Tolkien, The Man “I am in fact a hobbit (in all but size). I like gardens, trees and unmechanized farmlands; I smoke a pipe, and like good plain food (unrefrigerated), but detest French cooking; I like and even dare to wear in these dull days, ornamental waistcoats. I am fond of mushrooms (out of a field); have a very simple sense of humor (which even my appreciative critics find tiresome); I go to bed late and get up late (when possible). I do not travel much. I love Wales (what is left of it, when mines and the even more ghastly seaside resorts, have done their worst), and especially the Welsh language. But I have not in fact been in Wales for a long time … I go frequently to Ireland, being fond of it and of (most of) its people; but the Irish language I find wholly unattractive. I hope that is enough to go on with.” So wrote John Ronald Reuel Tolkien to a young American girl who asked him about himself and his work. Ronald Tolkien was born in Bloemfontein, South Africa, the capital of Orange Free State. His parents, Arthur and Mabel, were married in 1891. Ronald was born the next year and his brother, Hilary, followed two years later. Life in Bloemfontein was comfortable for well-to-do Europeans, but outside of town, it was Africa. Wolves, jackals and wild dogs roamed the countryside. A marauding lion might attack a post-man carrying the mail at night. Snakes even made their way into the city. And young Ronald, just after he learned how to walk, encountered a tarantula that bit him. Running in terror to his nurse, she sucked out the poison. Tolkien said the incident left him with no long-term fear of spiders, but readers of THE HOBBIT might have cause to question that. Time soon came for a year back in England. Mabel and her children left South Africa in 1895. Arthur planned to join the family a little later after wrapping up some business. However, this was not to be. Arthur Tolkien contracted rheumatic fever and was unable to join them promptly. When his health did not improve, Mabel decided to sail back early to aid her husband. But before she left, they received word that he had died. Little Ronald’s only memory of his father was of him writing his name on the trunks before they set sail for England. Mabel Tolkien and her two boys lived for a while with her parents in Birmingham, but they soon found a cottage of their own out in the country. Ronald was a precocious child, learning to read at the age of four and delighting in the fine art of penmanship and the study of languages. Mabel taught her son Latin, which delighted him, and French, which he liked less well. Around this time, Mabel converted from her Anglican faith to Roman Catholicism. After moving around a fair bit, they began to attend the Birmingham Oratory, a church founded by John Henry (later Cardinal) Newman, perhaps England’s most famous Catholic convert. There was a Catholic school attached to the church and the Tolkien boys were soon enrolled. But all was not well. Mabel’s health was deteriorating as she worked hard to provide for her family and for their private Catholic education. She died when Ronald was 12. As one might expect, her death had a profound effect on the young boy. Though by nature a happy, friendly child, he now began to show another side. His diaries and letters show bouts of deep despair. Tolkien considered his mother a martyr for the Catholic faith since she worked so hard for her boys to be grounded in the Roman faith. His attachment to Catholicism became deep, emotional and life-long, and not altogether rational, bound up as it was with his attachment to his mother. Tolkien was now a double orphan. Father Francis Morgan, a priest attached to the Birmingham Oratory became the boy’s guardian. He arranged for them to stay with a non-religious aunt, since both sides of the family were Anglicans. And he helped pay for their education out of his own resources. As a schoolboy, Ronald was gregarious and loved to play rugby. His love of languages moved beyond Latin, Greek, French and German. One of his teachers gave him a book on Anglo-Saxon. As he read the language of his ancestors, this boy searching for roots, was fascinated. He read BEOWULF, first in translation, then in the Old English original, and came to delight in this extraordinary poem. Soon he expanded his interests to Middle English, Gothic and Old Norse. Just like a young man falling in love with a girl, Tolkien was falling in love with words. Down on his hands and knees in a bookshop, he would search out and buy “dry as dust” German tomes on philology and devour them. All this is not normal. Rarely do teenagers develop these kinds of interests and expertise. But Tolkien didn’t stop even here. He decided to invent his own language, with its own system of phonology and grammar, and its own pre-history. But he was not unrelievedly studious. While he was falling in love with words, he fell in the normal way. He met a neighbor girl named Edith Bratt when he was 16. They became friends and a relationship developed. Although Father Morgan tried to stop it (they were too young), he only succeeded in transforming a teen-age crush into a thwarted romance. While enduring (a forced) separation from Edith, Ronald tried to study to gain a scholarship to attend Oxford. On his second (!) try, he was successful and entered Exeter College of Oxford University in 1911. Tolkien enjoyed his time at Oxford immensely. He continued to play rugby and reveled in groups where there was good talk and plenty of smokes. Ronald’s major was classics, but his tutors encouraged him to pursue his interest in philology. He learned Welsh and came to delight in Finnish. He invented another of his own languages based on the latter and this came to be the basis for the High-elven languages in his books. When Tolkien achieved the highest possible mark for a paper on comparative philology, the college suggested he change his major to English and so he did. There was a division in Oxford’s English School. On one side were the philologists and medievalists that disdained any literature after Chaucer as child’s play. On the other were those devoted to modern literature that characterized the study of Old and Middle English and philology as “word-mongering and pedantry.” Ronald obviously stood with the former group. He finished his degree in 1915, taking First Class Honors, the highest possible grade. This meant he would assuredly be able to get a job in academics. But great changes were in store. War had come to Europe and this changed everything. In addition, Tolkien had begun to see Edith again, with the grudging permission of Father Morgan. She had converted to Roman Catholicism and in 1916 they were married shortly before Ronald left for France. The war was horrible for Tolkien: The many hours spent waiting around for orders to come through. The long marches along muddy roads. The dead lying beside the path, their heads either blown off or with eyes staring vacantly into space. Many in his battalion were killed. All but one of his high school friends died as well. Ronald was one of the fortunate ones. He caught trench fever that wouldn’t go away and so was invalided home. After the war, Tolkien joined a group of language experts attempting to finish the Oxford English Dictionary. Begun in 1878 it was still incomplete and after the war efforts were redoubled to bring it to an end. But for Tolkien this interlude was to be brief. In 1920 he was appointed reader in English Language of the University of Leeds. Ronald enjoyed his time at Leeds. He published a small Middle English dictionary and, with his colleague, E.V. Gordon, an edition of SIR GAWAIN AND THE GREEN KNIGHT. Tolkien and Gordon helped form the Viking Club with several undergraduates. They would meet to read sagas in Old Norse, translate nursery rhymes into Anglo-Saxon, sing silly songs and drink large quantities of beer. It’s not difficult to fathom why they became two of the most popular professors. His home life was happy. The Tolkiens had three boys, John, Michael and Christopher. Priscilla who was born in Oxford followed them. The family had moved there in 1925 when Ronald was appointed Professor of Anglo-Saxon. He was to remain at this university for the rest of his career. It was here that he wrote his classic works, THE HOBBIT and THE LORD OF THE RINGS. This essay, like the two that will follow, has summarized from and quoted from the biography of J.R.R. Tolkien by Humphrey Carpenter.
Posted on: Sun, 11 May 2014 06:35:14 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015