Tolkien Gleanings #83.

* The Digital Tolkien Project has posted abstracts for three upcoming talks. Talks on how an innovative interactive “digital reading environment” might help scholars visualise and navigate the 12-volume History of Middle-earth; on “the relationship of the Second Age Tale of Years to the text of Lord of the Rings, the Silmarillion, and Unfinished Tales“; and on “Linguistic Variation in Tolkien’s Writing Styles”.

* News of a new ‘for academic libraries’ book of the £85 variety, Mapping Middle-earth: Environmental and Political Narratives in J.R.R. Tolkien’s Cartographies. Due 22nd Feb 2024 from Bloomsbury Academic. Presumably based largely on the freely available 2019 PhD thesis from the same author. The new book has added a pleasing cover…

I assume the filling-in of the word “Gondor” is because of the Estate’s trademark.

* And talking of book covers, here’s a peep at the cover for the book and exhibition catalogue Sur les traces de Tolkien et de l’imaginaire medieval: Peintures et dessins de John Howe, due to ship in a few weeks.

Also “Online ticketing is open” for the French summer show for which this is the catalogue. “Online” here meaning tickets to the show, not an online virtual tour (yet).

* Somehow I’d completely missed the book The Mirror Crack’d: Fear and Horror in J.R.R. Tolkien’s Major Works (2008). Not even my Lovecraft blog had noted it, at the time. Issued in hardcover only, and Amazon UK suggests it’s now well out-of-print and unavailable. Among others, Mythlore gave it a review. This and other reviews suggest a usefully unique volume of patchy quality, though The Irish Journal of Gothic and Horror Studies noted that the essays do “cohere clearly in their investigation of Tolkien’s medieval sources”. Also useful, I’d suggest, for not spending half the book on the movies.

* A new study offers a useful reminder to scholars that articles by academic historians in leading journals have a 24.27% error rate in their use of quotation references. And that’s after peer-review and proof reading. The new study in the journal Scientometrics asked if the references actually… “substantiate the propositions for which they are cited”. Around 25% don’t. That sounds about right to me, from my experience. If planning to rely on an evidential quote from such a source (usually time-pressed university academics, rather than independent scholars) always dig back to get the source, if that’s possible. Be wary of their use of titles, too. For instance, in the academic book Horror in Architecture (2013) I recently found mention of “the cursed De La Poer family of Lovecraft’s The Drowned”, for which the title should of course be “The Rats in The Walls”. No-one had picked up this obvious error regarding one of the greatest horror tales of the 20th century. Tom Shippey has often also amusingly observed similar errors in literary academia. All this is why, in my opinion, full footnotes are required (ideally with the full reference, which is what I do). Hiding ‘endnotes’ at the back of the article or chapter, which then need to be again tracked down in the bibliography, greatly aids such fudging and fakery.

* And finally, the excellent $70 desktop back-of-the-book index maker PDF Index Generator. Version 3.3 (May 2023) has “fixed footnotes, as it was showing footnote number & normal page number too!” A useful fix.

Tolkien Gleanings #82.

* Forthcoming, a look at “Dyeing in Middle-earth”. The author blogs that…

“my talk on ‘Dyeing in Middle-earth’ [has been] accepted for online presentation at this year’s Oxonmoot […] investigating textiles and the dyes that create the distinctive colours worn by various characters […] This means that my work on Sir Bevis will alternate with the new Tolkien project and one will refresh the other”.

Good to know that that Forest-Hill is continuing to work on Bevis, and a look at my new book may interest her in that regard. In Chapter 3 my book has about 12,000 words on Bevis and Arundel, and makes a number of new discoveries. On the interesting matter of dyeing and what dyestuffs might imply about Middle-earth, I wondered the other day if “we put thought of all that we love into all that we make” implied more that it said, re: the making of what Pippin thinks of as “magic” cloaks in Lorien. Could there also be a sort of Elvish ‘emotional infusion’ into such material things, working in combination with that of the physical dyestuffs?

* Locked down for now, a new study of Alterity in Central and Eastern European Illustrations for The Lord of the Rings 1981-1993 (2023), for the University of Plymouth here in the UK. Has a good abstract and centres on… “the comprehensive analysis of five Central and Eastern European illustrated translations of The Lord of the Rings published between 1981 and 1993″. Difficult to tell from the repository’s record-page if it really is a PhD thesis, or just a dissertation being called a thesis (in the UK “thesis” is in most universities a prestigious word reserved only for PhDs, whereas in America it is freely applied to undergraduate and Masters dissertations). But my guess is it’s probably a PhD.

