The J. R. R. Tolkien Companion and Guide: Volume 3: Reader’s Guide PART 2. Christina Scull

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СКАЧАТЬ in the three languages should be increased, with definite books prescribed. ‘The specialised history, especially the phonetic history, of modern English should disappear as a compulsion from this branch of the School.’ Chaucer should be recovered as a mediaeval author, ‘and part of his works become once more the subject of detailed and scholarly study. The pretence that no “English” curriculum is humane which does not include Shakespeare must naturally be abandoned, since that author lies quite outside the purview of such a course’ (p. 782).

      Related to the theme of this essay is Tolkien’s poem Lit’ and Lang’, written while he was at *Leeds and later published in *Songs for the Philologists. In this there are ‘two little groups, / Called Lit’ and Lang’’, i.e. the Literature and Language sides of an English school curriculum. Lit’ does not like philology and ‘was lazy till she died, / Of homophemes’ (words of different meaning or spelling which require the same position of the lips – that is, Lit’ was too lazy to look at the words themselves). When doctors cut up the corpse of Lit’ ‘they couldn’t find the brain’. Lang’ does not mourn her death.

Oxford Letter. Letter apparently written at the editor’s request, published as by ‘Oxon’ in the King Edward’s School Chronicle n.s. 28, no. 202 (December 1913), pp. 80–1. Tolkien’s authorship is revealed in his papers. The letter contains news of Old Edwardians (former pupils at *King Edward’s School, Birmingham) now at the University of *Oxford. *G.B. Smith is prominently mentioned.

Oxford Poetry 1915. Third in a series of annual volumes of verse written by undergraduates or graduates of *Oxford (the first covered 1910–13), published December 1915 in Oxford by B.H. Blackwell (*Publishers). See further, Descriptive Bibliography B1.

      The 1915 volume, edited by Gerald Crow and *T.W. Earp, includes Tolkien’s poem *Goblin Feet. Altogether the volume contains fifty-two poems by twenty-five authors. Among the latter, in addition to Tolkien, are several poets who had or were later to have personal connections: T.W. Earp, Naomi M. Haldane (*Naomi Mitchison), *Leonard Rice-Oxley, *G.B. Smith, and *H.T. Wade-Gery. Other contributors include Aldous Huxley; Dorothy L. Sayers; and *H.R. Freston, soon to die in the Somme, about whose poems Tolkien delivered a paper to an Oxford student society in May 1915.

P

The Palantíri. Various writings concerning the palantíri, made by Tolkien while revising *The Lord of the Rings for its second edition, formed by *Christopher Tolkien into a continuous essay and published with notes in *Unfinished Tales (1980), pp. 403–15.

      The Palantíri expands upon the history and nature of the seeing-stones, how they were used and what could be seen in them, why they were forgotten in the latter part of the Third Age, what was known to the White Council and what Saruman concealed from it. It reveals that no thought had been given to the use Sauron might make of the Ithil-stone if he had seized it when Minas Ithil fell, and explains that while riding to Minas Tirith with Pippin and answering his questions about the Orthanc-stone, Gandalf was pondering the possibility that Denethor had used the Anor-stone and might have fallen, which was one reason for Gandalf’s haste. The essay points out also that Gandalf could not know when Denethor began to use the Anor-stone, and presumed that Denethor had not used it until peril grew great; but in fact Denethor had been using it since he succeeded to the Stewardship. Tolkien discusses how Denethor used the stone, and how the use affected him. Denethor is said to have withstood Sauron’s domination partly because of his character, but also because, as a Steward for the heirs of Elendil, he had a lawful right to use the Anor-stone.

      Since changes consequent on these were not incorporated into The Lord of the Rings until the second printing (1967) of the Allen & Unwin second edition, they date probably from 1966 or early 1967.

       Part of the Legend of Amroth and Nimrodel Recounted in Brief

      see The History of Galadriel and Celeborn and of Amroth King of Lórien

Payton, Ralph Stuart (1894–1916). R.S. Payton, known as ‘the Baby’, was a friend of Tolkien at *King Edward’s School, Birmingham, entering in January 1906, and a fellow member of the *T.C.B.S. Like his elder brother *Wilfrid, Ralph was involved in a wide range of school activities – football, the Shooting Club, the School magazine, the Debating Society – and in most of these he held office. As Debating Secretary he ‘performed with great energy’ the ‘less pleasant duties’ of the office, ‘especially the finding of new speakers. In his own speeches he is more successful as a humorist, and does not often contrive to be serious without being dull’ (‘Characters, 1911–12’, King Edward’s School Chronicle n.s. 27, no. 193 (June 1912), p. 41). But he was outwardly modest, and his delivery in debate was often faulted. He also served as Prefect, Sub-Treasurer, and School Captain and General Secretary. In 1913 he followed his brother to Cambridge, on an open scholarship for Classics at Christ’s College.

      In November 1915 Payton joined the Royal Warwickshire Regiment (14th (1st Birmingham Pals) Battalion) and was made a lieutenant, in charge of Lewis (light machine) guns. He was killed on the Somme on 22 July 1916 while leading his men into action.

Payton, Wilfrid Hugh (1892–1965). W.H. Payton, known as ‘Whiffy’, was a friend of Tolkien at *King Edward’s School, Birmingham, entering in January 1904, and a fellow member of the *T.C.B.S. Like his younger brother *Ralph, he was involved in msny school activities – football, the Shooting Club, the School library and magazine, the Debating Society, the Literary Society – in most of which he held office and was highly regarded. He also served as Prefect, Sub-Treasurer, and School Captain and General Secretary. In 1911 he went up to Trinity College, Cambridge, on an open exhibition for Classics.

      In 1915 Payton won a place with the India Civil Service. In the First World War he joined the Indian Reserve of Officers and rose to the rank of captain. He was attached to the 6th Gurkha Rifles, and later to the Khyber Rifles, on the Afghan frontier. His later Civil Service work in Burma earned him in 1945 the honour of Companion of the Order of Saint Michael and Saint George.

Pearl. Alliterative poem in Middle English. It is attributed to the same anonymous late fourteenth-century poet who wrote *Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, another of four works preserved in the same manuscript (British Library MS Cotton Nero A.x, with the poems Patience and Cleanness).

      SYNOPSIS

      The subject of Pearl (or The Pearl) is the poet’s daughter, who died as a child. As he wanders in the garden in which his child is buried, the poet slips, ‘and to sudden sleep was brought, / O’er that precious pearl’. He has a vision of a fair land of marvels and splendour, of a deep stream beyond which lies Paradise, and of ‘a gentle maid of courtly grace’ arrayed in pearls: his daughter grown to maturity. ‘Lament alone by night I made,’ he tells her, ‘Much longing I have hid for thee forlorn, / Since to the grass you from me strayed.’ She upbraids him for excessive grief, and explains that she is in a blissful state of grace, the bride of Christ. Headlong her father plunges into the stream, eager to join her, but ‘right as I rushed then to the shore / That fury made my dream to fade’, and he wakes from his trance. If, he says, it is true that his daughter is ‘set at ease, / Then happy I, though chained in care, / That you that Prince indeed do please’ (translation by Tolkien).

      HISTORY

      The excellence of the poem is observed by *Kenneth Sisam in his Fourteenth Century Verse & Prose (1921):

      If [the contemporary poem] Piers Plowman gives a realistic picture of the drabness of mediaeval life, Pearl, more especially in the early stanzas, shows a richness СКАЧАТЬ