Tolkien

1. Tolkien Thomas Honegger t.m.honegger@gmx.de

2. Poems & Professors • 1920-24 various poems with mythological or Middle-earth associations. • 1924 becomes Professor of English Language at Leeds University • 1925 publication of edition of SGGK • 1925 appointed Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford (see Letters p. 12f). • 1926 meets C.S. Lewis

3. Clive Staples ‘Jack’ Lewis

4. Friendship & Companionship • 11 May 1926: Tolkien meet Lewis for the first time at a meeting of the English Faculty at Merton College. Lewis was at that time 27 years old, heavily-built, wearing baggy clothes and had recently been elected Fellow and Tutor in English Language and Literature at Magdalen College.

5. Common interests • good talk, good food, good drink • literature & language • ‘Northernness’ • search for God, the meaning of Life …. • 1931: crucial discussion about the meaning of the myth of the dying god => Lewis develops from agnostic to confessing Christian

6. Lewis’ influence • The Inklings (and Lewis in particular) provided an appreciative, congenial yet critical audience for each other’s writings. • Lewis on Tolkien: “He has only two reactions to criticism. Either he begins the whole work over again from the beginning of else takes no notice at all.” (Carpenter 149)

7. The Tolkien Family 1

8. The Tolkien Family 2

9. A Day in the Life of Prof. J.R.R. Tolkien(Carpenter, Biography, 120-126)

10. Inspiration through words • “On a blank leaf I scrawled ‘In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit’. I did not and do not know why. I did nothing about it, for a long time, and for some years I got no further than the production of Thror’s Map.”

12. Tolkien the Hobbit 1 • “I am in fact a hobbit in all but size. I like gardens, trees, and unmechanized farmlands; I smoke a pipe, and like good plain food (unrefrigerated), but detest French cooking;

13. Good Plain Food • “They were washed and in the middle of good deep mugs of beer […]. There was hot soup, cold meats, a blackberry tart, new loaves, slabs of butter, and half a ripe cheese: good plain food, as good as the Shire could show, and homelike enough to dispel the last of Sam’s misgivings (already much relieved by the excellence of the beer).”(LotR 170)

14. Tolkien the Hobbit 2 • I like, and even dare to wear in these dull days, ornamental waistcoats. I am fond of mushrooms (out of a field); have a very simple sense of humour […]; I go to bed late and get up late (when possible). I do not travel much.” (Carpenter 179f.)

18. A Philologist ? • “[…] he will tell you that he did not know that the herb you desire had any virtues, but that it is called westmansweed by the vulgar, and galenas by the noble, and other names in other tongues more learned, and after adding a few half-forgotten rhymes that he does not understand, he will regretfully inform you that there is none in the House, and he will leave you to reflect on the history of tongues.”(RotK, HoH)

19. ‘hobbit’ before The Hobbit:The Denham Tracts 1 • A series of pamphlets and jottings on folklore collected by Michael Denham, a Yorkshire tradesman, in the 1840s and 1850s. Re-edited by James Hardy for the Folklore Society in the 1890s. ‘hobbit’ appears in Volume 2 (1895).

20. The Denham Tracts 2 • List of 197 kinds of supernatural creatures (p. 79): pigmies, chittifaces, nixies, Jinny-burnt-tails, dudmen, hell-hounds, dopple-gangers, boggleboes, bogies, redmen, portunes, grants, hobbits, hobgoblins • Item no. 154: hobbits • Hardy (Index): ‘A class of spirits’

21. The Origin of Gandalf

22. The Origin of Gandalf 2 • Picture by the German painter Josef Madlener (after 1925).

25. hobbit 1 • + alive • + sedentary • + ‘in the ground’ dwelling • hobbit < Old English *hol-bytla • hol = hole, cave • bytla (masc. noun) < bytlan = to build (cf. Nobottle = New building) • hobbit = hole builder

26. hobbit 2 • ‘In a hole in the ground there lived a sedentary being that built holes.’

27. Völuspa (Poetic Edda): Dvergatal 1 • dvergar, or iorƒo, sem Durinn sagƒi. • Nyi oc Niƒi, Norƒri oc Suƒri, Austri oc Vestri, Alπiofr, Dvalinn, Bivorr, Bavorr, Bomburr, Nori, An oc Anarr, Ai, Mioƒvitnir. • Veigr oc Gandalfr, Vindalfr, ∏rainn,∏eccr oc ∏orinn, ∏ror, Virtr oc Litr,Nar oc Nyraƒr – nu hefi ec dverga– Reginn oc Raƒsviƒr – rett um talƒa.

