Using School as an Excuse to Study Tolkien

[The Squatter of Amon Rûdh]

Of course you could always have mentioned this place, which combines an important person, computers and your relationship therewith.

I managed to write Tolkien into two essays for my Master's course: one on The Battle of Maldon and the other on the difficulty of analysing lost texts from later copies. In the latter I just dropped in a quotation about using personal theories to emend the Finnsburh fragment, but my whole reason for wanting to look at Maldon was to check Tolkien's conclusions and see what later scholars had to say about him. Naturally I gave his opinions on the subject an airing. I also managed to arrange to be the person who gave a synopsis of 'Beowulf:The Monsters and the Critics' to my Old English Texts seminar.

The great thing about medieval studies for one of us is that a significant number of lecturers in the area are not-so-secret Tolkien fans, and his academic work is in any case relevant to most discussions. The enthusiasm for his writing goes right to the top of the discipline, people like (Professors) Tom Shippey and Michael Drout, so it's an unlucky student who finds themselves losing marks for admitting their interest. I'm not sure it would be as wise in mainstream English Lit. courses, but the more courageous might consider giving it a try.

I should point out that most people who rise high in academia do so because they have enough interest in and love of their chosen field that they would study it anyway, given half a chance. Everyone has their favourite subjects, to which they return in later arguments, so that it can be seen that Tolkien repeatedly returned to Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and Donald Scragg did a lot of work on Maldon in the early 1990s. Now that Tolkien Studies is itself becoming a discipline, albeit slowly, I can see sneaking him into academic work forming the basis of a career for some. Probably not so much on this side of the Atlantic, though, at least not yet.

[ninja91]

Wrote me sophomore high school research on Tolkien, I did. And by the looks of it, I've never been the same...

[Sir Kohran]

I've never done anything as big or as good as some of you guys have, but in Year 9 we were studying 'tyrants', and I wrote a small essay on Denethor. In hindsight, I don't suppose he was really what we'd call a 'tyrant', but I did receive praise for it.

[Salacia Deloresista]

My freshman year in Hon. English I wrote a paper about how Tolkien's linguistic background and love of Anglo-Saxon culture influenced the books. It was hugely fun to research, but much to short because I'm a procrastinator

[yavanna II]

I just finished a paper on the physics concepts involved in the movie version of RotK. Twas maddening, having to do a physics approach to a movie that you have to read as a text--and grr! It is a fantasy movie, how could any physics aply there? But hey, I managed to do it with help from people here. There's a thread I started (I don't know how to post a link) in The Movies called Physics and RotK??!

[Aganzir]

I read The Lord of the Rings for a first time when I was 10. Almost immediately after that we had to do a paper about something at school (10-year-old children do not have a proper topic for a paper; at least not in Finland), and I chose Tolkien. By then, I had read the Lotr twice and The Hobbit once, but I didn't know much about Tolkien (of course, there was a friend of mine who wanted to make sure I'd fall in love with the Lotr, and maybe it was partially her fault that I decided to choose Tolkien). That was how I got to know Tolkien, not only his work.

In secondary school we had to do a book review each month, and I used three months to write about The Lord of the Rings. Unfortunately my Finnish teacher didn't appreciate Tolkien, and I'm afraid she couldn't completely understand why I was writing so pathetically.

This year I had a course of art. The assignment was to choose an artist, reproduce a painting by him, write a short essay about the artist, and analyse the painting. To nobody's surprise, I chose Tolkien. The picture I reproduced was a watercolour painting called "The Halls of Manwë". I wasn't very content with my work, but the teacher seemed to be, since I got an excellent grade. Anyway, it was easier to choose someone about whom I knew even something beforehand.

The brother of my friend once told us about his philosophy teacher. On the first philosophy lesson he taught them how to say "A fat dwarf fell through the floor" in Elvish (after hearing that, I stopped regretting I hadn't applied to that school). I've also heard he gave Quenya lessons to volunteers during lunch breaks. Of course it would be nice to learn Quenya, but I don't want to be taught by a person who seems to despise dwarves.