English Paper Help

[Lady Ravyn]

Hi, guys! Remember me? It's been a while, I know, but I've been wuite the busy little bee this past year. I received my GED and started college this fall. I'm in English Comp 1 right now, and my professor is, shall we say... not easy. For our project final exam, we have to write an extremely short paper (only 3 pages!!!) on three achivements of a person. I, of course, chose J.R.R. Tolkien, as he fit all the credentials needed in order to use a person for your topic (I think he was one of maybe three people who fit the description lolol) Anyway, my proffessor apparently has NO taste whatsoever, as he scrunched up his face at the mention of our beloved Tolkien's name. He said, "Well what did he do besides writing about Middle-Earth?" I hid my utter hatred of the man and informed him that Tolkien was also a professor of linguistics at Oxford who had done much research into the origins of the English language as well as other languages. Tolkien also helped to rekindle an interest in archaic British literature, such as Beowulf, by reserching on those topics as well and bringing in new interpretations and...things... My professor eventually caved, and said that as long as I only used LotR and other Middle-Earth related items as ONE achievment, then I could do Tolkien. (Yay me!!! ) So, here's my question: There's plenty of material out there on Toolkien's Middle-Earth writings, but not so much on his other accomplishments. I've found one or two things, but I honestly thought there'd be more that was readily available. (I know- I should have reasearched all that BEFORE I argued to use him; but what can I say? Foresight has never been my strong-suit... ) So does anyone have some ideas as to some good books or websites on his linguistic achievements and his accomplishments with other literature? I e-mailed someone from The Tolkien Society in hopes that they'd smile down on a lowly Tolkien-freak such as I and grant me the knowledge I need. lol
So yeah. Any help would be GREATLY GREATLY appreciated. I mean it. I may even name some children after you.

Good to be Mooting again, btw.

[Earniel]

I don't know how big these acchievements should be, but maybe you can check out his translation and analysis of 'The Fight at Finnsburg'. It's an Anglo-saxon myth/story on which Tolkien worked and gave several lectures about in Oxford.

A booklet I have on it rather makes his work on the poem look like ground-breaking and novel. Tolkien apparently handed all his material on it over to Alan Bliss who then editted the material for publishing. It was quite an interesting read.

But I don't know whether you'll be able to track it down, if you want to. I only found my copy during the Movie aera when all things Tolkien were thrown on the shelves in vast amounts. In any case, the Book is called 'Finn and Hengest' and Tolkien is given as the author with Alan Bliss as editor. Mine is printed by HarperCollinsPublishers in 1998.

[Beren3000]

Maybe you should try looking up stuff about the time he helped with the OED (Oxford Englihs Dictionary) You could probably refer to Humphrey Carpenter's biography of him for that subject.

[Lady Ravyn]

found some stuff on the oed (which i didn't know anything about until just after i posted that! ) and i will look up that book, earniel. thank u!


(o, and any further help would still be appreciated)

[sun-star]

Getting hold of a biography is probably the best place to start. I also suggest you try and find one of Shippey's books on Tolkien - he's a medievalist himself and has written on this aspect of Tolkien's work. You mentioned Beowulf, so I guess you know about "Beowulf and the Critics", Tolkien's lecture (which was later published) on how critics had misinterpreted the poem. That's probably his most famous piece of literary criticism and it definitely counts as an "achievement"! Other important works of scholarship by Tolkien include his editions of Gawain and the Green Knight and Ancrene Riwle, which are still the standard editions of those texts. He wrote many articles on philology - this bibliography might help you find some of them.

[Lady Ravyn]

yes, i have heard of "beowulf and the critics"; i'm attempting to get a hold of it. i also read about "the ancrene riwle" but i can't find that ANYWHERE. i mean, it's on amazon (if you look REALLY hard) but i can't seem to get it from any sort of library and i own a copy of "sir gawain" i shall definetly look up this 'Shippey' person, though... i found a couple books out there by a Michael D. C. Drout- ever hear of him?

[sun-star]

I wouldn't bother trying to find Ancrene Riwle - it's pretty hard to read if you're not used to Middle English. All you need to know is that Tolkien did an important edition of it

This review is a helpful summary of Beowulf and the Critics (and Drout). The lecture is also included in a book called "The Monsters and the Critics", which you might find in a library, and has some other essays on other scholarly subjects by Tolkien.

