J.R.R. Tolkien
John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (1892-1973) was an English philologist who specialized in an academic pursuit of Old English, Anglo-Saxon, Germanic, and Scandinavian criss-crossings in language — and who conquered the world of popular culture by his creation of the high-fantasy epics of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. He would be the first to agree that often the language created in his mind needed a people and their history to make the creation live, and he had the genius to become deeply interested in what happened to his language-speakers.
Tolkien was a veteran of trench warfare in WWI (reflected in his picture of Mordor). In less than six months he participated in many assaults and lost most of his close friends to the war. He was invalided out with trench fever, a wasting and potentially crippling consequence of the plague of lice in the works. He began a life in academia, eventually carving a distinguished career both for his teaching and his scholarship. His entire adult life, however, had an ever-present onging project with Middle-Earth and its peoples. He published The Hobbit in 1937 and finally finished tinkering with The Lord of the Rings after the war, publishing the three volumes in the early 1950s. The many volumes of his drafts and notes published posthumously by his son Christopher attest to his devotion to languages creating the world and fashioning its history.
It is easy to get lost with Tolkien, trying to track what he wrote when and how revising it affected his fantastic universe in a hundred different ways. It may be helpful when first reading him or even when going back to savor him once again to remember he wanted to find that pre-War England, to take journeys with friends, even if the journeys may be hazardous in a great and noble cause, and to return safely back to a comfortable shire.
A Middle English Reader and Vocabulary
A Middle English Reader and Vocabulary
Scholarly and highly informative, this anthology represents a distinctive contribution to the understanding and enjoyment of Middle English literature. Kenneth Sisam's well-chosen extracts from writings of the 14th century illustrate a rising new spirit in vernacular works. Selections include excerpts from such tales as Sir Gawayne and the Grene Knight and the Gest Hystoriale of the destruction of Troy, the immortal Piers Plowman, John Wycliffe's translation of the Bible, political commentaries, and poetry. In addition to notes on each selection and an informative appendix, this volume features an extensive glossary by J. R. R. Tolkien. Best known as the author of The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien was an Oxford University professor of linguistics whose "vocabulary" offers an effective and practical complement to this outstanding anthology.