• Blog: A Single Leaf
  • Welcome
  • Teaching
  • Research
  • Service
  • Contact

Anna Smol

~ Department of English, Mount Saint Vincent University

Anna Smol

Tag Archives: John Garth

Tolkien the Playwright

24 Monday Feb 2020

Posted by Anna Smol in Conferences, Medievalisms, Old English, Publications, Research, Tolkien

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

alliterative poetry, Annika Rottinger, BBC Radio and Tolkien, Bodies in War: Medieval and Modern Tensions in The Homecoming, Chaucer performance, Janet Brennan Croft, John Bowers, John Garth, New Perspectives on Tolkien in the Great War, Scull and Hammond, Something has gone crack, The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth, Tolkien and Chaucer, Tolkien and debating, Tolkien and drama, Tolkien and play-writing, Tolkien at Leeds, Tolkien school plays, World War I

We don’t often think of Tolkien as a playwright. Fantasy novelist — of course. Poet, scholar, artist – yes. But we shouldn’t forget that Tolkien also wrote one published play, “The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth Beorhthelm’s Son” – let’s call it “The Homecoming” for short – which was produced by BBC Radio and has been read or performed at various times.

Tolkien wrote other plays, though we don’t have the manuscripts any more, to my knowledge. As a young man, he wrote plays as holiday entertainments when spending time with his Incledon relatives; he probably wrote a farce, Cherry Farm, in 1911 and in the following year, The Bloodhound, the Chef, and the Suffragette (also playing one of the parts).  He performed in plays while at school: in 1910 acting as the Inspector in Aristophanes’ play The Birds – in Greek! and also in Greek the following year, taking the role of Hermes in Aristophanes’ Peace. Near the end of 1911, his performance as Mrs. Malaprop in Richard Sheridan’s The Rivals was praised as “excellent in every way” (Scull and Hammond, Reader’s Guide 313-17).

Tolkien as Hermes in 1911
Tolkien (centre) as Hermes in Aristophanes’ Peace, 1911. Photo from the cover of Tolkien Studies, vol. 11, 2014. The full photograph is reproduced on page 9 in John Garth’s article in that volume.

And of course, all of his debating experience, often in humourous speeches, during his years at King Edward’s and then at Oxford would require a sense of the dramatic in taking up a persona and a position in argument (See the Scull and Hammond Chronology for reports of these debates).  John Garth surveys these and other of Tolkien’s early comedic and parodic compositions, pointing out:

By thus limbering up in his early exercises as a writer, he was later able to apply the same skills—more finely tuned, of course—to the most serious topics and with the utmost gravity.”

(Garth 11)

Even later in life, Tolkien had a flair for the dramatic. Picture him at the Oxford Summer Diversions in 1938 reciting from memory Chaucer’s Nun’s Priest’s Tale. John Bowers, in his recently published book Tolkien’s Lost Chaucer, imagines the scene:

On the merrymaking occasion in summer 1938, Tolkien strode upon the stage costumed as Chaucer in a green robe, a turban, and fake whiskers parted in the middle like the forked beard shown in early portraits like Ellesmere’s.” 

(Bowers 208)

The performance received good reviews in the Oxford Mail, and in the following year, Tolkien returned to perform Chaucer’s Reeve’s Tale, this time producing a shortened and bowdlerized version of the tale for his performance (Bowers 208-211).  The poet John Masefield, one of the organizers of the event, described Tolkien’s dramatic abilities:

Professor Tolkien knows more about Chaucer than any living man and sometimes tells the Tales superbly, inimitably, just as though he were Chaucer returned.”

(quoted in Bowers 209)
Geoffrey Chaucer portrait
Tolkien in the 1930s

Above: Geoffrey Chaucer portrait and Tolkien in the 1940s (as close as I could get to the actual date of his performance). You’ll have to imagine Tolkien’s Chaucer costume! Tolkien image from The Guardian, 22 March 2014.