* A possible PhD thesis for the University of Aberystwyth in the UK, “Our Elves, Ourselves” (2023). The “thesis sets out to contest the still prevalent infantilisation and marginalisation of elves and fairies, and to conversely prove their lasting relevance for understanding our own cultural identities as an eerie distorted reflection of humanity’s deepest fears and desires.” The PDF file is currently away with the fairies and ‘404 not found’, so I can’t determine if it really is a PhD thesis.

* Freely online in PDF, a PhD thesis for the University of Georgia in the USA, To Cuivienen There Is No Return: English and American Fantasy Literature as a Second Hagiography (2023). Considers if the writing of fantasy can sometimes be a religious practice, comparable to writing the lives of the saints.

* Signum Press has an innovative new patronage concept, their $25 a month Author’s Circle. Too complex an idea to summarise here, but it appears very worthy. More importantly, yesterday’s podcast interview with Drout suggests it works well.

* On YouTube from this time last year, Συμπόσιο J.R.R. Tolkien | Ελληνικός Σύλλογος Φίλων Τόλκιν. As the saying goes “It’s all Greek to me…” though not quite in this case. From 1 hour and 18 minutes this Greek symposium, held in Athens in May 2022, has an hour in English on…

‘The Hobbits and I: My Travels in Middle-earth’: online talk by English author Brian Sibley, award-winning producer of radio adaptations of Tolkien’s works for the BBC.”

* And finally, a new Google Middle-earth, in the style of Google Earth. The maker says… “I started adding all the names and markdowns in the style of Google Maps using Corel Draw. Took me some days.” The 50Mb “PDF is in CMYK mode and ready for printing.” No Street View, but one imagines someone will cook up an AI for that soon enough, by hooking into one of the more canonical game-worlds. The map’s a touch dark for me on Windows, so I’ve tweaked it a bit in this small preview…

If you want to have a go yourself, the source is here in 5k. It’s made by gamers and described as “the canonical map described by the author”. Though places a forest between Lorien and the Gladden Fields, has the Old Forest be far larger and further south, and adds a large island in the Sea of Rhun. Possibly it’s meant to be earlier in time than Tolkien’s maps? Or perhaps it’s been influenced by games? Still it’s a good starting point, with a few tweaks. Once again it’s very dark and I’ve here tweaked it up in Photoshop…

Don’t try to get a height-map from this, for projection into 3D. That’s been done.

Tolkien Gleanings #81.

* A new Inklings Variety Hour podcast interview, “Michael Drout: The Liberal Arts and Beowulf”. Starts at 6:40 minutes.

* New on YouTube, “Charles Coulombe on Kingship and Tolkien”… “Daniel Cote Davies speaks to Charles Coulombe, the American Catholic author and historian, on the topic of kingship, as well as J.R.R. Tolkien’s own interpretation of the topic.”

* Kent State University Press now has a page and a date for the forthcoming book Pity, Power, and Tolkien’s Ring… “Thomas P. Hillman gets to the heart of the tension between pity and the desire for power” in LoTR. The $40 book is currently due December 2023.

* New on John Garth’s site, an article on “The mood music of G.B. Smith, T.C.B.S.”.

* New on Archive.org, to borrow, The Ring Goes Ever On: Proceedings of the Tolkien 2005 Conference (2008). The conference was held in Birmingham in 2005. Archive.org only has “Volume One”, although even that is a table-trembling 434 pages. Appears to be well out-of-print, with only one paper copy on Amazon (used at £85).

* And finally, a rare Twitter-trawl reveals… the usual utter piffle. But also something of the latest Amon Hen #301, the publication from the Tolkien Society. It has a ‘centrefold’, no less. In the form of a 1960s-style Frodo Baggins cut-out paper-doll. Yes, really, in a two-page colour spread. I’ll spare you the picture.

Tolkien Gleanings #80.

