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

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СКАЧАТЬ of this search has made it far more romantic than the mythical quest of the ancient demi-god’). The discussion being thrown open to all,

      Mr J.R.R. Tolkien rose to oppose the motion. After to some extent criticising the speakers on both sides, he declared that romance did not mean megalomania, and was far more likely to be found in an age of small and limited efforts, than in one of boasting, and of excessive ambition. Finality was essential to it; what was not essential was, that there should be any knowledge or realisation of its existence before a romantic life could be lived.

      Tolkien ‘considered that the proof of the motion would be found in the lives of the poor, and instanced their taste for exciting literature’ (‘Debating Society’, King Edward’s School Chronicle n.s. 28, no. 199 (May 1913), pp. 34–6). The motion fails, 19 votes to 52.

      21 March 1913 Rob Gilson sends a postcard to Tolkien at Exeter College; on 25 March it will be forwarded to Tolkien at Phoenix Farm, Gedling.

      Easter 1913 Tolkien inscribes his name in a 1910 printing of Charles Grosvenor Osgood’s edition of Pearl (first published 1906).

      7 April 1913 Honour Moderations results are issued; they will be published in The Times on 8 April (p. 6). Tolkien’s name is in the Second Class.

      15 April 1913 L.R. Farnell becomes Rector of Exeter College.

      17 April 1913 Honour Moderations results are published in the Oxford University Gazette. In the same issue Tolkien is listed as a student in both English Language and Literature and Medieval and Modern European Languages and Literature other than English.

      Over the next seven terms Tolkien will need to become familiar with a range of literary and philological subjects and set texts as prescribed in the Oxford Regulations of the Board of Studies, knowing that he may be examined on them in ten papers at the end of Trinity Term 1915:

      Old English texts, especially Beowulf, The Fight at Finnesburg, Deor’s Complaint, the Wife’s Complaint, Waldere, The Ruin, The First Riddle, the Old English Exodus, Elene, Gregory’s Dialogues bks. 1 and 2 (MSS. C and O), and selections 1–34 from the Anglo-Saxon Reader, 8th edn., ed. Henry Sweet. The latter comprises ‘Cynewulf and Cyneheard’ from the Saxon Chronicle; ‘On the State of Learning in England’ from King Alfred’s preface to the West-Saxon version of Gregory’s Cura Pastoralis (Pastoral Care); Chapter 21 of Alfred’s translation of the Cura Pastoralis; ‘The Voyages of Ohthere and Wulfstan’ and ‘The Amazons (I, 10)’ from Alfred’s version of the Compendious History of the World by Orosius; ‘The Battle of Ashdown’, ‘Alfred and Godrum’, and ‘Alfred’s Wars with the Danes’ from the Saxon Chronicle; a selection from Alfred’s translation of De Consolatione Philosophiae by Boethius; ‘Account of the Poet Caedmon’ from Alfred’s translation of the Ecclesiastical History by the Venerable Bede; extracts from the Laws of Ine; a selection of charters; two homilies by Ælfric, ‘The Assumption of St John the Apostle’ and ‘The Nativity of the Innocents’; the ‘Life of King Oswald’ from Ælfric’s Lives of the Saints; Wulfstan’s address to the English, a homily; ‘The Martyrdom of Ælfeah’ and ‘Eustace at Dover, and the Outlawry of Godwine’ from the Saxon Chronicle; a selection of charms; ‘Beowulf and Grendel’s Mother’ from Beowulf; The Battle of Maldon; The Fall of the Angels, a biblical poem once attributed to Caedmon; Judith; ‘The Happy Land’ from The Phœnix; The Dream of the Rood; The Wanderer; a selection of riddles; gnomic verses; The Seafarer; Northumbrian fragments; Mercian hymns; Kentish charters; the Codex Aureus inscription; and a Kentish psalm.