Tolkien’s recitations of Chaucer aren’t the only performances that his audiences remember. His biographer Humphrey Carpenter reports how he used to start his lectures declaiming the opening lines of Beowulf in Old English (137-38). Although students complained that during lectures he mumbled and was hard to follow, these moments of dramatic performance left striking impressions.

In other words, Tolkien had experience in writing and performing dramatic pieces, and I think that he put those skills to good use in “The Homecoming.”

So why don’t we usually think of Tolkien as a playwright? I can think of several reasons. For one, we only have one publication of his in this genre, easily overlooked in the volume of fiction, poetry, letters, and essays that he wrote.

I also think that there’s a tendency to view “The Homecoming” as alliterative poetry for two voices – more like a poetic dialogue not meant for performance on a stage. I would disagree based on the manuscript evidence, but my reasons will have to wait for another time.

Maybe another reason is that “The Homecoming,” inspired by the Old English poem “The Battle of Maldon,” first appeared in a scholarly journal, Essays and Studies, in 1953. Medievalists have been interested mainly in the short essay titled “Ofermod” that Tolkien appended to the play, which deals with “The Battle of Maldon,” and compares it to two other medieval texts, Beowulf and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. But medieval scholars have not, in general, examined the play as a play.

Finally, we might not think of Tolkien as a playwright because of the negative comments that he made about drama in various letters and in his appendix to “On Fairy-Stories.” In that essay, for example, he claims that drama cannot adequately represent a fantasy world, but whether we agree or not, we should note that “The Homecoming” is different from Tolkien’s other writing. It’s not part of his Middle-earth Secondary World but is based on the aftermath of a battle that took place in 991 according to early English historical chronicles. “The Homecoming” is a work of historical fiction as well as being a play.

The play is now most readily available in the volume Tree and Leaf, tucked in after “On Fairy-Stories,” “Mythopoeia,” and “Leaf by Niggle.”

Tolkien certainly had definite ideas about how the play should be performed on BBC Radio, as his letters tell us, though he was dissatisfied with the BBC production that aired in 1954, with a rebroadcast in 1955. He recorded his own version at home in his study, distinguishing between the two characters’ voices and adding in his own sound effects. A copy of that recording was given out at the Tolkien Centenary Conference in 1992 (Scull & Hammond, Reader’s Guide 547). But you don’t need a copy of that tape to experience Tolkien’s voice dramatizations. Just listen to his reading of the “Riddles in the Dark” chapter from The Hobbit. He does a pretty good job of performing the roles of Bilbo and especially Gollum.

Above: listen to Tolkien’s voicing of Gollum in his reading of “Riddles in the Dark”

Book cover: "Something Has Gone Crack": New Perspectives on J.R.R. Tolkien in the Great War
“Something Has Gone Crack”: New Perspectives on J.R.R. Tolkien in the Great War, edited by Janet Brennan Croft and Annika Röttinger, Walking Tree Publishers, 2019.

It must be pretty clear that I find Tolkien’s play very interesting; in fact, it’s the topic of my current research. I’ve written about “The Homecoming” as a World War One work in my recently published essay, “Bodies in War: Medieval and Modern Tensions in ‘The Homecoming’” in the collection “Something Has Gone Crack”: New Perspectives on J.R.R. Tolkien in the Great War. There, my thesis can be summarized in this way:

Like Tolkien’s better-known works of fiction, HBBS addresses issues of war and heroism that are relevant to a modern writer who is transforming his past experiences into fiction, and as is not uncommon with Tolkien, doing so through the lens of medieval literature.”

(Smol 264)

What currently interests me in “The Homecoming” is the skilful handling of alliterative metre in the play. Yes, this is a play in alliterative verses, which may sound old-fashioned and stilted, but Tolkien’s knowledge of and handling of alliterative verses is, I think, a tour de force in his creation of different styles in a demanding medium. If you’re able to attend the International Medieval Congress in Leeds , you can hear me talking about “Tolkien’s Alliterative Styles in The Homecoming” on Monday, July 6, 11:15, session 104. Look for an article as well, coming soon, I hope!

