Tolkien Gleanings #139.

* The new book Many Times & Many Places: C.S. Lewis and the Value of History (August 2023) examines the value that Lewis placed on the study of history, and on its established divisions. The book’s blurb suggests it may also discuss the scholarly methods used by Lewis and his generation in truth-sifting regarding the past, and the flipside of this in the form of their historical imagination. Thus the book may also be of some relevance to understanding Tolkien. Possibly even a shelf-companion to the forthcoming book The Literary Role of History in the Fiction of J.R.R. Tolkien (December 2023)?

* New and freely available in the HCommons repository, “J.R.R. Tolkien at the University of Leeds”. Being… “the English-language original of the article published [in Japanese in the journal] Eureka: Poetry and Criticism” for November 2023.

* New and freely available in The European Conservative, “The Apocalypse According to J.R.R. Tolkien”, a long article focussing on the… “profound questions about the fate of the world” that troubled the Christians of Tolkien’s generation.

* Running online during November 2023, the Signum University short course Tolkien and the Romantics: Imagining and Dreaming.

* Two further “The History of Middle-earth Box Sets” have now appeared on Amazon UK as listing pages. It looks like the History re-issue will now be four, rather than two, sets of boxed hardcovers. Set 3 is pencilled in for September 2024, followed by Set 4 in November 2024.

* And finally, two weeks to the opening of the medium-sized Tolkien show at the National Gallery of Modern Art in Rome. The official website fails not only in its grinding slowness (over 100 x 1.8Mb background panel images arranged in a grid… what on earth are their web designers and museum managers thinking of?), but also fails to inform about the coming-soon Tolkien show. Yet one can at least determine that day-tickets for the museum are 13 euros per person. The price seems to include all shows and galleries.

Tolkien Gleanings #138.

* Announced via an Amazon listing, another Tolkien map book. To be titled Maps of Tolkien’s Middle Earth and currently set for 9th April 2024. No details, but my guess would be it’s an expanded re-issue of the Brian Sibley map-box/book The Map Of Tolkien’s Middle-Earth (1994) and his subsequent The Maps of Tolkien’s Middle-earth (2003). The latter was expanded and inside were… “Tolkien’s Maps of The Hobbit, Beleriend and Middle-earth beautifully presented in an exquisite box-set”. Its special edition also had “a unique map of Numenor”. So my guess is the forthcoming 2024 item will at least be a reprint and perhaps another expansion, possibly with a few more maps?

* Also noted on Amazon UK, The History of Middle-earth Box Set in hardcover, set for a staggered release in mid January and then in mid March 2024.

* A new Mythlore (Fall/Winter 2023) has appeared. Among other items of interest in the journal are…

   – “Otherworldly but not the Otherworld” (Tolkien may have drawn on Lanval and Sir Orfeo in building his depiction of Lothlorien).

   – “The Sun, the Son, and the Silmarillion“ (a new Kristine Larsen paper drawing as usual on astronomical lore and science, and interestingly noting Tolkien’s hints at life on other planets).

   – A review of the book ‘Uncle Curro’: J.R.R. Tolkien’s Spanish Connection (interesting to know that Hilary Tolkien served as a bugler in the First World War, re: “the horns of the morning”).

* The Imaginative Conservative briefly reviews the new Holly Ordway book Tolkien’s Faith (2023).

* On YouTube, a 30 minute conference talk on ‘Tolkien, Heroic Christianity and the Dangers of Neo-Paganism’ (September 2023). Makes many interesting points, not least that many inclined toward the mish-mash of neo-paganism might do well to investigate instead the many aspects of pagan beliefs and symbolism which were long-ago successfully absorbed by Christianity.

* New from Vernon Press, the academic book Weaving Words into Worlds (September 2023). Has the chapter “The Ecological Christian Labyrinth and the Significance of Trees in The Lord of the Rings”. This appears to try to link Tolkien’s uses of trees, within his labyrinthine LoTR narrative, with historical Christian uses of labyrinths and mazes.

* Call for papers: The Middle Ages in the 20th and 21st Centuries at the University of Stavanger in Norway. Deadline: 31st January 2024.

* And finally, a major joint three-society Literature and Science conference at the University of Birmingham, set for 10th-12th April 2024. The wide ‘literature and science’ theme is left open and thus suggests possibilities for a Tolkien topic, especially so in his home city of Birmingham. Tolkien was taken to the Great Hall of the University (then serving as a hospital) on being brought back from France, and this might suggest a paper on the Houses of Healing in LoTR and the value of traditional oral lore for rediscovering potent healing plants (“Ioreth, men will long remember your words”). The call for papers deadline is 1st December 2023.

Tolkien Gleanings #137.

* Tolkien’s Oxford Eagle and Child pub is sold and saved, having being purchased by billionaire Larry Ellison’s Ellison Institute of Technology, which is also establishing a new science campus. The “renowned architect Norman Foster will renovate” the venue beloved of Tolkien and his friends, keeping it as a pub — but also adding a study space for “Ellison Scholars and EIT Oxford faculty” together with a new restaurant.

The pub in the late 1970s.