* Further details of the new volume of the Tolkien Letters. Specifically, where the new letters are being found. A new article in The Bookseller reveals that the original Letters…

“… was not the book envisaged by Humphrey and Christopher [Tolkien]. At the publisher’s request, they were required to reduce the original selection to what was then deemed a publishable extent. By going back to the editors’ original typescripts and notes, it has finally been possible for us to reinstate the 150 letters they excised purely for length – an additional 50,000 words – and publish the book as originally intended.”

Which means the new edition will be these, and presumably any other letters which have since turned up. Sounds good. The title of the early November book is The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien: Revised and Expanded edition. The £20 hardback is now pre-ordering for delivery well before Christmas 2023 and its inevitable UK postal strikes.

* A PhD thesis for Concordia University in Canada, freely online in PDF, Mere Love: The Theology of Need and Gift-Love in the Fiction of C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien (November 2021).

* At the University of Leiden, a course titled The Medieval in Middle-Earth: J.R.R. Tolkien and Old English Philology, running 2023-2024. Unusual for focusing on one man’s academic work, and in Philology too. Starting September, and seemingly limited to the university’s eligible students. Who should book early, I’d guess, as it’ll probably fill up quickly.

“Reading Tolkien’s academic work will first of all provide students with a better insight into the culture, language and literature of early medieval England, as well as the methodology of Old English philology. At the same time, it will also illuminate their reading of Tolkien’s fantasy fiction.”

* A fine fresh scan of Travellers’ tales: a book of marvels (1927), new and free on Archive.org. Previously only available as one of the abysmal Digital Library of India scans. An accessible English collection of the material Tolkien would have known, though some of it perhaps only by reputation, by circa 1930.

* And finally, a new article on “How to Replicate J.R.R. Tolkien’s Education for Your Child”. I’d add a ‘daily translation’ exercise (Latin, Anglo-Saxon, Middle English etc), which was a commonplace for children of ability in Tolkien’s time. Also lots and lots of walking to school. Or the home-schooled equivalent.

Tolkien Gleanings #79.

* The latest Inklings Variety Hour podcast interviews Verlyn Flieger at length, and also reveals that there’s to be an interview with Michael Drout “next week”. Which should be due any day now, by my reckoning.

* In Germany the Fantastische Welten in Oberlech (‘Fantastic Worlds in Oberlech’) event, in what appears to a rather plush hotel in the Oberlech mountains. Seems to be in German and annual. Here’s some of the blurb, translated…

From 28th to 31st July 2023, exchange ideas about the creator of Middle-earth. In six specialist lectures this year, we will examine various questions from a scholarly perspective. Such as these: “Can fantasy lead to a deeper awareness of our real history?” and “How do voices and silences function in Tolkien’s stories?”

* Currently new on YouTube, Tolkien: A Film Portrait (1996, 107 minutes) at 480px and without a watermark (older YouTube uploads of this seem at first glance to either be in Russian or have a watermark). Can also be found at Archive.org at much better quality (the bot-built .torrent file there is messed up and doesn’t include the 8Gb .MP4 file found via the MP4 list — use DownThemAll). Don’t worry, I’m not causing anyone lost income over this link. I checked. Amazon UK has the documentary as VHS tape only, completely unavailable either new or used. eBay also has nothing. Amazon USA only has a listing for J.R.R. Tolkien – An Authorized Film Portrait on DVD in 2003, but I suspect that’s a ‘ghost’ listing and that it was never issued on DVD. If it had been, then the Tolkien collectors would know about it by now as an ultra-rarity. Anyway, if the DVD ever existed then that too is unavailable. The documentary is known by several names, but despite its title it seems never to have been in cinemas. It seems rather to have been a ‘direct to videotape’, and thus wasn’t strained though the political sieve of the BBC. I can find no trace of any archival print being held in some vault, such as that of the British Film Institute. Nor even a single review, just one forum pundit saying that it’s the best of the bunch.

* ‘J.R.R. Tolkien – Person’ at the National Portrait Gallery website. Four pictures, at a good size.

* Some Tolkien letters are coming up for auction on 22nd June 2023, these being the letters to a Miss F.L. Perry and another to a Miss Flint. The Bonhams website now has nice scans online. Right-click and ‘Open image in new tab’, and then zoom, for the largest size.

* New on Word on Fire, thoughtful thoughts on “Lessons from Tolkien’s “Leaf by Niggle””. Warning: plot spoilers.