Good luck

[Lady Ravyn]

hey! i actually went out and bought this book called "the ring of the words" on tolkien and the oed, so we'll see if that's any help... and hopefully this one book i've borrowed with an essay in it by tolkien called "beowulf and the critics" is the same as the one we've been discussing. *sigh* i think i have enough...

thanks for all your help, guys!!! *hugz*

[Gwaimir Windgem]

He also helped translate the Jerusalem Bible, and wrote a number of articles on mythology, such as his key work On Fairy-Stories.

[Jon S.]

His service in WWI was a pretty damn brave of an accomplishment in my view.

[Gwaimir Windgem]

Do we know that much? He was wounded in Sorbonne, if I recall, and discharged, but any particular bravery is unknown to me.

[Earniel]

Fighting in and surviving the First World War could be seen as an achievement in it self, at least it would do to me.

[Count Comfect]

Originally Posted by Lady Ravyn

hey! i actually went out and bought this book called "the ring of the words" on tolkien and the oed, so we'll see if that's any help... and hopefully this one book i've borrowed with an essay in it by tolkien called "beowulf and the critics" is the same as the one we've been discussing. *sigh* i think i have enough...

thanks for all your help, guys!!! *hugz*

I'm sure it's the same essay - it is really quite famous.

Good luck.

[Jon S.]

Originally Posted by Eärniel

Fighting in and surviving the First World War could be seen as an achievement in it self, at least it would do to me.

Thanks for getting it.

[Jon S.]

P.S. In the foreword to the second edition of The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien wrote, "By 1918, all but one of my close friends were dead." Very sad.

[Lady Ravyn]

Originally Posted by Gwaimir Windgem

Do we know that much? He was wounded in Sorbonne, if I recall, and discharged, but any particular bravery is unknown to me.

really, if you look in any biography there isn't all that much about his experiences. he was with that group of fuseliers(sp?) that i can't think of the name of right now and as somone said beofre, he was quoted as saying that all hos friends were dead by 1918; i read in one biography that by the time he left the war, he only had one friend still alive from his group or regiment or whatever you call it. c.s. lewis i think said that that in and of itself really changed tolkien, and brought out a darker side to his writings. how do you think he came up with the attitude to write things on mordor and such? i mean true, he was spurred forward by what was happening as his beloved english countryside was modernized, but he had to be in at least a some-what dark frame of mind to come up with some of that stuff. that's gotta be hard on a person- losing friends right in front of your eyes like that.

although i believe that to be a tremendous achievement, i'm not using that as part of my paper because i'm not quite sure what my english professor would say; probably something to the extent of "lots of people fought and suffered in WWI; what's specific to tolkien in having fought in the war? did he win any medals? did he do something extraordinary that can be only attributed to HIM?"

what can i say?
so yeah my achievements are the OED, middle earth and his stuff on middle english literature (i.e. beowulf or sir gawain and the green knight etc.)
i actually have enought on the philology part of things, but i only have really one resource for the stuff on beowulf ("beowulf and the critics" as i've mentioned before) so if anyone has any other boks or websites on the lit. parts of his accomplishments, that'd be helpful!

(i think i'll post the essay here when i'm done with it and everything so you guys can read it; after all- you've been quite influential in it's creation! )

[Earniel]

Originally Posted by Lady Ravyn

(i think i'll post the essay here when i'm done with it and everything so you guys can read it; after all- you've been quite influential in it's creation! )

That would be much appreciated.

[Jon S.]

Yes, I'd really like to read it, too.

[Lady Ravyn]

SUCCESS!!!!!!!!
i have DONE IT!

thank you, sweet Lord, i am FINALLY done with it! *phew!*

i shall post it soon, but for now i'm retiring to a hard-earned bed.

[Lady Ravyn]

omg i never posted it?! shame on me!

ok, well here 'tis, though i truly wish i had been allowed to make it longer... or at least that i had been smart enough to save it seperately before i cut it down to this minimalistic thing...

enjoy!

Three Accomplishments of J. R. R. Tolkien
by Lady Ravyn
copyright 2006- no stealing!

