Note: this topic is from 1/02/2003. Thanks John Farson.Got started on this while listening to Michael Wood -- In search of Beowulf playing in the next room.
Posted on 01/02/2003 7:26:56 PM PST by John Farson
A yellowing manuscript by J.R.R.Tolkien discovered in an Oxford library could become one of the publishing sensations of 2003.
The 2000 handwritten pages include Tolkien's translation and appraisal of Beowulf, the epic 8th century Anglo-Saxon poem of bravery, friendship and monster-slaying that is thought to have inspired The Lord of the Rings.
He borrowed from early English verse to concoct the imaginary language spoken by Arwen, played by Liv Tyler, and other elves in the second film made from the Rings books, The Two Towers.
A US academic, Michael Drout, found the Tolkien material by accident in a box of papers at the Bodleian Library in Oxford.
An assistant professor of English at Wheaton College in Norton, Massachusetts, Dr Drout was researching Anglo- Saxon scholarship at the Bodleian, and asked to see a copy of a lecture on Beowulf given by Tolkien in 1936.
It was brought to him in a reading room in a large box. Professor Drout, who reads Anglo-Saxon prose to his two-year-old daughter at bedtime, said: "I was sitting there going through the transcripts when I saw these four bound volumes at the bottom of the box.
"I started looking through, and realised I had found an entire book of material that had never seen the light of day. As I turned the page, there was Tolkien's fingerprint in a smudge of ink."
After obtaining permission from the Tolkien estate, Professor Drout published Beowulf and the Critics, a version of Tolkien's 1936 lecture, in the US earlier this month.
Even more exciting will be Tolkien's translation of the poem and his line-by-line interpretation of its meaning, which will be published next summer.
Tolkien's name on the cover is likely to make the translation a bestseller.
Professor Drout says Tolkien found inspiration for many of his storylines and characters in Beowulf. The Anglo-Saxon hero's friendship with Wiglaf is mirrored in the relationship between Frodo and Sam in The Lord of the Rings.
Elves, orcs and ents, the latter a type of giant that becomes a walking and talking tree in Tolkien's work, are all mentioned in Beowulf.
Merlin Unwin, son of Tolkien's original publisher, said: "Beowulf is a wonderful story, and if you put Tolkien's name to it, it would probably be a great commercial success."
Is that Sindarin or Rohirric? ;-)
I've read his screenplay for King Kong.
From the WWI fighter duel at the beginning to the tip of the hat to the original Kong at the end, it's typical Peter Jackson. Though is does smack of Jurassic Park at times.
Note: this topic is from 1/02/2003. Thanks John Farson.Got started on this while listening to Michael Wood -- In search of Beowulf playing in the next room.
> The story of Edith May Pretty has been told in varying forms. Certainly her active interests in spiritualism provided a source of inspiration. It is also said that she became convinced that there was treasure in Mound One on the basis of a vivid dream, in which she saw and heard the funeral procession. Another account tells how one evening she saw the figure of an armed warrior standing on the mound in the twilight. Finally, she is said to have employed a dowser who divined gold beneath Mound One. So convinced was she that there was treasure in the mound that she wrote to Mr Guy Maynard of Ipswich Museum, requesting the services of an archaeologist. He sent her Mr Basil Brown, a Suffolk man who had learned his trade the hard way through practical experience. He was without doubt the best man for the job, as he was very familiar with Suffolk soils and Suffolk sites, having worked and ridden all over the county on his bicycle.
http://www.wuffings.co.uk/MySHPages/SHTreasure/SHDiscovery.htm
http://www.eadt.co.uk/ea-life/the_woman_who_gave_us_sutton_hoo_1_78723
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sutton_Hoo
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edith_Pretty#Archaeology
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