* In the localist Chicago Reader last week, “Twenty years after the movie trilogy’s conclusion, local author reflects on working with composer Howard Shore”. This mentions the well-reviewed book The Music of the Lord of the Rings Films: A Comprehensive Account of Howard Shore’s Scores. In my view the music and voice-work was the best thing to come out of these movies, and it’s wonderful that they’ve since passed so powerfully (if unofficially) into Phil Dragash’s full-cast unabridged LoTR audio.

* And finally, those going ‘a hunting on the North Moors this summer may want to pack a Thigh Book Holster of the hand-made sort newly available on Etsy…

Although I can see immediately that it’s likely to chafe someone in summer-clothes and will also restrict the blood flow. Nice for posing at a hipster campfire party or deep winter walking when well-padded, but not for walking ten miles in summer. Perhaps better to get one of these, into the shoulder-bag for which a slim Hobbit-sized paperback can also slip. Regrettably, you can’t now get them from Amazon.

Tolkien Gleanings #78.

* More details are emerging about the forthcoming “expanded” book of Tolkien’s letters. Turns out it really is being expanded with a substantial amount of letters from Tolkien, and not just three or four. To be… “revised and expanded, with ~150 new letters and additional material restored to existing letters”. Sounds good, and hopefully they won’t all be about how to pay the bills or his work on academic committees. The new expanded edition is due in November 2023. The Tolkien Guide is also making an online discovery tool to aid researchers.

* The new blog post “Introduction to Tolkien’s Metaphysics” has thoughts on the book The Flame Imperishable: Tolkien, St. Thomas, and the Metaphysics of Faerie.

* Tolkien: Medieval and Modern: Syllabus 2023. I wasn’t aware of this online course and see that it has just completed classes. The detailed course schedule and outline is still online, and it looks like 2023’s final student essays are now being posted on the blog. Such as “Invocation and Worship: Reverence for Elbereth”.

* In Spanish, with English abstract, ““The chanting becomes loud and clear”: J.R.R. Tolkien’s poetry, Anglo-Saxon epics and medieval liturgy on those who have fallen in battle” (2023). In open access.

* And finally, new on Archive.org, Christopher Isherwood’s diaries…

[May 1967] “Wystan [Auden] was wearing a sweater with the word GIMLI on it. [… He] remarked that the book on Tolkien which he has been writing has been held up, or maybe abandoned, because Tolkien didn’t like having the sources of some of his material revealed.”

The editor’s footnote suggests Auden later destroyed the entire text, after objections by Tolkien. Auden had apparently also been rather catty about the humdrum appearance of Tolkien’s house, which didn’t help matters.

Tolkien Gleanings #77.

* New and free in Hektoen: Journal of the Medical Humanities, “The Medical Inkling: R.E. Havard, C.S. Lewis, and J.R.R. Tolkien”. On Tolkien’s doctor, who was also an Inkling….

“Lewis quickly introduced Havard to Tolkien, who also became one of Havard’s closest friends — and patients. In praising his medical acumen, Tolkien contrasted Havard with physicians who were “mere ‘doctors’ [and] tinkerers with machinery””.

* The Legendarium Podcast hits #400 (congratulations). The episode is a new 50-minute interview with the author of the book Tolkien Dogmatics (2022), discussing “J.R.R. Tolkien’s Theology”. This is a different interview to the one I linked in Gleanings #72.

* In The Stanford Review, “Decline Without Fall: Tolkien and the Long Defeat”.

* In The Imaginative Conservative, “Faith & Fantasy: Chesterton, Tolkien, Lewis, Rowling & Other Tellers of Tall Tales”.

* Open access in the latest ANQ: A Quarterly Journal of Short Articles, Notes and Reviews, a short note on “The Relevance of Rivendell’s Growing Cultural Value from The Hobbit to The Lord of the Rings”. Don’t overlook the additional comments in the Notes.

* And finally, help fund John Garth’s work on Tolkien. He’s using a crowdfunder service that’s new to me, Steady HQ.

Tolkien Gleanings #76.

* Signum University’s Mythmoot X conference, themed as “Homeward Bound”. 22nd-25th June 2023, in Virginia USA. $75 for an online ticket, booking now.