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien was born January 3, 1892, and has become one of the most beloved authors of the 20th century. His love of legend and linguistics inspired him to create the elaborate world of Middle-earth, which brought him forth from a quiet Anglo-Saxon professor at Oxford to immortality through his work. The world over has found new meaning in ancient literature through him, and generations living long beyond Tolkien’s lifetime have developed a love for those fields of study which he held so dear. The discoveries he made in philology are still an important part of what we know about the English language today. Tolkien accomplished many things throughout his life, but some of his most well-recognized achievements include his work on the Oxford English Dictionary, his famed lecture on Beowulf, and, most notably, his fictional writings about Middle-earth.

Tolkien worked as a lexicographer on the Oxford English Dictionary. He was hired in February 1919 (Gilliver 7) as an assistant lexicographer, working on words beginning with the letter w (9). Tolkien had switched to the School of English Literature at Oxford University with options in comparative philology and Old Norse from a different line of study (3). This apparent interest in language and its origins carried over into his work with the OED, and he was quoted as having said, “I learned more in those two years than in any other equal period of my life.” (Carpenter, Tolkien 113). He applied that knowledge which he had acquired in his first published work, A Middle English Vocabulary, which came out in 1922 (Gilliver 33). For a brief period in 1923 Tolkien was considered to take over as an editor of the OED, but he was discounted because, as R. W. Chapman, then of Oxford, put it, he hadn’t “(yet) enough driving power- besides he (had) a job.” (40) Working on the OED was a happy time for Tolkien (Carpenter, Tolkien 113), and after he stopped his work on it linguistics continued to be a large part of his life, influencing everything he did.

Tolkien can also be recognized as an authority on the Anglo-Saxon poem Beowulf. His lecture, Beowulf and the Critics, given to Oxford students in 1936, was ground breaking in its theory, according to Tolkien’s Last Great Work is Discovered by Maurice Chittenden. According to Mr. Chittenden, Tolkien asserted that Beowulf should be looked at as a poem for its literary values instead of being analyzed for its historical value only. Tom Sharp, of Medieval Forum, states that Tolkien felt very strongly about how the poem was interpreted, and had said:
Beowulf is in fact so interesting as poetry, in places poetry so powerful, that any historical value it may possess must always be of secondary importance.
In Chittenden’s review of Michael D. C. Drout’s book on the subject, he points out that Tolkien was inspired by the epic, and used many of its elements in his own writings. The fact that Tolkien also appreciated Beowulf as an Englishman is brought up by Sharp in his review of Drout’s book. Tolkien felt an attachment to the poem because of his deep pride in his country’s ancient legends, and so it’s no wonder that his “…Beowulf lectures were famed for their striking recitations…” (Carpenter, Inklings 59). Because of these criticisms of those who would down play Beowulf’s literary aspects, Tolkien forever changed how the poem was viewed.

Tolkien’s most widely recognized accomplishment is the vast amount of books he wrote which take place in the land of Middle-earth. The development of this fictional world began in 1914 when Tolkien wrote a poem called “The Voyage of Earendel” (Carpenter Tolkien 80). He began making up a language based strongly on Finnish, and in 1915, decided to create stories that went along with it (85). These stories began with what would much later become The Silmarillion, which was under constant development by Tolkien (Carpenter, Inklings 29-31), and he began having other tales of Middle-earth published first. The Hobbit, begun as bedtime stories for his children, was published in September 1937 (Carter 11). The book was sold out by Christmas of that year, and Tolkien immediately began working on the first chapters of a sequel (Carpenter, Tolkien 204 and 208). Though there was a great demand for another book on hobbits, problems with publishers caused the trilogy that is The Lord of the Rings to be published 1954-1955 (238-246). These books had great affects on American pop culture; fan clubs began cropping up across the U.S. and “Frodo Lives!” appeared on the walls of subways nationwide (Neimark 85 and 91-92). Even after his death in 1973, The Silmarillion and other tales of Tolkien’s world, continue to be edited and published (96-97). They are still received with enthusiasm by the public.

Tolkien’s achievements in the literary and philological fields have been influential in many aspects of today’s culture. He helped to bring about a better understanding of the roots of the English language. His analyses of literary works such as Beowulf have been revolutionary in the changes they brought about in how those writings are viewed. He will always have a loyal fan base for his stories, and his fertile imagination will continue to inspire authors for ages to come.
***********************************************
won't bother to post my works cited page, that way anyone trying to steal it has to look them up on their own (not that anyone on the moot would plagerize(sp?) but i'm not sure if the public can see it so...there ya go.

so whatcha think?