Tolkien Gleanings #9
* An Exploration of Tolkien’s Changing Visions of Faerie Through His Non-Middle-Earth Poetry (2021). A PhD thesis for the University of Glasgow, UK. The .PDF is online and public. Sees Bombadil as having one possible source in the 17th century Tom O’Bedlam.
“… analyses the themes, language, and folklore of Tolkien’s non-Middle-earth poetry, arguing that it is possible to see three sometimes overlapping phases […] an initial phase when he explored who and what the fairies were; a second divergent phase where Tolkien at once studied the worlds and poetic styles of the medieval works he taught at Oxford yet also used his Faerie poems to protest the excesses of modern living; and a third phase where he increasingly merged his Christian beliefs with his concept of Faerie”. Concludes by showing how these approaches might have been woven into the late tale “Smith of Wootton Major”.
* Free online, a blog article for a medical humanities site, “Fangorn, the Shire, and Beleriand: Tolkien’s Disabled Landscapes” (2022)…
“… we do not abandon lands after they are changed, or when their value is diminished in our eyes. The Ents reclaim Isen. The Hobbits remain in the Shire [and restore it, even though] neither goes back to the way they were before they were impaired.”
* From Kent State University Press, the book Inkling, Historian, Soldier, and Brother: A Life of Warren Hamilton Lewis (December 2022)…
“examines Warren Lewis’s role as an original member of the Oxford Inklings [and C.S. Lewis’s brother, drawing on] unpublished diaries, his letters, the memoir he wrote about his family, and other primary materials, this biography is an engaging story of a fascinating life, and period of history”.
* Free online, a long scholarly blog post on “The Medieval in Middle-earth: Anglo-Saxon Elephants and Tolkien’s Oliphaunts” (2020).
* And finally, to Tolkien’s cherished town of Warwick in the West Midlands of England. A giant Lord of the Rings style ‘trebuchet’ siege-engine is to be built there. The 22-ton wooden machine will be the world’s biggest, and by 2023 it should be ready for flinging oliphaunt-sized loads around the grounds of Warwick Castle. Seen here is their earlier smaller engine, which is being retired.
Garth states (Worlds, p. 191) that it is “not unlikely” that the young Tolkien brothers took the train from Birmingham to the annual Warwick Pageant in the castle grounds. Though in those days there may not have been reconstructed siege-engines, it seems vaguely-possible that the castle could offer displays of scale models set in battle dioramas.