Early student social activity in London tended to be quite serious and worthy in its expression, characterised by programmes of lectures, debates and sporting fixtures. However, this was beginning to change by the 1890s, which witnessed boisterous 'Town and Gown' antics by students that continued into Edwardian times. The first real rag at King's College [...]
In the sixties, as Tolkien’s hobbit and elves set sail across the wide Atlantic, I was a child growing up in an American working class family. My stepfather was a truck driver, often unemployed, [...]
The returning soldiers did not feel tempted to rag about, break windows, get drunk, or have tussles with the police and races with the proctors’ “bulldogs”, as in the old days.
via Oxford Oxfordshire – All Souls College, Balliol College, Bodleian Library, Brasenose College, Christ Church, Clarendon Building., Corpus Christi College.
Tolkien was a student “in the [...]
Continuing this thought.
On one famed island in hereabouts looms the fortress of Michael Moorcock, who made his name by reversing every trope coined by Robert E. Howard. Howard’s Conan was a barbarian; Moorcock’s Elric was an over-refined aesthete from a corrupt civilization. Conan was bronzed brawny; Elric was pale and sickly; and so on.
There is [...]
I’ve been reading Robert E. Howard. Just finished a short-story about a crusader. Howard is better known for his fictional characters such as Conan, Kull, and Solomon Kane.
If you wonder how Tolkien’s fiction qualifies as “Christian,” reading a few stories by Robert E. Howard will snap the issues into focus for you. Howard, like Tolkien, [...]
“Touching your cap to the Squire may be damn bad for the Squire but it’s damn good for you”
–J.R.R. Tolkien: A Biography (p. 133)
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Those who have rediscovered The Lord of the Rings through the wonderful (if not always accurate) Peter Jackson movies probably have an image of wild New Zealand locations whenever they think of Middle Earth.
Yet J.R.R. Tolkien’s inspiration for many of his literary locations came not from the exotic wilderness of a foreign land, however beautiful, [...]
… Very much love to you, and all my thoughts and prayers. How much I wish to know! “When you return to the lands of the living, and we re-tell our tales, sitting by a wall in the sun, laughing at old grief, you shall tell me then” (Faramir to Frodo).
So wrote J. R. R. [...]
YouTube – Leonard Nimoy’s Ballad of Bilbo Baggins.
When I typed “Nimoy” in Youtube’s search blank, the top suggestion was “bilbo baggins.” As far as I know Nimoy is more famous for this among the young than for Star Trek.
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I’m not Anglican Catholic, but I thought this post was a pretty good (and humorous) use of Tolkien.
It may not seem fair at first since Julie Andrews’ character goes into a crisis after her first song among the live hills (and that is something of a Tolkienish emphasis).
But Tolkien’s epic is a much better [...]
YouTube – J.R.R. Tolkien reads …. ‘Elbereth Gilthoniel’.
It has always surprised me how “secular” Middle-earth is, but I think I said in my book (which I’m in the middle of revising) that there is no prayer in the story. I’m not the only one to make that observation, but this song keeps bothering me. Does [...]
YouTube – J.R.R. Tolkien reciting “Namárië”.
Ai! laurië lantar lassi súrinen,
yéni únótimë ve rámar aldaron!
Yéni ve lintë yuldar avánier
mi oromardi lisse-miruvóreva
Andúnë pella , Vardo tellumar
nu luini yassen tintilar i eleni
ómaryo airetári -lírinen.
Sí man i yulma nin enquantuva?
An sí Tintallë Varda Oiolossëo
ve fanyar máryat Elentári ortanë,
ar ilyë tier undulávë lumbulë;
ar sindanóriello caita mornië
i falmalinnar imbë met, ar [...]
Years before I had rejected as disgusting cynicism by an old vulgarian the words of warning given me by old Joseph Wright.
“What do you take Oxford for, lad?”
“A university, a place of learning.”
“Nay, lad, it’s a factory! And what’s it making? I’ll tell you. It’s making fees. Get that in your head, and you’ll begin [...]
But I fear that an Air Force is fundamentally irrational thing, per se. I could wish dearly that you could have nothing to do with anything so monstrous. It is in fact a sore trial to me that any son of mine should serve this modern Moloch… In any case, it is only a kind [...]
Tolkien objected to defining fairies as “diminutive” and re-invented (recovered?) elves as heroes of great stature. He then authored heroic men who were much the same.
But then he invented out of thin air a diminutive creature and had them save the world.
And they did it with some help from the giant heroes because they treated [...]
“Do I suffer this impertinence because of the possession of a German name, or do their lunatic laws require a certification of ‘arisch’ origin from all persons of all countries?” –Tolkien to his publishers writing about a letter from a German publisher inquiring if he was of aryan origins.
“I cannot, however, forbear to comment that [...]
YouTube – John Tolkien on “The Hobbit”.
Transcript:
The actual beginning, though it was not really the beginning, but the actual flash point was – I remember very clearly I ?? I took umm I still see the corner in my house in 22 Northmoor Road ??. I got an enormous pile of exam papers there, and [...]
My political opinions lean more and more to Anarchy (philosophically understood, meaning abolition of control not whiskered men with bombs)—or to ‘unconstitutional Monarchy.’ I would arrest anybody who uses the word State (in any sense other than the inanimate realm of England and its inhabitants, a thing that has neither power, rights not mind); and [...]
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