* Coming in August 2023, the new book Theology, Fantasy, and the Imagination. An edited collection, for which Amazon UK doesn’t yet have the TOCs. But I tracked them down and the book has only one Tolkien chapter, titled “Between Tolkien and the Philosophers: Greek and Scholastic Theories of Phantasia“.

* An older article that some may have overlooked, to be found in the British open access journal Writing in Practice. This is “The Grounds of Tolkien: unmappable, unbookable” (2018)… “setting Tolkien in the context of other creative writers of his time and the present day, draws on documentation of his creative practices”. Interesting, and especially in the substantial section on maps and mapping. But it’s perhaps equally interesting for demonstrating what is lost, when the academy’s ‘theory’ is unable to even mention religion.

* A short but perceptive review of the book Tolkien Dogmatics (2022) in March 2023, for the English Churchman newspaper… “One of the most interesting excurses in the book is on the topic of whether Tolkien considered himself to be writing inspired [i.e. ‘by God’] literature. Alarming though this proposition may sound, the reality of what he actually meant by it is benign.”

* And finally, “J.R.R. Tolkien and Imre Makovecz: Those Who Wage War Against the Death of God”. A new article in English, comparing Tolkien and an architect well-known in Hungary… “Both figures knew that they could not resurrect the dead, or bring the long-lost past back to life, but they could reimagine it in a way particular to them and the unique talents they possessed”.

Tolkien Gleanings #75.

* In the latest VII: Journal of the Marion E. Wade Center (June 2022)…

   – Tolkien as Allegory: A Study in “Smith of Wooton Major” ($)

   – Tolkien, and the Power of Allusion in “Leaf by Niggle” ($)

   – Review of Tolkien & The Classical World (open access)

   – Review of Law, Government, and Society in J.R.R. Tolkien’s Works (open access)

* A PhD thesis for Oxford Brookes University, Making Worlds Collide: Using Tolkien’s Fantasy Literature to Create a New Leadership Development Framework (2020). Includes sections on “The Biographical Context of Tolkien’s Leadership Writing”, and “Tolkien’s Possible Implicit Leadership Beliefs”. Freely available online.

* In Spanish, Vision ambiental del hogar en la obra Britanica La Comunidad del Anillo de J.R.R. Tolkien (2023, short trans. ‘Visions of a natural home in The Fellowship of the Ring‘). Suggests that The Shire as depicted in Fellowship offers a… “concept of home, in which … nature is not placed in a separate and artificial space, but on the same level as the protagonists of the stories.”

* In the city of York, at the annual Ridings of Yorkshire Society Conference 2023 in June, “a talk by Tolkien & the East Riding expert Michael Flowers”. Elsewhere, this is clarified as “speaking on Tolkien and the East Riding”.

* David Bratman takes a look at the remarkable family history of R. W. Reynolds. Reynolds was one of Tolkien’s most influential school teachers in the city of Birmingham (“Mr. R. W. Reynolds, King Edward’s School, Birmingham”), and someone whose opinion on literary matters Tolkien continued to value more than a decade later. It was for Reynolds that Tolkien wrote the ‘Sketch of the Mythology’ (1926-30).

* And finally, a new Visual Collecting Guide to “non-Tolkien Books with Tolkien Content”. The most impressive cover is the Winter’s Tales for Children 1 (1965), the start of a four-book series, to which Tolkien kindly contributed the previously unpublished “The Dragon’s Visit”. Not on Archive.org.

Tolkien Gleanings #74.

* A new oliphaunt-sized YouTube playlist which collects John Garth interviews and talks. 22 hours in total!

* The Italian Tolkien Association tours the new Images/Imaginaires exhibition, with interior photographs. In Italian, but easily translated via Google.

* Call for papers: “Research and meeting days on Tolkien” in Paris, France on 6th-7th October 2023. This forthcoming academic colloquium, which appears to be annual, will be…

“in line with previous generalist colloquiums which have provided the French-speaking public with new insights into Tolkien and his work. Translation and reception issues may be highlighted [and also appreciated will be] clarifications of aspects of the life of the author. Young researchers are especially welcomed. Communications may be in French or English”.

Proposals should be sent to the email address colloquium2023@tolkiendil.com before 31st May 2023.

* A new podcast interview with “the man behind The Tolkien Collector’s Guide“.

