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#1 |
Curmudgeonly Wordwraith
Join Date: Jun 2007
Location: Ensconced in curmudgeonly pursuits
Posts: 2,506
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The Clerk’s Forgotten Tale: Tolkien’s Lost Chaucer
I don't believe this particular tome has been discussed previously, but I am genuinely intrigued to read noted Medievalist John M. Bowers' latest effort Tolkien’s Lost Chaucer, in which Dr. Bowers uses Tolkien's notes from an abandoned project (a Clarendon edition of selected works of Chaucer), and intersperses additional biographical intersections of Tolkien and Chaucer.
https://interestingliterature.com/20...VAuaKOMCw_zuqo I wonder if Chaucer's corrupted and wholly incorrigible Pardoner ever made his way into some of Tolkien's more vile characters.
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And your little sister's immaculate virginity wings away on the bony shoulders of a young horse named George who stole surreptitiously into her geography revision. |
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#2 |
Curmudgeonly Wordwraith
Join Date: Jun 2007
Location: Ensconced in curmudgeonly pursuits
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Hmmm...and given the lack of discussion, it would seem my theory that Tolkien's work on 14th century Middle-English text -- save for Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Pearl, and Sir Orfeo -- is not a point of interest, and has largely gone undiscussed in online Tolkien circles (at least to my recollection).
Has anyone ever analyzed Tolkien's A Middle English Vocabulary? It was originally meant to accompany Kenneth Sisam's Fourteenth Century Verse and Prose, but for some unexplained reason Tolkien's supplement was included in only a few of the subsequent impressions of Sisam's book, and has remained a standalone publication for the most part. In any case, It is Tolkienesque to the core, reflecting his attention to detail (some would insist it was his belaboring minutiae). The poems and prose in Sisam's tome finish at 203 pages (300 with notes), while Tolkien's supplement equates to 176 pages in the edition I have. An enlightening little book I have used for the thornier passages in both "Vision of Piers Plowman" and "The Canterbury Tales".
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And your little sister's immaculate virginity wings away on the bony shoulders of a young horse named George who stole surreptitiously into her geography revision. |
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#3 |
Loremaster of Annúminas
Join Date: Oct 2006
Posts: 2,316
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Well, somebody has "analyzed" his note on sigelhearwan and found it racist.....
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The entire plot of The Lord of the Rings could be said to turn on what Sauron didn’t know, and when he didn’t know it. |
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#4 |
Curmudgeonly Wordwraith
Join Date: Jun 2007
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Well, if they made a film out of the analysis, I suppose it would be termed a "black comedy".
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And your little sister's immaculate virginity wings away on the bony shoulders of a young horse named George who stole surreptitiously into her geography revision. |
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#5 |
Loremaster of Annúminas
Join Date: Oct 2006
Posts: 2,316
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It's often forgotten today that Tolkien was considered one of his generation's leading Chaucer scholars- not for nothing did Masefield choose him to recite Nun's Priest's and Reeve's* at the 1938 and 39 Summer Diversions. Unfortunately, hardly a word on Chaucer by Tolkien ever reached publication- what a dragon-hoard of unfinished works Tolkien accumulated!
*Yes, in the original. From memory.
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The entire plot of The Lord of the Rings could be said to turn on what Sauron didn’t know, and when he didn’t know it. |
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