‘Strains of Elvish Song and Voices', Bradford Lee Eden

[Bêthberry]

Good to see some extensive disucssion going on on the Downs! We have Music in Middle-earth to thank for that!

Originally Posted by Faramir Jones

However, I would defend his reference to Tolkien as 'a classicist'. Tolkien did study Latin and Classical Greek in school, and won a scholarship to study such languages in Exeter College. While he later transferred to English, winning a First Class Honours, he was appreciative of his classical training. In his Letters, he said, 'I was brought up in the Classics, and first discovered the sensation of literary pleasure in Homer'. (Letters, Letter 213.)

I'm going to have to disagree with you here. As I said in my original post here, Tolkien did have training in Greek and Latin, but he left the classical world for English and philology. He was not an authority on the classics as he was in philology and medievalism and that is how Eden was attempting to portray Tolkien. It was, I suggest, evidence of imprecise vocabulary attempting to prove a point that could have more precisely and accurately been explained otherwise.

While I agree completely that Tolkien took the term 'Middle-earth' from Ceadmon's Hymn,

My reference to Caedmon was also intended to demonstrate that Tolkien's knowledge of the oral tradition was not limited to, in Eden's words, "the trouvere/troubadour tradition in medieval music" (p. 60). And that, "Almost all of Tolkien's early work is done in the context of tales or stories as related or even sung to a listener or listeners" ( Eden, p. 60) applies as well to Old English, a language and a literature Eden never mentions, although he does mention the Finnish Kalevala and Icelandic sagas.

your term 'Victorian hit parade' is unfair on those three writers and their works. While Eden presented them badly, they have survived such bad presentations and worse...

Oh, I think the Victorian poets are quite safe from my sarcasm, which was directed at Eden's approach and method.

I have to say that while there are no references to Tennyson in the Letters, it was pointed out to me (so I can claim no credit!) that there are a lot of similarities between Bilbo's Last Song:

http://blue.carisenda.com/archives/j...last_song.html

and Tennyson's famous 1889 poem, Crossing the Bar, traditionally used as the last poem in collections of his work:

http://oldpoetry.com/opoem/2045-Alfr...ossing-the-Bar

Bilbo's Last Song is not in my copy of LotR. Nor, I believe, has it ever been included in an edition of LotR. It was written some time after LotR was published and quite a few decades after the early writings which Eden quotes.

What would you say is going on here between Tolkien's and Tennyson's poem?