Tolkien Gleanings #90.
* The Exeter College library has been undergoing refurbishment and restoration. Readers will recall that this was Tolkien’s old undergraduate book-grubbing ground (“I have got to go to the college library now and get filthy amongst dusty books …”). The College’s plan to blow the dust off has been underway for several years now, and it was originally “scheduled to reopen in October 2023”. Now a new post on the official website bring news that the project “draws nearer to completion” and that the plans are still on track for October, with…
“the return of books in August, followed by students in Michaelmas Term 2023. […] Oak flooring has been installed throughout the wing. The stone has been thoroughly cleaned, revealing the original, much lighter appearance. The Victorian bookcases on the ground floor have been restored, structurally enhanced, and returned. On the ground floor, the ceiling has been painted an understated and appealing dusty blue. [… On the] north facade, a floor-to-ceiling arched window, has been fully revealed for the first time since 1955, when it was concealed by bookshelves. As in the lower floor of the main wing, the ceiling has now been painted, in this case a sophisticated shade of Cotswold green. Along the ceiling, windows will be installed as an additional source of natural light, improving the study space.
* A new 80-minute podcast interview, Professor Rachel Fulton Brown on “Mystic Christianity, Tolkien’s Cosmogony, and The Logos of Created Worlds”. The link’s .MP3 download is hidden under the “More” button. The interview starts at 4:00 minutes.
* A new PhD thesis Tom Bombadil: Mistrrio Irredutivel (2023) (‘Tom Bombadil: Irreducible Mystery’) from Brazil. Freely available online in a PDF which allows copy-paste, and can thus be auto-translated.
* A new undergraduate dissertation, “Direct Speech and Characterization in J.R.R. Tolkien’s Novels” (2023). Extracted all the ‘direct speech’ of Sam and Aragorn into a dataset, and then used “corpus linguistic tools and methods” to look for keywords and “distinctive linguistic features”.
* And finally, a sheet-music pack for Johan de Meij’s Symphony No. 5 – Return to Middle Earth (2019), with parts for full orchestra and choir. May contain dragons.