* The seventh PDF issue of my Tolkien Gleanings ‘zine is now freely available at Archive.org.

* Joseph Pearce reflects on “50 Years with J.R.R. Tolkien”.

* Quillette has an article musing on “Misreading Middle-Earth: Tolkien and the Contemporary Reader”…

“it is difficult to imagine [The Lord of the Rings] being written today. From the subtlety of its symbolism to the profoundly Catholic character of the prose, with its pseudo-Biblical narrative and baroque embellishments, many aspects of Tolkien’s style and storytelling would be unpalatable to most modern publishers”.

* Freely online, an undergraduate survey of “The nature of evil in Catholicism as represented in The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien” (2022).

* The table-of-contents for Amon Hen #302 (August 2023). Has a book review of The Battle of Maldon together with The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth, and articles including “Loose Lips Cost Lives” — which at a guess is likely about the need for caution when conveying information in Middle-earth.

* New on YouTube, Paolo Nardi and Alena Afanasyeva talk about “Tolkien in Russia”. “Discussing Tolkien’s reception in the Soviet Union and Russian-speaking countries. The Lord of the Rings was banned by the regime…”. 90 minutes, not in English. Appears to be popular both in terms of views and comments.

* The annual German language Tolkien Times PDF ‘zine / brochure, now available for free download (scroll down the page). Also has a review of Garner’s Treacle Walker in its German translation.

* And finally, scenes from Tolkien as Byzantine paintings.

The seventh PDF issue of my Tolkien Gleanings ‘zine, now freely available at Archive.org.

Tolkien Gleanings #136.

* Freely available in the latest newly-started issue of the Journal of Tolkien Research, “The Hen that Laid the Eggs: Tolkien and the Officer Training Corps”. Discusses how the young Tolkien’s OTC… “experience underlies the importance of military preparedness and the consequences of lack of preparedness among the free peoples of Middle-earth”. Expands on the author’s… “2011 paper in Tolkien Studies“.

* Freely available and new in English in the Hungarian journal Orpheus Noster, “Tolkien, the Practicing Catholic: The Early Letters”. May complement Holly Ordway’s recent book, since the author finds that Tolkien’s…

“actual religious practices of his everyday life have [not yet been] uncovered. This paper attempts to provide a brief glance into these by examining Tolkien’s early Letters”.

* The new long blog post “Space travel in The Notion Club Papers by “Incarnation. By being born” – What does Tolkien mean?.

* In the re-titled open access journal Archaeoastronomy and Ancient Technologies (now Cultural Heritage and Modern Technologies), the new journal article “The symbol of the crescent moon with a star on ancient and medieval coins” (2023)…

“In ancient times, the symbol of the crescent moon with a star may refer to a female divinity. […] Probably on medieval coins the crescent moon with the star was initially coined as a symbol of the Virgin Mary”.

Newly “coined”, or appropriated?

“In ancient times Venus took care of mariners, because she was supposed to be born of the sea; because she has ceased to take Care, the Virgin Mother is [now, as Mary] substituted to this Mother.” — Erasmus.

* Now apparently under Creative Commons on Archive.org, the PhD thesis Asgard Revisited: Old Norse mythology and national culture in Iceland, 1820-1918 (2017).

* And finally, a set of Jim Kirkwood re-releases sounds rather enticing…

“Announcement of these reissues has generated no small degree of excitement among fans of synthesizer music, especially those in the dungeon synth scene. […] Although held in high esteem by the dungeon synth scene, Kirkwood’s own output feels more in line with the British progressive rock and [1970s and early 80s] Berlin-school style of synth music that inspired him.”

Remastered re-issues of Kirkwood’s rare “Tolkien-focused” LP’s are set for release on 1st December 2023. For those interested there’s also a 1992 LoTR inspired sampler LP, and a higher-quality version which can be purchased to help support South Essex Animal Hospital.

Tolkien Gleanings #135.

* New to me, the long “Saving the Shire: Ascetic Renunciation and Love of Home in J.R.R. Tolkien”. Being the text of the… “Inklings lecture delivered by Richard Rohlin at the sixth annual Inklings Festival in October of 2020”.

* This week La Libre has an article on the new Lord of the Rings in French. Apparently with “previously unpublished illustrations by Tolkien”…

A [one-volume] version [of the Lord of the Rings] more in line with Tolkien’s wishes. The new complete edition, revised, corrected and expanded, is published on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the author’s death. This is one of the editorial events of the Autumn” [being] “the new French translation” [of that] “already revised in 2014 by Daniel Lauzon [and which has here been] further refined by the translator” […] “It is based on the latest version of the English text, revised by Christopher Tolkien based on indications left by his father. It offers previously unpublished illustrations by Tolkien, and is supplemented by an index that Tolkien had wished to include during his lifetime, but did not have time to provide for the first publication of the trilogy in 1954-1956.

The article also notes that the character names are no longer French-ified for a French audience. The La Libre writer has actually seen a copy and pronounces the book, printed in Italy, of sumptuous quality. Said to be a “limited edition”, officially published on 19th October 2023.

* In open access, the Masters dissertation “Textual Conventions and the Encoded Reader in J.R.R. Tolkien’s Translation of Beowulf“ (2023).

