The Professor as scholar
 

Yes, this is very different from the rest of the topics here, but I hope it is still acceptable.

I attended my Medieval Literature class for the first time on Monday, and Tolkien came up. My professor mentioned briefly that Tolkien had made important contributions to our knowledge of this subject.

Does anybody know anything about what Tolkien did as a medievalist, what exactly he was interested in, and what's changed since his involvement in the field?

--Belin Ibaimendi

[ August 28, 2002: Message edited by: Belin ]

Actually, I read something about it... but can’t exactly recall what. I do remember that as a professor in Oxford, Tolkien and L.S. Lewis changed the english curriculum. They put emphasis on Old and Middle English... making the subject more interesting for the students.

I'll try to find the article I read... I can't find my book right now... sorry! [img]smilies/rolleyes.gif[/img]

Tolkien's 1936 essay on Beowulf changed the way the Old English poem was studied and read in universities (which was about the only place it was read). Here's what Seamus Heaney has to say about Tolkien's influence in the Introduction to his new translation of Beowulf (which came out in 2000):
This was how Tolkien was presented to me when I studied Old English also, many decades later (although I was still required to translate it as a way of learning the language, before I could discuss it).

Tolkien also produced an edition of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, a Middle English text which is written in a dialect different from Chaucer's and which is much more difficult to read, without translation, than Chaucer. Maybe you could look it up and tell us about it, since you are taking a medieval lit course.

*curtsies on a first meeting*

Bethberry


Edit: Carpenter's biography discusses Tolkien's battles to change the curriculum at Oxford.

[ September 08, 2002: Message edited by: Bethberry ]

Tolkien delivered a lecture about Gawain and the Green Knight and another on translating Beowulf. He was an Oxford professor for many years, teaching mainly Anglo-Saxon and English Literature. In his valedictory address, which was typically delivered just as he was about to resign his Chair, he criticised the division of English Language and English Literature; and suggested that it would be more sensible to study both as a single subject.

The Professor also worked on the Oxford English Dictionary and performed a lot of other philological work, although I'm unfamiliar with most of his academic writing. The languages he spoke included Anglo-Saxon, Latin, Gothic, Spanish and Welsh, on which latter language he delivered another lecture, in which he said that no philologist of English was worthy of the name who wasn't conversant with the Welsh tongue.

Altogether I'm given to wonder how he found the time to write his fiction, although the fact that he never owned a television set probably had something to do with it.

Tolkien prepared scholarly translations of Sir Gawaine and the Green Knight, the Pearl poem, and Sir Orfeo during his life. Sir Gawain was even broadcast on the BBC in 1953. Some of the translations were done in consultation with other scholars. Tolkien hoped to add an extensive introduction and commentary, but, alas, like the Legendarium, this was never completely finished.

Christopher Tolkien went ahead and prepared these manuscripts for publication in 1975 within a single volume after his father's death. He left them pretty much "as is" using the pieces of introduction and commentary that were extant and not trying to add anything else.

I am less familiar with Sir Orfeo, but Gawaine and Pearl are considered to be masterpieces of medieval literature. They are probably by the same author, and both are written in the dialect of the West Midlands, that part of England where Tolkien's heart was truly set.

Gawaine is a tale that puts forward a Christian ideal of knighthood and also rejects the concept of adulterous love. This latter point was no small thing, since the whole movement of "courtly love" which swept out from France over all of western Europe in the 12th century, actually embraced the concept of infidelity.

The Pearl poem is even more poignant. It is a father whose two-year old daughter has died. He has a dream in which he sees her among the elect of heaven. She rejects his overtures to return to earth, as she gently explains that he may rejoin her only through death, and this must come after he resigns himself to the will of God.

You can see from the themes in these poems, as well as their background in the West Midlands how they might have appealed deeply to Tolkien. Before Tolkien, philologists addressed their works almost solely to other philologists. Tolkien wanted to go beyond this. He felt that any educated person who had a background in literature or history should be able to appreciate medieval literature.

sharon, the 7th age hobbit

[ August 31, 2002: Message edited by: Child of the 7th Age ]

I believe there is some material on medieval history and such in some of the HoME texts, I am positive there is in The Lost Road but as for the others I am not so sure. Maybe someone else would know if there was more on Tolkien trying to tie in his mythology with actual medieval history.

The character of Eriol (later Ælfwine) was intended to act as a bridge between Tolkien's legends and our own history. Originally Tol Eressëa was to become England, with Kortirion becoming the city of Warwick (about which Tolkien wrote a poem that by happy coincidence I happen to have been reading today). In the earlier stages of development, the traveller was to have come from Heligoland and his discovery was to pre-date the arrival of the Anglo-Saxons; but later the chronology was changed and the direct correlation between the actual and the invented country dropped. It seems, though, that the intention had been to use a human visit to the island as the one point of contact between medieval reality and the author's imagination, the fruits of which were to be set in the distant past.

