetry? Technically, something like “Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers” doesn’t count. Although this tongue-twister has alliteration in it, in medieval traditions like Old English or Old Norse, alliteration is a structural feature of the poetry … much like how rhyme is a structural feature for sonnets.

When maintained consistently, structural alliteration produces a very unique sound – it’s often stately, sonorous, dignified. Yet there’s room for creativity. Although some revivalists, like Tolkien, do prefer to reproduce medieval meters as closely as possible, others are more interested in new kinds of structural alliteration entirely.

Thanks to this range of styles, the Modern Revival is incredibly diverse in technique. It’s also popular in the sense that most alliterative poets tend to fall outside traditional literary venues. Sometimes they learn the meter in college, but just as often, they’re learning it from fantasy fandom, medieval reenactment groups, or even alternative spiritualities such as Neo-Paganism.

And this movement is growing. Just last year, a children’s author named Zach Weinersmith published a critically acclaimed alliterative graphic novel, and other poets are rapidly following suit in science fiction and fantasy both.