Tolkien's Lecture Notes - publish or be damned! |
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 Topic: Tolkien's Lecture Notes - publish or be damned!
In Roots and Branches- Tom Shippey, in his paper on Tolkien's Academic Reputation Now :
Verdict on Professor Tolkien, purely as an academic?Primary Citations:low.Secondary Citations:amazingly high.
Moreover, as Jonathan Evans tells us in his essay The Dragon-Lore of Middle-earth:Tolkien and Old English and Norse Tradition (Tolkien and His Literary Resonances edt. Clark &Timmons):
An email discussion not long ago among members of the international community of Anglo-Saxon scholars revealed that close to 50% of them became interested in medieval literature in general and in Old English language and literature specifically because of their early exposure to the fictional works of J.R.R.Tolkien.{author's italics}
In their excellent work on Medieval Literature and Tolkien - The Keys of Middle-Earth Stuart Lee and Elizabeth Solopova make the very important point that much of Tolkien's scholarly work was never published, for it was contained in his lecture notes!
These :
held at the Bodleian Librray, Oxford...reveal a wealth of scholarly material that has never reached publication and tantalizingly point to what might have been. {Introduction}.(A point reinforced by Ida Gordon ,the wife of Tolkien's old friend and academic collaborator E V Gordon ,when she commented:
I ought to tell you that I have very little interest in the Tolkien of The Lord of the Rings.In my opinion that side of him robbed us of a very fine medieval scholar who might have done so much more work of lasting value like the Gawain and Pearl editions.{cf. Douglas Anderson -An Industrious Little Devil in Jane Chance edt. Tolkien the Medievalist}.
{Needless to say I, and many others would demur from what Ida Gordon (whom I had the pleasure of meeting on several occasions at Manchester University) had to say about Tolkien's fictional works!}
Lee & Solopova go on to comment:
...the unpublished lecture notes reveal a scholar who thought deeply about their subject, and most importantly , the teaching of their subject. {The Keys of Middle-Earth -Introduction}. (a point frequently made by geordie in his posts!
 They continue:
There are extensive notes on medieval literature, translations of texts, lectures on transalting, diction, prosody, metre, alliteration, the history of the language and people, on manuscripts, and so on.........The papers also bear witness to the fact that Tolkien clearly reworked his teaching notes until they were just right.Even then they bear numerous additional annotations - possibly as a result of delivering the lecture, or a final read through.
Criticism of his publishing profile , therefore, may be unjust, especially when one realizes how seriously he took his commitment to teaching.{ibid}
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He that would foil me must use such weapons as I do, for I have not fed my readers with straw, neither will I be confuted with stubble.
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In an aside comment on Tolkien's teaching style- which they make clear is not their concern as far as the book is concerned Lee & Solopova observe:
Unfortunately, Tolkien's teaching has also attracted criticism in the past from such noteworthy characters as the novelist Kingsley Amis.{The Keys of Middle Earth -Introduction}
(I for one would not call Kingsley Amis ' noteworthy' - 'notorious old boor ' is probably more apposite as anyone who has had the misfortune to read his memoirs would reasonably conclude.)
I had however, no knowledge of what Amis had said about Tolkien, whose pupil he had been. However, a little 'googling' spadework produced the following- uncomplimentary - assessment of Tolkien's teaching style by Amis.It is taken from Andrew Motions biography of Philip Larkin the poet.
The only bright spots in his week, he told [his parents], were ‘Edmund Blunden [on the
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He that would foil me must use such weapons as I do, for I have not fed my readers with straw, neither will I be confuted with stubble.
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Those interested in reading Lee & Solopova's book should also look at Tolkien Criticism: Interpretario Mediaevalea
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He that would foil me must use such weapons as I do, for I have not fed my readers with straw, neither will I be confuted with stubble.
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Just a couple of random thoughts; in no particular order: on Tolkien's lecture notes, Shippey remarks:
'Anyone with experience of professors can imagine what a set of lecture notes looks like: it says a great deal for Tolkien's conscientiousness that anything is recoverable at all'. ('A Look at _Exodus_ and _Finn and Hengest_ ' in _Roots and Branches_ p.175) On Tolkien's effectiveness as a lecturer, we have Robin Burchfield. One time student of Tolkien, and editor of the supplement to the Oxford English Dictionary: 'I was entranced by the arguments that he presented to largely bewildered audiences of undergraduates in the Examination Schools. The mobs, many of them doubtless already devoted to hobbitry and all that, were soon driven away by the speed of his delivery and the complexity of his syntax. By the third week of term his small band of true followers remained. And I was always one of them... ...I shall continue to look back in gratitude and reverence to the puckish fisherman who drew me into his glittering philological net'. ('My Hero: Robert Burchfield on JRR Tolkien' in _The Independent_ Magazine 4 March 1989) It was Burchfield who added the word hobbit and its derivatives - including hobbitry - to the OED supplement, in 1976 (with, of course, the full help and cooperation of the Professor himself.) 
