Depending on Stephen R. Donaldson’s use of genre, whether science fiction or fantasy, it modifies his essential humanism. In his science fiction, Donaldson accept a more socially embedded humanity. In his fantasy, he leans towards an interiority that is independent of social context.

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 ada…[Read more]

Although alliterative poetry—a medieval Germanic meter based on similar-sounding initial stressed syllables—first flourished in Old English and Old Norse literature, a resurgence of the meter has appeared within the twentieth century. The most famous modern practitioners have been J. R. R. Tolkien, Ezra Pound, and W. H. Auden, but a wholly neg…[Read more]