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Anna Smol

~ Department of English, Mount Saint Vincent University

Anna Smol

Monthly Archives: September 2015

Eala! Unlock your word hoards!

30 Wednesday Sep 2015

Posted by Anna Smol in Medieval, Medievalisms, Old English, Old Norse, Publications, Tolkien

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

adaptation, alliterative poetry, Beowulf, Eala, International Congress on Medieval Studies, Jane Chance, Modern Poets on Viking Poetry, Sellic Spell, Tolkien's poetry, Tom Shippey, Word Hoard Press

I’ve just heard about a new project, the journal Eala, which will publish compositions in Old English and other medieval Germanic languages. The founding editor and editor-in-chief of Word Hoard Press, Richard Littauer, plans to publish the journal online and include original compositions in Old English, Old Norse, and the like, as well as translations.

I can’t help thinking that Tolkien would be pleased to see this kind of venture, as he was a proponent of writing in the alliterative verse styles of Old English and Old Norse, either in the original languages or in modern English. As readers of his recently published Beowulf know, Tolkien was adept at composing in Old English – see his prose story “Sellic Spell” in that volume as an example. Tom Shippey has written about the difficulties of counting just how many poems and fragments Tolkien wrote in alliterative meter in both modern and Old English; in his essay “Tolkien as a Writer of Alliterative Poetry” in the book Tolkien’s Poetry, Shippey counts 22 compositions in modern English alliterative meter plus “The Homecoming”; another nine complete poems and five fragments in Old English, and that’s not including modern English poems imitating Old Norse alliterative style. In other words, Tolkien wrote a lot of alliterative verse.

Although Tolkien did write in other verse forms besides alliterative meter, he believed that alliterative verse was a natural form for English speakers and advocated its use – but who was listening? Lately, though, I’ve seen signs of interest in bringing medieval poetry more in contact with modern writers. Jane Chance, for example, is hosting an “Original Medievalistic Poetry Reading and Open Mic” at next year’s International Congress on Medieval Studies in Kalamazoo, Michigan. I’ll have to check it out next May in the hopes of hearing some alliterative compositions. And here’s another sign of interest from a couple of years ago: Modern Poets on Viking Poetry: A Cultural Translation Project resulted in the publication of poems in modern English, which can be downloaded here.

These last two are projects that highlight the influence of medieval poetry on modern writers, but to write “correct” alliterative verse in a medieval language like Old English is another matter entirely. I’m looking forward to seeing what shows up in Eala.

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Happy Birthday, Bilbo and Frodo! #HobbitDay

22 Tuesday Sep 2015

Posted by Anna Smol in Tolkien

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

BBC archives, Elrond's Library, Hobbit translations, The Hobbit, TolkienBooks, Yvan Strelz

Bilbo and Frodo happened to have the same birthday, September 22nd. ‘You had better come and live here, Frodo my lad,’ said Bilbo one day; ‘and then we can celebrate our birthday-parties comfortably together.’  (Lord of the Rings, chapter 1).

Listen to Tolkien talking about the original “flash point” for the writing of The Hobbit:

Tolkien also designed the book jacket for the first edition, pictured below.

Hobbit dust jacket

Here is the book cover of the edition that I first read as a teenager, illustrated with a drawing by Tolkien.

The Hobbit. 1966

The Hobbit book cover, Unwin Books, 1966. TolkienBooks.net

Since its first publication in 1937, The Hobbit has been reprinted many times and translated in 110 editions in 64 languages, according to Tolkien book collector Yvan Strelz. Check out his amazing collection of translations on his website, Elrond’s Library. You’ll find editions in languages from Albanian to Yiddish, and the book covers are fascinating in themselves. Do you remember what your first edition of The Hobbit looked like? Or if you’re a recent first-time reader of The Hobbit, did you pick your edition by the cover?

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Dr. Anna Smol

This site includes my blog, "A Single Leaf," and webpages about my research and teaching in Tolkien studies, medievalism, Old English, and higher education pedagogy. Creative Commons License: <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/"><img alt="Creative Commons License" style="border-width:0" src="http://i.creativecommons.org/l/by-nc-sa/3.0/88x31.png" /></a><br />This work is licensed under a <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License</a>.

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