“Tolkien’s Alliterative Styles in The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth” Session 104, International Medieval Congress, Leeds, July 6, 2020.

I’d love to know in the comments if you’ve read “The Homecoming” and what you think of it. Have you ever heard or seen it performed?

Works Cited

Bowers, John M. Tolkien’s Lost Chaucer. Oxford UP, 2019.

Carpenter, Humphrey. J.R.R. Tolkien: A Biography. Houghton Mifflin, 2000.

Garth, John. “’The road from adaptation to invention’: How Tolkien Came to the Brink of Middle-earth in 1914.” Tolkien Studies, vol. 11, 2014, pp. 1-44.

Scull, Christina and Wayne Hammond. J.R.R. Tolkien Companion and Guide. Reader’s Guide and Chronology. Revised and Expanded Edition. HarperCollins, 2017.

Smol, Anna. “Bodies in War: Medieval and Modern Tensions in ‘The Homecoming’.” “Something Has Gone Crack”: New Perspectives on J.R.R. Tolkien in the Great War, edited by Janet Brennan Croft and Annika Röttinger, Walking Tree Publishers, 2019, pp. 263-83.

Tolkien, J.R.R. “The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth Beorhthelm’s Son.” Tree and Leaf, HarperCollins, 2001, pp. 121-150.

As always, if you are an independent scholar (i.e. you do not have an institutional affiliation) and do not have access to some of these resources, please send me an email and I will try to provide private research copies if possible.

Share this:

  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)
  • Click to print (Opens in new window)
  • Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window)

Like this:

Like Loading...

“something has gone crack”; Tolkien on Rob Gilson & the TCBS, 100 years ago today.

12 Friday Aug 2016

Posted by Anna Smol in Tolkien

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Elliander Pictures, Elliander Productions, John Garth, Memoirs of an Infantry Officer, Rob Gilson, The Great War, World War I

On August 12, 1916 Tolkien wrote a letter to Geoffrey Smith, with permission to pass it on to Christopher Wiseman, trying to come to terms with the death of their friend Rob Gilson. It took some time for the news of Rob’s death on the first day of the Somme offensive, July 1st, to reach the other three, who were serving in the war in various places. They wrote to each other trying to make sense of the loss of their close friend. The four of them had been members of a group formed while they were at King Edward’s School called the TCBS — the Tea Club and Barrovian Society — but by the time they were in university the friendship and shared values of the core members — Tolkien, Wiseman, Smith, and Gilson — had inspired them with great ambitions for their future. But with the news of Rob’s death, Tolkien’s August 12th letter to Geoffrey Smith admits that he is disheartened and lonely, feeling as if the dreams of the TCBS had come to an end. Tolkien writes that he has spent the last two nights sitting and thinking in the woods near his camp: “So far my chief impression is that something has gone crack” (Letter 5).

As Tolkien scholars and readers, we usually see the story in this way, primarily as it relates to John Ronald. However, Elliander Pictures has produced a documentary on Rob Gilson which allows us a glimpse of the young man himself who was so important to the idealistic members of the TCBS.  Elliander Pictures’ previous film, Tolkien’s Great War, is also well worth watching. In both documentaries, you will see Tolkien scholar John Garth, whose book Tolkien and the Great War: The Threshold of Middle-earth is an authoritative scholarly source on the subject. You can find the previous film, Tolkien’s Great War, and information about John Garth’s work here.

ROBERT GILSON: Memoirs of an Infantry Officer from Elliander Pictures on Vimeo.

 

Share this:

  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)
  • Click to print (Opens in new window)
  • Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window)

Like this:

Like Loading...

