Not called the master of his craft for nothing. I came for the Beowulf essay, but his passion for linguistics and history made many of the others really engaging.

Tolkien's "The Monsters and the Critics" was a speech he gave when he received one of his academic chairs. The speech single highhandedly revived the discipline of Anglo Saxon studies from a dying thing to something we are still studying.
This speech presents one of the few times the author used allegory.

χρόνος ανάγνωσης κριτικής: 58 δευτερόλεπτα

Δεν μου αρέσει να επαναλαμβάνομαι για αυτό θα το πω όσο πιο σύντομα
γίνεται.
Ο Τόλκιν επειδή δεν έκδωσε πολλά βιβλία όσο ήταν εν ζωή (9 στο σύνολο σε
αντίθεση με τα 30 και βάλε που κυκλοφορούν σήμερα) και επειδή ο γιος του
ανέλαβε την επιμέλεια του έργου του πατέρα όπως επίσης και πολλοί
άλλοι επιμελητές, πολλά γραπτά του επαναλαμβάνονται είτε σε διάφορες
μορφές, είτε επαυξημένα, είτε και αυτούσια. Και αυτός είναι ο κύριος λόγος
που κάποιες φορές παθαίνω κορεσμό από Τόλκιν.

Εδώ μέσα περιέχονται 7 δοκίμια / ομιλίες:
1)Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics
2)On Translating Beowulf
Αυτά τα διάβασα πρώτη φορά εδώ αλλά το θέμα του δεν μου είναι εντελώς
καινούριο. Διάβασα και πιο παλιά την μετάφραση του Τόλκιν για αυτό το
αρχαίο αγγλικό έπος
Beowulf: A Translation and Commentary

3) Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
Πρώτη φορά εδώ αλλά το διάβασα και δεύτερη τον περασμένο μήνα (Φλεβάρη)
στο Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Pearl, and Sir Orfeo

4) On Fairy-Stories
Τρίτη φορά που το διαβάζω. Πρώτη εδώ: Tales from the Perilous Realm
και δεύτερη εδώ: Tree and Leaf

5) English and Welsh
Πρώτη φορά εδώ και παρουσιάζει αρκετό ενδιαφέρον από γλωσσολογικής άποψης.
Μιλάει για το τι καθιστά μια μητρική γλώσσα, εθνικότητα, φυλή, και τις
μεταξύ τους σχέσεις, όπως επίσης και για την έμφυτη προτίμηση σε μια γλώσσα.

6)A Secret Vice
Δεύτερη ανάγνωση. Η πρώτη ήταν στο A Secret Vice: Tolkien on Invented Languages

7) Valedictory Address to the University of Oxford
Πρώτη φορά εδώ και όπως λέει και ο τίτλος είναι ο αποχαιρετιστήριος λόγος του
Τόλκιν πριν συνταξιοδοτηθεί το 1959.

So, reading these essays has definitely made me absolutely certain that if I had the ability to do a Q&A with absolutely anyone, alive or dead, I would pick the Professor in a heartbeat. If you take anything from these essays, then just know that he was a pretty clever guy who really did know what he was talking about.

The largest portion of this book is dedicated to his essays and lectures on Beowulf and show his understanding of not only the poem itself, but also of the criticism that the poem has received over the years. That he is able to explain his perspective of both the poem and the criticism, whilst also showing the understanding of where certain criticisms come from is astonishing.

I also really enjoyed the lecture of the differences and similarities between English and Welsh. Being a Cymraes myself I do always enjoy it when our language is taken seriously and not just derided or ignored. And to see it being discussed so seriously, and cleverly, by the Professor himself is just a really nice thing.

An essential collection of anyone who wishes a glimpse into the study of Tolkien the scholar. Some of his more philosophical ideas may be a bit tough to digest, and his harsher criticism is always cushioned in a very British false humility that modern and N. American readers may find odd at times, but his introduction to the concepts of some of the major works of Old English such as Beowulf and Sir Gawain is indispensable for anyone interested in this period.

Este es un texto que no es de fácil lectura cuando se carece de los conocimientos que estudia la literatura, lingüística y la filología. Por lo tanto, veremos aquí una cara más académica, como es de esperarse, del profesor; pero también aflora su personalidad, a veces tajante, otras tantas reflexiva, como aquel "raro", que encuentra en la fantasía una aproximación exquisita a la inventiva de las mentes literarias.