* Due at the end of October 2023, the German book Aure entuluva! – Der Tag soll wieder kommen. J.R.R. Tolkien zum 50. Todestag. Ten essays from writers and thinkers for whom Tolkien was their path to Christian belief.

* Now on YouTube, the recent presentation to the Blake Society titled “The Edge of Human Experience: Blake and Tolkien’s Art”.

* And finally, “Exhibition celebrates works of Narnia and Tolkien illustrator Pauline Baynes”. Though it appears to be over already…

“Farnham Town Council was privileged to display a large collection of her work, generously provided by her relative Alberto Ceceatelli who brought the collection over from Italy for this very special occasion. The exhibition opened with a private view and during opening hours the council chamber was crowded with visitors until it closed at mid-day the following Monday. This was the first time the collection had been seen in [the UK] and it created a great deal of interest.”

Tolkien Gleanings #134.

* A new official website for Tom Shippey. The site made me aware of his interesting-sounding book Hard Reading: Learning from Science Fiction (2016).

* Here are transcriptions of two of the questions and answers which followed the recent Tom Shippey talk titled “Sixty Years of J.R.R. Tolkien”…

Q: What question would he have liked to discuss personally with Tolkien?

A: I’d have liked to talk to him about the nature of dialect studies. I think we now know a lot more about dialect than Tolkien did. [Based on the evidence then available, he would have thought] that Sir Gawain and the Green Knight came essentially from the county of Chester. I would have liked to say to him, ‘Excuse me Professor but I think that’s wrong. Actually it’s not Chester at all, is it?’. Chester was a very funny and strange county with special privileges in the middle-ages, and that meant its neighbours didn’t like it at all. Indeed they fought a battle over it. No, actually surely the author of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight came from the neighbouring county of Staffordshire. And I think Tolkien would have been pleased to have heard this argument, partly because Staffordshire was one of his ‘home counties’. There are three counties which meet in Birmingham — Worcestershire, Warwickshire and Staffordshire — and those I think were the counties that Tolkien thought were his counties. And [as such] he would have been very pleased to have me argue that the great works of medieval literature in English all came from the West Midlands… and especially from those three counties.

Q: What gaps still need work, in Tolkien studies?

A: Well, I think that there are perhaps two great gaps. One is that we know that Tolkien spent a great deal of time and thought on producing a work called “The Lost Road”, but of course he never got round to doing it [i.e. to completion]. We do know quite a lot about what he intended, but it would be good to have a better theory of what he meant to do. And I think there are some hints and indications. But of course the only answer can be speculative… and academics don’t really like speculation. […] I made a start on it by writing a piece in the [2022] memorial volume for Christopher Tolkien [The Great Tales Never End: Essays in Memory of Christopher Tolkien], in which I discuss a poem by Tolkien which I think he intended to work up as part of “The Lost Road”. The other [gap] is that we now have a great mass of early material edited by Christopher Tolkien, and I think Tolkien critics have rather fought shy of studying this. Because there’s so much of it, and it’s so difficult and it’s so tangled. But I think it would be interesting once again to try to [use this material to] get back to the original sources… no, not to the original sources… to Tolkien’s original intentions.

* Currently on eBay, another copy of the very rare book Wheelbarrows at Dawn: Memories of Hilary Tolkien, with a number of sample images.

* In Italy on 14th October 2023, a scholarly Workshop: ‘Tolkien and the Arthurian Myths: in honor of the 50th anniversary of Tolkien’s death’… “This workshop is open to all Tolkien enthusiasts, literature students, budding writers and anyone who wishes to deepen their knowledge of Tolkien’s works and the Arthurian myths. Places are limited to a maximum of fifteen participants.”

* New to me, a book of Italian essays on Tolkien titled Albero di Tolkien. Topic titles, in approximate English translation, include among others…

   – The name of Snorri.
   – Walking through Oxford.
   – The use of traditional symbols in J.R.R. Tolkien.
   – Tolkien’s polytheistic sentiment.
   – Tolkien, life, death and immortality.
   – The figure of the hero in Tolkien.
   – Music and Middle-earth.
   – Tolkien and the figurative arts.

* On YouTube, the October 2023 Update for the Digital Tolkien Project.

* Tolkien’s Philology: General Works (1923-1925). Being a new Archive.org PDF compilation of his authoritative “The Year’s Work in English Studies” surveys for 1924, 1925 and 1926. These are also on Archive.org in their original format and context.

* And finally, the latest edition of the UK’s The Critic magazine reviews The Globe, a new book offering an entertaining brisk tour of the history of the ‘flat Earth’ fallacy. This book also touches on the use by Tolkien…

The book ends as rapidly as it began, with an account of the flat literary worlds created by the medievalists-turned-fantasy authors C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien. [But] Hannam’s narrative is at its most illuminating when discussing the wide acceptance of the spherical earth theory in the European Middle Ages. Far from [being] drooling, dogma-blinded pantomime bigots […] mediaeval thinkers were keen cosmologists who by and large had read their Aristotle. Some, such as Bede in the 7th century, arrived at similar conclusions on their own.