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.

Tolkien Gleanings #71.

* J.R.R. Tolkien’s “On Fairy-Stories” (unabridged), as an audiobook reading of over two hours, from Catholic Culture Audiobooks. Currently free on YouTube, with a date of March 2023. Hat-tip for the news to Bruce Charlton who comments… “The superb performance is by [American] voice-actor James W. Majewski; who really seems to understand what he is reading, so that it is expounded with great clarity.” The voice is relatively neutral and soft, and at a guess is perhaps a New England accent?

* A May 2023 YouTube interview with Peter Grybauskas about The Battle of Maldon by J.R.R. Tolkien. Starts at 3:23.

* The March issue of the University Bookman had a scholarly and critical review of the new book The Fall of Numenor.

* This month’s Essential C.S. Lewis round-up brings news that Sehnsucht: The C.S. Lewis Journal is now open access and has a new university repository URL. This long-running scholarly journal has a pony-load of Tolkien content, as you might expect, mostly to be found in the reviews.

* And finally, a two-hour stage version of The Hobbit, at the Oxford Playhouse at the end of June 2023. It seems to be a local youth production, judging by the rehearsal pictures. Booking now.

Tolkien Gleanings #70.

* A new Masters dissertation for Tennessee Technological University, “J.R.R. Tolkien Depicts Camaraderie and Combat Trauma in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings“ (2023). The author… “highlights the specific trauma of Tolkien’s characters and how they connect to the trauma combat veterans face in modern warfare [with] insight into camaraderie [and its role in war and on returning home]”. Abstract and Introduction only, free online.

* A four-day event at the University of Lisbon in Portugal, just started and running through this week. “The road goes ever on and on”: Commemorating J.R.R. Tolkien (1892-1973) has keynote speeches, round tables, lectures, a book launch, singing and more. Including Thomas Honegger on “Beautiful and sublime – and never mind the pointed ears. Visualising the Elves throughout the centuries”. Other talks include: “About Ships, Pirates, and Distant Shores: Tolkien’s maritime world”; “Tolkien’s Anarcho-Monarchism”; “Tolkien’s Use of Magic” and more.

Note there is a streaming version, albeit on Zoom, and I guess some of the talks may be in English. Hopefully there will also be YouTube recordings in due course.

* The above conference will also launch the book J.R.R. Tolkien: Construtor de Mundos (2023). Apparently… “a first approach to certain figures and spaces” in the Legendarium, previous un-discussed in Portuguese.

* A Fantasy Study Day at the British Library in London. Saturday 17th June 2023. Booking now. This is ahead of their autumn/winter show, Fantasy: Realms of Imagination which opens on 27th October 2023 and which looks to have a strong political slant.

* A new free public-domain book in Spanish from the University of Salamanca, Authors In Search Of The Author: Literary Studies on Transcendent Identities (2023). Has the long essay “Desde y hacia el Logos: sacramentalismo y via pulchritudinis en Coleridge, Newman y Tolkien” (‘From and to the Logos: sacramentalism and via pulchritudinis in Coleridge, [Cardinal] Newman and Tolkien’). Can be freely translated and/or summarised in English, due to the permissive licence.

* And finally, a regrettable copyright response. Though such things seem somewhat moot, in a world newly inhabited by magic art-elves…

Tolkien Gleanings #69.

* In the latest edition of the UK magazine The Critic, “A Theology of Parties”. As we head into the healing phase of the post-pandemic era, the author suggests C.S. Lewis and Tolkien as exemplars of the sort of fun-with-fellowship reunion parties we might be planning. This being the… “J.R.R. Tolkien who purportedly went to a New Year’s Party in the 1930s dressed as a polar bear.”

* A review of the book The Art of New Creation: Trajectories in Theology and the Arts (2022). One of the chapters is on place-making and “creation and new creation in the work of Tolkien”, while another discusses the role of imaginative power in Tolkien’s sub-creation.

* Creative Writing Summer School at Exeter College, Oxford. Very costly, and one wonders what sort of writer can possibly afford it… but it seems to be booking up rapidly. 23rd July – 12th August 2023.

* The art exhibition ‘Sur les traces de Tolkien et de l’imaginaire medieval’, 25th June 2023 to 28th January 2024. A large exhibition with… “over 250 drawings and paintings by John Howe” plus armour and medieval items. Not Paris, as had previously been mooted… rather it’s near Brest in Brittany, northern France.

* A large group exhibition in Georgia, USA, from 1st July – 5th August 2023. A 15 artist… “group exhibition of artworks inspired by J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings”.

* My Tolkien Gleanings PDF ‘zine version is now available. Including a 5,000 word illustrated essay on Radagast.

* And finally, who knew that Leonard Nimoy (Mr. Spock, Star Trek) recorded ‘The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins’ in 1967? That’s noted in a new open access journal article on “Remediating fantasy narratives for participatory fandom: Tolkien’s stories and their translations in films, videogames, music and other products of the culture industries”. As well as the usual survey, there are also a couple of pages on the “music industry, with reference to well-known songs and bands”. Mercifully, Archive.org only has a 30 second clip of the cringe-tasic “Ballad of Bilbo Baggins”.