Having said that, Tolkien does accredit his characters with the invention of smoking and golf, amongst other things; so we could also regard those as ties between fact and fiction.

Beowulf was an influence to Tolkien while he was writing the trilogy, or so I've read, and his studies of the Anglo-Saxon's were also. So it's a good thing that he was so interested in that! [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img] Bethberry, thank you for that summary, it was very interesting. Oh, Squatter, I just started reading The Book of Lost Tales and I just finished the first chapter about Eriol. I have yet to read that poem! That's interesting also, I didn't know that.

Didn't Tolkien write a poem about the Anglo-Saxon's? I'm not sure, maybe that's just something else that I have it mixed up with. But Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is actually pretty good! (for English class, we had to do that play. Very fun [img]smilies/biggrin.gif[/img] )
Oh, I have this little book, The Languages of Tolkien or something like that, and they have the Anglo-Saxon runes in it, which are very similar to the Elvish runes. They're not that hard to memorize, I think I'm going to memorize them and only write using those runes [img]smilies/tongue.gif[/img] [img]smilies/biggrin.gif[/img]

Oh, Belin, do they offer medieval classes at most colleges??? *crosses fingers*

[ September 01, 2002: Message edited by: Lothiriel Silmarien ]

You're thinking of The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth, Beorhthelm's Son, which appears in Tree and Leaf.

I have yet to read Gawain, although I've bought a copy and cheated by reading Tolkien's essay about it. Not surprisingly, the co-editor of one of the translator's sources is one J.R.R. Tolkien.

Squatter, set your butt down and read Sir Gawian! [img]smilies/biggrin.gif[/img] [img]smilies/tongue.gif[/img]

I read these, Sir G, Beowulf in college Lit class. I fell in love with the Heroic Epic after reading this. When I found out that LotR was in this class, I knew I had to read it. I only wish that I had found it sooner.

TO add to your conversation on this topic:

I have been an active medievalist for 20 years, During that time I have taken several medieval literature courses as well as historical ones too.
I recently was stumped by a word made popular by Tolkien, of which I had occasion to look up in my Middle English Dictionary. (It's very hard to find these! I was lucky to stumble onto one in my travels.)
It stated that the word came from a work called "The Ancrene Wisse". Tolkien liked this paper because it was full of words to research and use. He translated it, and published several papers on his findings. These have led to a deeper understanding of the construct and mutation of Olde English into Modern English.
Here's an example of what he translated: (See if you can understand it!)
Whoa. Now try this: (The translation is below it.)
It reads rather like the Cantebury Tales, with more German intertwined. It is a 13th Century manuscript written by a man, for the use of women of authority. (Women in religious/pious/mystical hermitage.)Very, very interesting, from not only a linguistical but also a historical standpoint.

Here's what he did as a scholar:
From 1918-20 he was an assistant on the Oxford English Dictionary. In 1920, he became Reader in English language at Leeds University, where he later held the Chair from 1924-5. In 1926 he returned to Oxford as Professor of Anglo-Saxon and later became Merton Professor of English (1945-59)

Can you imagine? I had correspondence with William Safire, the last editor of The OED. There is nothing more gratifying than discussing the origins of the word "floccinausinihilipilification" with a man of his education! I cannot imagine how joyous I would be, looking over the shoulder of JRR on a sunny afternoon in his study.

Next:
Tolkien made his reputation as a Middle English scholar in the 1920s with A Middle English Vocabulary(1922) and Sir Gawain and The Green Knight (1925). Among his later works was the 1936 lecture, later published, Beowulf: The Monsters and The Critics.

I highly suggest his translation Sir Gawaine as a basis for learning Middle English. Please remember to get a copy of the untranslated version to study from, and a good Middle English Dictionary (If you can find Tolkien's work in a used bookstore you will be greatly rewarded.)
A study of The Cantebury Tales will yield new understanding of Middle English. I suggest that you enroll in a course on it. (Sorry, this had already been done over and over. Tolkien did not retranslate it.)

Finally:
I recommend that calligraphy be studied in depth; you must learn the symbols for letters that were used in Medieval writings. (This is mirrored in the Tenguar, Tolkien's written form of Elvish.)

Good luck! I hope that your journey into language is fruitful.

If you're interested, Ijust started reading Tom Shippey's book: J.R.R. Tolkien Author of the Century. It covers a bit about Tolkien's studies, how they effected his writings, etc.

~TolkienGurl, the crazy person [img]smilies/biggrin.gif[/img]

No crazier than the rest of us!! Well, not any more so than I am, anyways!! [img]smilies/biggrin.gif[/img]
Arwen