      Middle English texts, especially Havelok; Pearl; The Owl and the Nightingale; The Taill of Rauf Caolyear; selections from Specimens of Early English, Part 1, 2nd edition, nos. 5, 6, 8, 9, 11, 13, 15, 17, 19, and Part II, 4th edn., nos. 1, 7, 9, 10, 15, 16, ed. Richard Morris and Walter W. Skeat; and selections from An Old English Miscellany (‘old’ in the sense of ‘early’, not Anglo-Saxon), ed. Richard Morris, pp. 1–138. The selections from Morris and Skeat comprise ‘Jewish and Christian Offerings’ from the Ormulum; ‘Hengist and Horsa’ from Layamon’s Brut; two texts from The Life of St Juliana; ‘The Seven Deadly Sins’ and ‘Directions How a Nun Should Live’ from the *Ancrene Riwle; A Good Orison of Our Lady (a short rhyming poem); two Old Kentish sermons, Sermo in Die Epiphaniae and Dominica Secunda post Octavam Epiphaniae; passages in the life of Joseph, from the English version of Genesis and Exodus; two versions of A Moral Ode; King Horn; the Reign of William the Conqueror and the Life of St Dunstan by Robert of Gloucester; ‘The Visit of the Magi’ and ‘The Flight into Egypt’ from Cursor Mundi (Cursur o Werld); sermon on Matthew 24:43 and the Paternoster, Ave Maria, and Credo from the Middle Kentish of Dan Michael of Northgate; extracts from The Pricke of Conscience by Richard Rolle of Hampole; extracts from Piers the Plowman (A text); and extracts from bk. 7 of The Bruce by John Barbour. The selections from An Old English Miscellany comprise a bestiary (‘The Lion’, ‘The Eagle’, ‘The Serpent’, ‘The Ant’, ‘The Hart’, ‘The Fox’, ‘The Spider’, ‘The Whale’, ‘The Elephant’, ‘The Panther’, ‘The Dove’); Old Kentish sermons; and miscellaneous items mainly from Jesus College (Oxford) MS I. Arch. I. 29.

      The works of Geoffrey Chaucer, especially his Troilus and Criseyde, the Prologue to the Canterbury Tales, ‘The Pardoner’s Tale’, ‘The Franklin’s Tale’, and ‘The Clerk’s Tale’.

      The works of Shakespeare, especially Love’s Labour’s Lost, Henry IV Part 1 and Part 2, Hamlet, and Antony and Cleopatra.

      The history of English literature in general.

      The history of the English language.

      Gothic and Germanic philology.

      In addition, Tolkien will have to choose a Special Subject on which he will be examined separately. He will choose Scandinavian Philology, which according to the Regulations will have special reference to Icelandic, together with a special study of the Snorra Edda (i.e. the Prose or Younger Edda), Gylfaginning (Chapters 20–54); the Völsunga Saga (Chapters 13–31); Hallfreðar Saga; Þorfinns Saga Karlsefnis; and Hrafnkels Saga.

      20 April 1913 Trinity Full Term begins.

      Trinity Term 1913 *Kenneth Sisam, Professor Napier’s assistant, becomes Tolkien’s tutor. Tolkien will later write: ‘I think I certainly derived from [Sisam] much of the benefit which he attributes to Napier’s example and teaching…. His teaching was, however, spiced with a pungency, humour and practical wisdom which were his own. I owe him a great debt and have not forgotten it…. He taught me not only to read texts, but to study second-hand book catalogues, of which I was not even aware. Some he marked for me’ (letter to Neil Ker, 22 November 1970, Letters, p. 406). During this term Kenneth Sisam gives the following classes: on Sweet’s Anglo-Saxon Reader (prose), on Mondays at 10.00 a.m. in the Examination Schools, beginning 28 April; Elementary Historical Grammar, on Tuesdays at 10.00 a.m. in the Examination Schools, beginning 22 April; Havelok, on Thursdays at 10.00 a.m. in the Examination Schools, beginning 24 April; and Sweet’s Anglo-Saxon Reader (verse), on Fridays at 10.00 a.m. in the Examination Schools, beginning 25 April. He will give these classes at the same times every term while Tolkien is an undergraduate in the English School, and in one term or another (excepting Michaelmas Term 1914, see below) Tolkien probably attends them all. In Trinity Term 1913 Sisam also gives a class on Morris and Skeat’s Specimens of Early English on Wednesdays СКАЧАТЬ