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It's all in the books...
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And of course we've just had the privelege of seeing a little more of those lecture notes in Sigurd & Gudrun. I though Christopher Tolkien did a beautiful job weaving together his father's notes and his own commentary to create a really interesting and informative read. It would be really nice to see more of that sort of thing in the future, especially since even if Tolkien wasn't a great speaker, he still wrote lectures out conversationally and they (at least in S&G) are highly enjoyable reads!
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I have found this good list of what there is still to be published made by Tolkien. Soeme good lectures indeed
1. Lectures on Beowulf and Modern English translations of Beowulf. While at Leeds, Tolkien began, but left unfinished, an alliterative verse translation of Beowulf into Modern English, and also worked on a prose Modern English translation, which was complete by the end of April 1926; neither, however, was ever finished to his satisfaction. Tolkien included a few lines of his verse translation in his preface to John R. Clark Hall’s translation of Beowulf, and others have appeared posthumously, the longest passage to date in The Lost Road and Other Writings, pp. 92—93. 2. Partial translation of the First Branch of the Mabinogi, Pwyll, Prince of Dyfed, along with extensive notes on the name ‘Annwn’. [Bodlean Library, Oxford: Dept. of Western Manuscripts, Mss Tolkien A18/1, fols. 134—156.] 3. Lecture The Goths. In this lecture Tolkien deals with the vanished tradition, literature, history, and the tongue of the Goths. [Bodlean Library, Oxford: Dept. of Western Manuscripts, Mss Tolkien A15/2, fol. 149.] 4. Lecture on dragons. The text of this lecture reveals Tolkien's thoughts on aspects of dragon-lore not discussed elsewhere in his works. [Bodlean Library, Oxford: Dept. of Western Manuscripts, Mss Tolkien, materials currently with restricted access.] 5. Essay on translating poetry. An unpublished essay concerning the translation of poetry. [Bodlean Library, Oxford: Dept. of Western Manuscripts, Mss Tolkien A30/1, fols. 121, 107—109.] 6. The New Lay of the Völsungs and The New Lay of Gudrún. Völsungakviða en nýja (‘The New Lay of the Völsungs’) is a poem of 339 eight-line fornyrðisl*g stanzas. A companion lay, Guðrún-arkviða en nýja (‘The New Lay of Gudrún’), is a poem of 166 eight-line fornyrðisl*g stanzas. 7. The Fall of Arthur. Poem in alliterative verse, written in the early 1930s and abandoned after 954 lines, though various outlines and drafts survive in addition to the final unfinished text. 8. Sellic Spell. Story, written in the early 1940s as an attempt to reconstruct the Anglo-Saxon tale that lies behind the folk- or fairy tale element in Beowulf (here ‘Beewolf’). 9. Reginhardus, the Fox and Monoceros, the Unicorn. Two poems, composed probably not long before 1927 (together with two other animal poems, Fastitocalon and Iumbo, or ye Kinde of ye Oliphaunt). 10. Tales and Songs of Bimble Bay. Series of poems, written by Tolkien c. 1928, incorporating fantasy and satire, and centred on an imaginary English coastal town and harbour. These include *The Bumpus (revised as Perry-the-Winkle), The Dragon’s Visit, Glip, *Old Grabbier, Progress in Bimble Town, and *A Song of Bimble Bay; those titles asterisked are still unpublished. 11. The Ulsterior Motive. Discursive essay, written in response to the posthumous publication of C.S. Lewis’ Letters to Malcolm, expressing Tolkien’s hurt at anti-Roman Catholicism from Lewis. 12. A glossary-index to The Lord of the Rings. Wayne Hammond and Christina Scull have referred freely to this unfinished index in their notes on various topics in The Lord of the Rings: A Reader’s Companion (2005), but otherwise it remains unpublished. 13. Essay, written in response to seeing Pauline Baynes’ depiction of various characters from The Lord of the Rings . Tolkien described each member of the Fellowship of the Ring and some other persons as he pictured them — an invaluable aid to any illustrator of his work. [Bodlean Library, Oxford: Dept. of Western Manuscripts, Mss Tolkien A61, fols. 1—31.] Edited by PauloIapetus - 10/Nov/2009 at 6:51pm |
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Good grief, is that all? He obviously was too distracted by LotR and related matters to devote his time to teaching. Well-known fact!