* And finally, Aziff Azuddin’s new Tolkien Malaysia Map (2020-23), Malaysia and Indonesia finely done in the Tolkien mapping style.

Tolkien Gleanings #73.

* Tolkien, Christianity, and Art… “The Lumen Christi Institute has designed this two-day seminar to introduce major themes and debates from the Catholic Church’s history to a wide online audience” and in the context of Tolkien and his work. 18th-22nd July 2023, led by faculty lecturers. $95 with “a limited number of scholarships available”. Though it appears not be an actual online seminar? Probably face-to-face in Chicago, recorded and then to be placed online as a recording? Anyway, wherever it is… booking now.

* New to me, Not The Fellowship: Dragons Welcome! (2022), a Luna Press book intended… “to foreground Middle-earth characters, across ages and races, who may not be as familiar as the Fellowship.” Includes, among others, articles on “The Last Prince of Cardolan: memory and mediation in the mortuary archaeology of Middle-earth”, and “The Gaffer: between cabbages and potatoes”.

* Feeling peckish after reading some heavy Tolkien scholarship? Both of these are in open access, “‘What’s Taters, Precious?’: Food in Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings“ (2010) and “Simple Pleasures in Tolkien’s Poetry: Eating and Drinking and the Depth of Things” (2011). The latter crunchable PDF can be had without an Academia.edu sign-up, by searching for the start of the title in Google Scholar. Academia.edu has a special arrangement with Scholar, to give direct PDF access from its search results.

* The book Environmental Humanities and Theologies (2018) reviewed…

“One of the strongest chapters, chapter 2, shows a clear lineage from scripture to literature, weaving together a critical reading of [the Bible’s] Genesis with the disparaging view of wetlands depicted by Beowulf and The Lord of the Rings.”

Of course it could be that the “disparaging” is simply due to swamps being nasty smelly things full of dangerous mires and biting insects.

* Publications of the annual FantaelX event in Spain. Including four free annual volumes of scholarly work on the fantastic, in PDF and in English. A keynote at the 2022 event was “Vampires and Werewolves in Middle-earth” which is not online and has no abstract, but one can be found elsewhere. In the changing landscape of Middle-earth the reader’s journey sometimes encounters…

“a liminal space within the text, blur[ring] the boundaries between the natural and the supernatural, inviting the reader to confront the uncanny in an otherwise familiar-seeming subcreation. This includes those icons of the horror/fantasy genre and popular culture: werewolves and vampires.”

* And finally, fountains play a very subtle part in LoTR. Such as the contrasts that the attentive reader can find between those in Lorien, the overgrown ones in Ithilien (“land of many fountains”), and the top-most Court of the Fountain in Minas Tirith. One interesting point I hadn’t known — re: ‘the science of LoTR’ — is that in operation fountains are too fast for shadows.

Tolkien Gleanings #72.

* Apply — Inklings Project… “The Inklings Project requests fellowship applications from faculty at universities and colleges to encourage the teaching of the works of the Inklings, especially C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien.” Deadline: 1st July 2023. Note also their set of past “Inklings-Related Course Syllabi”.

* My pick of Tolkien material in the newly open-access journal Sehnsucht: The C.S. Lewis Journal…

    – The Lore of Wood and Stone: Magic in the Chronicles of Narnia and The Lord of the Rings (article)

    – Review of Tolkien (the cinema movie)

    – Review of The Worlds of J.R.R. Tolkien

    – Review of Middle-earth and the Return of the Common Good

    – Review of High Towers and Strong Places: A Political History of Middle

    – Review of An Encouraging Thought: The Christian Worldview in the Writings of J.R.R. Tolkien

* Upstream Podcast – “J.R.R. Tolkien the theologian?” (April 2023) in which… “Dr. Austin Freeman discusses his book, Tolkien Dogmatics: Theology through Mythology with the Maker of Middle-earth”. Also a later Upstream Podcast – Further Upstream reflection on that interview. The .MP3 download at Listen Notes is found under the “More…” button.

* Newly on Archive.org, Tree of Tales: Tolkien, literature, and theology (Baylor University Press, 2007). Including a chapter titled, with admirable optimism for a dismal academy, “Tolkien and the Future of Literary Studies”.

* And finally, The Sheldon Tapestry Map: Oxfordshire. Currently restored and on display in Oxford.