28. Völuspa (Poetic Edda): Dvergatal 2 • Fili, Kili, Fundinn, Nali, Hepti, Vili, Hanarr, Sviurr, Frar, Hornbori, Fraegr oc Loni,Aurvangr, Iari, Eikinscialdi.

29. Völuspa (Poetic Edda): Dvergatal transl. • Many manlike figures they made,dwarfs from the earth, as Durin recounted • New-moon and Dark-of-moon, North and South,East and West, Master-thief, Delayer,Bivor, Bavor, Bombur, and Nori,An and Anar, Great-grandfather and Mead-wolf.

30. Völuspa (Poetic Edda): Dvergatal transl. • Liquor and Staff-elf, Wind-elf and Thrain,Known and Thorin, Thror, Colour and Wise,Corpse and New-advice: now I have rightly – Regin and Counsel-sharp –reckoned up the dwarfs.

31. Völuspa (Poetic Edda): Dvergatal transl. • Fili and Kili, Foundling and Nali,Haft and Vili, Hanar and Sviur,Frar and Hornborer, Fraeg and Sea-pool,Loamfield, Iari, Oakenshield.

32. Völuspa (Poetic Edda): Dvergatal 3 • dvergar, or iorƒo, sem Durinn sagƒi. • Nyi oc Niƒi, Norƒri oc Suƒri, Austri oc Vestri, Alπiofr, Dvalinn, Bivorr, Bavorr, Bomburr, Nori, An oc Anarr, Ai, Mioƒvitnir. • Veigr oc Gandalfr, Vindalfr, ∏rainn,∏eccr oc ∏orinn, ∏ror, Virtr oc Litr,Nar oc Nyraƒr – nu hefi ec dverga– Reginn oc Raƒsviƒr – rett um talƒa.

33. Völuspa (Poetic Edda): Dvergatal 4 • Fili, Kili, Fundinn, Nali, Hepti, Vili, Hanarr, Sviurr, Frar, Hornbori, Fraegr oc Loni,Aurvangr, Iari, Eikinscialdi.

34. The Tolkien Family

35. Legendarium Poems & stories since ca. 1914 (=> The Silmarillion 1977, The Book of Lost Tales 1983) The Hobbit (2nd 1951 and 3rd edition 1966) The Lord of the Rings Tom Bombadil Stories & Poems Father Xmas Letters (1920ff) Roverandom (1925) Mr Bliss (1932) Tom Bombadil(1934) The Hobbit (1937) The New Hobbit (1938) Farmer Giles (1938) Leaf by Niggle Smith of Wootton M. The Two Traditions

37. A Reader’s Report 1 • “Bilbo Baggins was a hobbit who lived in his hobbit-hole and never went for adventures, at last Gandalf the wizard and his dwarves perswaded him to go. He had a very exiting time fighting goblins and wargs. at last they got to the lonely mountain; Smaug, the dragon who gawreds it is killed and after a terrible battle with the goblins he returned home - rich!

38. A Reader’s Report 2 • “This book, with the help of maps, does not need any illustrations it is good and should appeal to all children between the ages of 5 and 9.” (Rayner Unwin [10 years old] to his father Sir Stanley Unwin, 10 August 1936)

39. Summary of the Plot 1 • Hobbiton, Bag End

44. Protagonists 1 • Bilbo Baggins • occupation? • cultural level? • postal service (morning letters), pipe, tobacco, potatoes, clocks, pocket-handkerchiefs • a thoroughly ‘modern’/anachronistic character. Victorian upper-middle class.

45. Protagonists 2 • Bilbo Baggins vs. Lobelia Sackville-Baggins • Baggins = food you take along; afternoon tea in a substantial form • Bag End = dead end • Cul-de-sac (pseudo-French; correct: impasse) • Sackville = ville/villa at the end of a cul-de-sac

46. Protagonists 3 • a bourgeois burglar • burh = town, fortified dwelling • Gandalf: ‘an old man with a staff’

48. Protagonists 4 • Thorin & Co