The J. R. R. Tolkien Companion and Guide: Volume 1: Chronology. Christina Scull

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ language, ‘Novial’. Tolkien will refer to it as ‘ingenious, and easier than Esperanto, but hideous’ (The British Esperantist, May 1932, p. 182).

      12 January 1928 A New Glossary of the Dialect of the Huddersfield District by Walter E. Haigh, which includes a foreword by Tolkien, is published.

      22 January 1928 Hilary Full Term begins. Tolkien’s scheduled lectures and classes for this term are: Beowulf and The Fight at Finnesburg on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 11.00 a.m. in the Examination Schools, beginning 24 January; The Prose of Sweet’s Anglo-Saxon Reader on Thursdays at 10.00 a.m. in the Examination Schools, beginning 26 January; and Germanic Philology (Class) on Fridays at 12.00 noon in the Examination Schools, beginning 27 January.

      Hilary Term 1928 Tolkien reads a paper, The Chill Barbarians of the North, at a meeting of the Newman Society in Oxford. The Tablet for 7 April 1928 will report that Tolkien, ‘the newly appointed Professor of Anglo-Saxon, criticized the views associated with Mr. [Hilaire] Belloc and maintained that the Northern culture was quite as real as the Latin, and that so far as observation of foreign lands was concerned the Romans were stupid and devoid of imagination’ (‘University Notes’, p. 467; the writer for The Tablet maintains that ‘our literary inspiration has been Greek, apart from our own Northern sentiment and delight in wild nature which is the antithesis of either the Greek or Latin spirit’).

      2 February 1928 Tolkien attends an English Faculty Library Committee meeting at 2.15 p.m. in the Library. The members discuss the purchase of new books and decide for the moment to concentrate on Philology, and to acquire the books recommended by Professor Tolkien.

      10 February 1928 At a meeting of the English Faculty Board, in Tolkien’s absence, he is appointed to a committee ‘to consider the position of language teaching for men undergraduates’, i.e. whether it is ‘desirable that male candidates in the English School should receive special tuition in the linguistic branch of their studies’ (Oxford University Archives FA 4/5/1/1). – Tolkien and E.V. Gordon examine Julia Maud Keays-Young of the Society of Oxford Home-Students viva voce on her B.Litt. thesis, England and the English in the Icelandic Sagas, at 10.00 a.m. in the Examination Schools. Tolkien writes out their report.

      29 February 1928 Tolkien attends a Pembroke College meeting.

      14 March 1928 Tolkien attends a Pembroke College meeting.

      16 March 1928 Tolkien attends an English Faculty Board meeting. He is appointed to a committee to draft a scheme of lectures for 1928–9.

      17 March 1928 Hilary Full Term ends.

      Late March–early April 1928 During the Easter vacation Tolkien returns to the Lay of Leithian and probably writes Cantos IV–IX and part of Canto X. He notes the following dates on the manuscript: line 1161 (Canto IV), 27–8 March; line 1736 (Canto VI), 29 March; line 1943 (Canto VII), 30 March; line 2114 (Canto VII), 31 March; line 2385 (Canto VIII), 2 April; line 2423 (Canto VIII), 3 April; line 2769 (Canto IX), 4 April; line 2877 (Canto X), 5 April; line 2929 (Canto X), 6 April (i.e. 1768 lines since in the nine days since 28 March); line 2998 (Canto X), 27 April. He probably writes the outlines before beginning Cantos IV (line 758), VI (line 1584), IX (line 2566), and X (line 2856). He apparently reaches line 3030 by the end of the vacation, and writes no more until November 1929.

      29 April 1928 Trinity Full Term begins. Tolkien’s scheduled lectures for this term are: The Legendary Traditions in Beowulf and Deor’s Lament on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 11.00 a.m. in the Examination Schools, beginning 1 May; The Fight at Finnesburg and the ‘Finn Episode’ on Thursdays at 10.00 a.m. in the Examination Schools, beginning 3 May; and The Mythological Poems of the Elder Edda on Fridays at 12.00 noon in the Examination Schools, beginning 4 May.

      May 1928 Tolkien paints in The Book of Ishness a small watercolour sketch of a warrior fighting a dragon (Artist and Illustrator, fig. 49; Art of The Hobbit, fig. 27). Possibly at about the same time he draws a dragon coiled around a tree, dated only ‘1928’ (Pictures, no. 40).

      18 May 1928 Tolkien attends an English Faculty Board meeting. The Committee on Tuition in Linguistic Subjects in the English School presents a report, typed by Tolkien and signed by H.F.B. Brett-Smith, George S. Gordon, C.T. Onions, Tolkien, and H.C. Wyld, stating that neither the University nor the colleges are able to provide for male candidates

      special tuition in the linguistic subjects of the English School that is comparable in range or thoroughness to that given in literature, or sufficient in amount or quality to enable these candidates to satisfy the minimum requirements of the statutes…. The committee wish to record, also, the view that the linguistic and literary subjects of the curriculum are intended to be simultaneous and complementary studies, and that it is very undesirable that candidates should be allowed to relegate either the one or the other (according to their specialization) to a brief portion only of the period of their reading, whatever may be, now or in the future, the practical necessities of tutorial arrangements. [Oxford University Archives FA 4/5/2/1]

      The Board resolves that the Committee, with Tolkien as convenor, should consider the best means of acting on the report.

      20 May 1928 The English Faculty Library Committee agrees, at a meeting in Tolkien’s absence, that under his guidance the Philology section of the Library has been greatly strengthened.

      6 June 1928 A dinner is held in Goldsmiths’ Hall, London, to mark the completion of the Oxford English Dictionary. Tolkien is among 150 men invited to the event.

      14 June 1928 English Final Honour School Examinations begin. Tolkien is an examiner.

      22 June 1928 At a meeting of the English Faculty Board, in Tolkien’s absence, changes in the regulations for special subjects (Gothic, Old Norse, Old Icelandic) that Tolkien has proposed are discussed and adopted with minor modifications.

      23 June 1928 Trinity Full Term ends.

      27 June 1928 Encaenia.

      30 June 1928 Tolkien is an invited guest at the annual dinner of the Johnson Society (*Societies and clubs) of Pembroke College. According to Society minutes, members ‘listened to various speeches, which, with the exception of that of Professor Tolkien, were remarkable for their singular lack of wit. Professor Tolkien then entertained the society with a series of amusing stories’ (quoted in *A Secret Vice: Tolkien on Invented Languages (2016), p. xxxii).

      July 1928 Tolkien draws in pencil and black ink two views of Grendel’s mere as in Beowulf, called Wudu Wyrtum Fæst (Artist and Illustrator, figs. 50–51), plus a preparatory sketch, and a sketch of a gnarled tree (Artist and Illustrator, fig. 129; Art of The Hobbit, fig. 67). The first two are dated ‘Vivas July 1928’.

      ?Summer 1928 Probably during this summer, Tolkien writes and illustrates a picture book, *Mr. Bliss. Although little more than the finished book now survives, it seems certain to have been preceded by a draft text, drawings, and layout. See note. – In summer 1928 he possibly also writes the first words of The Hobbit (‘In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit’), while in the midst of marking School Certificate examination papers. See note.

      July–August 1928 The Tolkiens again take a holiday in Lyme Regis. Father Francis Morgan joins them there. СКАЧАТЬ