tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9050528436539921312.post1375469976218308536..comments2024-03-11T16:29:13.619-05:00Comments on Lingwë - Musings of a Fish: They “saw loose the leaves of the book” — but who?Jason Fisherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05809154870762268253noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9050528436539921312.post-11433336543513982532010-10-27T09:13:48.704-05:002010-10-27T09:13:48.704-05:00I don’t suppose the answer should be too difficult...<i>I don’t suppose the answer should be too difficult to arrive at.</i><br /><br />No, in this case, I don’t suppose it should be.Jason Fisherhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05809154870762268253noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9050528436539921312.post-69009457759596723912010-10-26T22:55:09.020-05:002010-10-26T22:55:09.020-05:00A late addition to this conundrum:
"[Tolkien...A late addition to this conundrum:<br /><br />"[Tolkien] was a scholar of languages, primarily Anglo-Saxon and Old English; his wonderful, acclaimed translations of the literature of those times are the professional standards. The most generally available are his <i>Beowulf</i> and, published in a single volume, <i>Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Pearl,</i> and <i>Sir Orfeo.</i>"<br /><br />- <i>A Reader's Guide to Fantasy</i> by Baird Searles et al (Avon, 1982), p. 147.<br /><br />A future scholar considering this, then, would face the conundrum of how Tolkien's translation of <i>Beowulf</i>, which has still not been published yet in 2010, came to be "generally available" in 1982, as well as in what form of history Anglo-Saxon and Old English came to be separate languages.<br /><br />I don't suppose the answer should be too difficult to arrive at.David Bratmannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9050528436539921312.post-73331741365984254962010-08-31T09:21:38.156-05:002010-08-31T09:21:38.156-05:00Yes, you can only go so far down the rabbit hole. ...Yes, you can only go so far down the rabbit hole. This was almost sixty years ago, and long before the Internet turned us all into Funes el Memorioso. :)Jason Fisherhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05809154870762268253noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9050528436539921312.post-68249969149835817912010-08-30T22:24:42.786-05:002010-08-30T22:24:42.786-05:00Probably it was the editor. We may never know for ...Probably it was the editor. We may never know for sure, unless the answer is somewhere in Bullough's papers or in those of the English Association.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9050528436539921312.post-59484833702500605782010-08-30T09:46:42.490-05:002010-08-30T09:46:42.490-05:00Thanks for the additional information, Wayne and C...Thanks for the additional information, Wayne and Christina. It’s still rather a strange choice of things to mention, isn’t it? It probably reveals something of the personal interests of the blurb author. I don’t suppose you know (or can guess) who that was? Perhaps Geoffrey Bullough, the editor of that volume of <i>Essays and Studies</i>?Jason Fisherhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05809154870762268253noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9050528436539921312.post-9446962395515164952010-08-29T19:06:56.124-05:002010-08-29T19:06:56.124-05:00The existence of Tolkien's translation may hav...The existence of Tolkien's translation may have been general knowledge among his academic colleagues, or at least it was surely no secret that it had been offered to Oxford University Press and had been in production by Basil Blackwell, but was not published for lack of an introduction by Tolkien or of other, accompanying translations by him from Middle English poetry. But beyond that, we have recorded, from a Sotheby's London sale of 17 December 1998 (http://www.sothebys.com/app/live/lot/LotDetail.jsp?lot_id=YXX6), a 'signed working typescript' of the translation of Pearl, 'with substantial revisions and annotations in the hand of his pupil and colleague K. Hardacre, signed at the end by Tolkien himself, with three typed pages of other poems (including part of "The Seafarer" translated by Gavin Bone)', 25 pages in all. The description implies that the 'working' part of the typescript was by Hardacre, not Tolkien, and it may be that this was a handout of Middle English poetry in translation prepared by Tolkien for his students. We ourselves know nothing about 'K. Hardacre' - possibly the Kenneth Hardacre of St Edmund Hall who was an exhibitioner in 1939-42, and whose passing is noted on the Internet.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9050528436539921312.post-89518645633162984062010-08-28T05:05:34.433-05:002010-08-28T05:05:34.433-05:00At least a slight exaggeration comes to your mind ...At least a slight exaggeration comes to your mind first, but maybe there is more to it than that.Ardamirhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12535734219325255452noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9050528436539921312.post-8682286118836892012010-08-27T22:30:39.620-05:002010-08-27T22:30:39.620-05:00Very interesting, Jason! I'll be interested t...Very interesting, Jason! I'll be interested to see if anyone has an answer to the mysteryAnonymousnoreply@blogger.com