Sin embargo, he de decir que, debido al rigor en que se estudian algunos temas como la evolución del Inglés, galés y Celta antiguo, me resultó difícil conectarme con algunos ensayos. Más he de decir que los ensayos dedicados a Beowulf, Gwain y El Caballero Verde y, De los Cuentos de Hadas fueron excelentes. Reafirmo mi postura de abanderado, entusiasta y, por sobre todo, alguien que disfruta de la fantasía.

The chapters on Beowulf and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight were great, but the rest seemed quite pointless.

This was grand. Granted, much of it was challenging and some of it directly went over my head, but I still enjoyed it. Tolkien's beauty, humor, and passion are easily seen. The more I read his other work, the more depth I find in the already deep wonder that is Lord of the Rings.
I will say, the article on Faerie Stories stands out like a beacon. I will regularly return to read it again.

The first time I read it, I swooned. Then I revisited it in grad school, and I swooned again. There is only one author I've ever read who would not only understand but also think to write the following:

"And in the poem I think we may observe not confusion, a half-hearted or a muddled business, but a fusion that has occurred at a given point of contact between old and new, a product of thought and deep emotion.
"One of the most potent elements in that fusion is the Northern courage: the theory of courage, which is the great contribution of early Northern literature. This is not a military judgement. I am not asserting that, if the Trojans could have employed a Northern king and his companions, they would have driven Agamemnon and Achilles into the sea, more decisively than the Greek hexameter routs the alliterative line--though it is not improbable."

No, really, who else would compare the Trojan War to Greek hexameter's effect on alliteration? It is one of my life goals to educate myself into understanding what this really means.

Re. the fusion between old and new, this all ties back to my friend, whom our writing community recently lost, Jason Wenger. His first day of workshop, when we were all asked to go around the table and state our writing philosophies in a nutshell, Jason said he wanted to "say something old in a new way." Our professor heckled him for this, said something like, are you serious? I'm getting a bit scared, as if Jason were saying he planned to be unoriginal. But no, I knew what he meant and I think most people in the class did. He was talking about myth and the heart of storytelling, the stories that haven't essentially changed any more than people have in the last several thousand years.

Well, this same professor, God bless him, got my goat later that semester by referring to fantasy/sci-fi as "all that crap in the corner of the bookstore" or something like that. And so I went out in a tizzy and copied Tolkien's essay and some other materials for everybody and tried to start a discussion about what genre fiction is and what it isn't, and why it might still want to be called genre rather than "transcendant of its genre" if it is well or masterfully written. Anyway, I spent a lot on the copies and then Jason said about all the reading I'd given out, "That's so messed up," to which I laughed and said, "You don't have to read it, you know."...My presentation ended up getting rushed and kind of sucking--this workshop was not fertile ground for it anyway--but when I got to the quote above from Tolkien, I remember saying, "And Jason Wenger, this one's for you," and going on to read that line vindicating his writing philosophy about the fusion of the old and the new. I hope that he got something out of the whole experience. I would like so much to be able to ask him about it now.

I wish had Professor Tolkien around to pick his brain, but this book is an adequate substitute, and, I think, indispensable for anyone who teaches Beowulf. Tolkien's titular essay is largely responsible for changing the attitude toward Beowulf in literary circles. The epic was considered important for what it could teach us of the Anglo-Saxons, but it was Tolkien who convinced the literati that it had literary merit, too. Highly recommended to fans of Beowulf.

In case you’re wondering (and you probably aren’t), Tolkien singlehandedly saved Beowulf from obscurity. This is the essay that did it.

Tolkien was a pretty devastatingly smart guy, who didn't only create a world and languages of his own, but was a serious and intelligent scholar who knew many languages, modern and archaic, and had a wide interest in different literatures and mythologies. This volume contains seven of his academic essays: for a modern academic, the volume of his work -- however influential and inspiring -- would be insufficient, with the pressure to publish all the time. Good thing he isn't a contemporary academic: his careful editing and long thought is what made his lectures and essays so accessible.

This volume includes two essays on Beowulf: his very famous one, from which the title of this volume derives, and the one he wrote as an introduction to Clark Hall's translation. The first one is, of course, one of the first points of call for anyone studying Beowulf, and rightfully so. The volume also contains an essay on Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, his famous essay 'On Fairy Stories', an essay on 'English and Welsh', an essay about the invention of languages, and his valedictory address, given when he left Oxford. All of them are well worth reading. They're not dry at all, but warm and passionate as Tolkien was warm and passionate, and of course, intelligent. I wish I could have heard him lecture (although, some people who went to his lectures could say that too, given his reputation of being a mumbler).