Tolkien Gleanings #430

* Author Brandon Sanderson has posted his recent Tolkien Lecture on Fantasy Literature talk online, as text. The video recording appeared on YouTube a few days ago.

* A new Masters dissertation from Canada, “Formative Fairy Stories: Edmund Spenser’s and J.R.R. Tolkien’s construction of British national identity through fantastic narratives” (2026). Freely available online.

* From Eastern Europe, the new dissertation “Poetic Devices in Selected Poems of J.R.R. Tolkien: Translation and Analysis” (2026). Being an attempt to translate into Czech. Freely available online.

“The thesis does not aim to provide a technically perfect translation. It seeks to present a text that preserves the type of verse and rhyme used in the original, while at the same time being as close as possible to the original text in terms of its mood, as well as being comprehensible to a 21st century reader at the same time.”

* Artist Miriam Ellis this week considers new questions that arise from the new Tolkien letter relating to ents on the far northern border of the Shire.

* Tolkien’s enduring legacy is now causing “overtourism” in the Cotswolds. As explained in a new conference paper from Ireland, “(Over) Tourism and Tolkien’s Doors of Durin: Challenges And Opportunities for St Edward’s Local Parish Church”. Freely available online.

“This paper considers the impacts of overtourism on the local parish church in the English Cotswolds that allegedly inspired Tolkien’s Doors of Durin. [This Grade 1 listed church, c. 13th-15th century, is now] a destination for approximately 200,000 visitors a year (the equivalent of ten coaches every day).”

Image: My restored and colourised postcard of the door and trees. Possibly from the late 1920s, I’d say, judging by the lettering style and the typography on the back.

* And finally, Tolkien’s imagination has inspired a mighty suggestion for celebrating America’s 250th year. The Lewis And Clark American Argonath Project, two 250 foot tall monuments.