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"I am no longer young even in the reckoning of Men of the Ancient Houses."
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I guess that there are several others, however, I presume that the text has given the the spotlight to those that are more easily transformed into books that can be marketable to the public interested in Tolkien. Some of the additional ones were the lectures included as part of Sigurd and Gudrun, weren't they?
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3. Lecture The Goths.
In this lecture Tolkien deals with the vanished tradition, literature, history, and the tongue of the Goths. [Bodlean Library, Oxford: Dept. of Western Manuscripts, Mss Tolkien A15/2, fol. 149.] Elizabeth Solopova -who works in the Department of Special Collections and Western Mansucripts in the Bodleian has recently published
Languages, Myths and History: An Introduction to the Linguistic and Literary background of J. R. R. Tolkien's Fiction
which includes Gothic. It will be interesting to see if she makes any reference to/use of Tolkien's own lecture on the subject. We know, from the publishers blurb that it includes an extract from Jordanes's Gothic History and a discussion of its influence on Tolkien
The publisher's blurb for the book also says:
Languages, Myths and History provides brief introductions to Old Norse, Old English, Gothic and Finnish languages and literatures, and discusses key aspects of their influence on Tolkien's fiction. The book demonstrates how Tolkien's literary-critical, philosophical and moral ideas, particularly his understanding of heroism and courage, were inspired by medieval literature and folklore. The book offers an overview of Tolkien's invented languages and his principles for language creation. In addition it provides a summary of Tolkien's academic career.
Hopefully Elizabeth, who is committed to another book in 2010 , will be writing something for the Scholars Forum in 2011, as will Jane Chance (Tolkien the Medievalist) and Peter Gilliver and his colleagues (The Ring of Words).
Edited by halfir - 11/Nov/2009 at 3:37pm |
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He that would foil me must use such weapons as I do, for I have not fed my readers with straw, neither will I be confuted with stubble.
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When I read The Legend of Sigurd and Gúdrun, I noted down all Tolkien's unpublished writings that are referred to in the book. I have also noted down additional unpublished writings I know of. So here is my list of unpublished writings by Tolkien (excepting the ones included in the list Paulolapetus quoted) that I have compiled so far:
Lecture series: The 'Elder Edda' Only a substantial part of the opening lecture is published in The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrún [S&G p. 14]
Draft lecture: Elder Edda Basis of above mentioned lecture [S&G p. 14]
Lectures on Guðrúnarkviða en forna (the Old Lay of Gudrún) [S&G p. 55, 315-316], partly printed in S&G pp. 315-316
Lectures, notes or commentaries at least on Fáfnismál, Sigrdrífumál, Atlakviða/Atlamál, Nibelungenlied, the knowledge of the Völsung legend among Old English poets, and the 'great lacuna' of Norse legend [S&G pp. 207-209, 241, 311, 320-321, 325], parts of these are cited or referred to in S&G p. 210-211, 220-221, 242-245, 312, 320-321, 324, 325, 328-329, 331-332, 340-341, 349-356, 361-362, 371, 376)
Other Norse papers [S&G p. 13, 217-218]?
sample translation from Isaiah (1:1-31) [Reader's Guide p. 438, Chronology p. 501)
The History of The Silmarillion material Material not printed in The History of Middle-earth volumes [http://www.thehalloffire.net/forum/viewtopic.php?p=158982&sid=ff634f56f6f7533520c2108ffadbe2fe#158982]
Letters
Linguistic material related to Tolkien's invented languages
Various scattered, still unpublished notes? Cf. note on dwelling place of the Rangers found by David Salo |
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Member of the Tolkien Society, the Finnish Tolkien Society, and founder of Lindon, the Swedish-speaking smial of the FTS. My Tolkien-related twitter: http://twitter.com/Ardamir
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Findegil (Wayne Hammond & Christina Scull) mentioned another unpublished manuscript in which Tolkien mentions T.H. White's The Sword in the Stone here.
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Member of the Tolkien Society, the Finnish Tolkien Society, and founder of Lindon, the Swedish-speaking smial of the FTS. My Tolkien-related twitter: http://twitter.com/Ardamir
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I can connect to the first link ok; but the others seem to connect to a forum for handwriting, without any clue as to where I can find anything to do with Tolkien.
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It's all in the books...
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Ah, that's too bad. Try to copying and pasteing the links/addresses into your browser - that seems to work for me.
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Member of the Tolkien Society, the Finnish Tolkien Society, and founder of Lindon, the Swedish-speaking smial of the FTS. My Tolkien-related twitter: http://twitter.com/Ardamir
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