Talks on Tolkien: John Garth and Tolkien’s Great War

20 Friday Feb 2015

Posted by Anna Smol in Talks on Tolkien, Tolkien

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

Centenary Talk Highlights, Elliander Pictures, John Garth, Middle-earth turns 100, Mythopoeic Scholarship Award, Tolkien and the Great War, Tolkien at Exeter College, Tolkien Society, World War I

This week’s “Talk on Tolkien” features the historical, biographical, and literary research of John Garth, who continues to dig into Tolkien’s early years, the beginnings of his mythology, and his experiences in the First World War. Garth’s book, Tolkien and the Great War: The Threshold of Middle-earth, published in 2003, won the Mythopoeic Award for Inklings Scholarship and has been translated into five languages so far. This book is essential reading for anyone interested in the experiences of Tolkien and his friends in the war and for tracing the early stages of Tolkien’s writings.

Recently, Garth has published more new research in his booklet Tolkien at Exeter College: How an Oxford Undergraduate Created Middle-earth, which presents a vivid picture of Tolkien’s friendships and activities while a student at Oxford. You can find more of Garth’s research in other publications, but one good place for keeping up with his work is his blog, which features reviews and news of his ongoing research.

Although I don’t have a video recording of a complete talk by John Garth, the following presents some intriguing highlights from his presentation at the Tolkien Society‘s Oxonmoot in September 2014. In this video, Garth talks about Tolkien’s early writings, “The Voyage of Éarendel the Evening Star” and his “Story of Kullervo.” Some additional details can be found in Garth’s blog post, “Middle-earth turns 100.”

If you want to hear a complete talk by John Garth, and you are lucky enough to be within reach, he will be speaking at the Hudson Library and Historical Society in Hudson, Ohio on March 3 and at Sam Houston State University in Texas on March 25.

In the video clip above, John Garth sets Tolkien’s early writings against a backdrop of war. You can also hear him speaking more about this subject in the following documentary, “Tolkien’s Great War,” (Elliander Pictures), which provides an excellent account of Tolkien’s early life, his friendships at King Edward’s School in Birmingham, the way in which he and his friends faced the Great War, as well as some observations about how Tolkien’s war experiences influenced his writing. This beautifully filmed documentary provides a glimpse into the kind of research that informs John Garth’s various publications.

Tolkien’s Great War by Elliander Pictures <ellianderpictures.co.uk> on Vimeo.

You can find John Garth on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JohnGarthWriter; on Twitter: @JohnGarthWriter; or, as I mentioned above, on his website: http://www.johngarth.co.uk/ or blog: https://johngarth.wordpress.com/

Share this:

  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)
  • Click to print (Opens in new window)
  • Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window)

Like this:

Like Loading...

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>.

Twitter Updates

  • RT @ekerson: Pay attention Canada! 7 hours ago
  • RT @TolkienSociety: NEW TOLKIEN BOOK: The Fall of Númenor will be published on 10 November 2022. Edited by Brian Sibley and illustrated by… 2 days ago
  • RT @inversedotcom: Meet the on-set dialect coach working to bring language to life in the ‘The Rings of Power,’ the Amazon Prime series tha… 1 week ago
  • RT @BlogTolkien: On 15 June 1967, #Tolkien had his poem recitations recorded for Poems and Songs of Middle-earth album, combining spoken wo… 1 week ago
  • RT @canMedievalists: Tomorrow! Last day of the CSM/SCM Conference Mardis Médiévaux. Power in and over Literature, a roundtable on #SSHRC st… 1 week ago
Follow @AnnaMSmol

Recent posts

  • Tolkien talks in May 2022 & reminders for July
  • April 2022 conference sessions on Tolkien
  • Tolkien Reading Day 2022: Love & Friendship
  • What did he really mean? Carpenter on Tolkien on Drama
  • Save the dates!

Blog at WordPress.com.

  • Follow Following
    • Anna Smol
    • Join 923 other followers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • Anna Smol
    • Customize
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Report this content
    • View site in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar
 

Loading Comments...
 

    %d bloggers like this: