More loose leaves on Tolkien’s Pearl

I concluded my recent post on Tolkien’s unpublished translation of the Middle English Pearl with the hope that “[p]erhaps someone can unearth a little more information.” I am delighted to say that someone has. My Frisian friend Jan Veltman is a great admirer of this poem, and as it happens, he wrote a series of letters inquiring about Tolkien’s translation and related matters to some of those best situated to know something. Jan recently sent me copies of the responses he received, and with his permission, I’m going to share some of the highlights. They didn’t know a great deal, but they did know a little, and so I now know a little more as well. Some may find this much ado about nothing, but I find it a fascinating addendum to the story.

As a preamble to this epistolary stroll, the first of the letters Jan sent me was a reply from Christopher Tolkien, dated 13 September 1979 — thirty-one years ago this past Monday! Jan had complimented him on the translations of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Pearl, and Sir Orfeo, then only recently published. To this Christopher replied, “It gave me great pleasure to know that you approved of my edition of my father’s translations, which are indeed, as I think, of the highest order.” He had also asked for advice on finding second-hand copies of editions of the poems and asked about St. Erkenwald, which has sometimes been attributed to the Pearl poet.

A year later, Jan wrote to the British Broadcasting Corporation, asking whether a recording of Tolkien’s Sir Gawain radio broadcast was available. Parts of his translation were broadcast on the BBC in December 1953, along with a short introduction written and read by Tolkien. The BBC Secretariat responded to Jan on 24 September 1980 with regrets that “we do not have this recording in our Sound Archives. Even so, we would not have been able to release a copy, for copyright and contractual reasons.”

The following year, Jan wrote to Norman Davis at Merton College, Oxford (by then, retired), asking for advice on building up a comprehensive reading list on Middle English literature. Even though the request was “too tall an order”, Professor Davis replied with some suggestions. At about the same time, Jan made a similar inquiry of John Jones, who held the position of Oxford Professor of Poetry from 1978–83 (immediately following John Wain, one of the Inklings). Professor Jones replied on 20 March 1981, “I fear Merton College has no recording, and I don’t think it is true that Tolkien was a man of great international fame as early as 1953 — though among Germanic philologists he was recognised as a scholar of genius.” He indicated he would pass Jan’s inquiry along to Norman Davis (“Norman knows more about this matter than anybody else in the world”), unaware that Jan had just written to Professor Davis on a different line of inquiry. Jan followed this up, bringing in Tolkien translation of Pearl this time, to which Professor Jones replied (12 April 1981), “Again, Norman Davis is the right man; he will know more than anybody else in the world about Ronald Tolkien’s translation of Pearl.”

Professor Davis wrote back to Jan on 24 April 1981. Here we draw closer to the subject of my earlier post, so I will quote a little bit more:

I do not believe that a Pearl translation was in any general way ‘being used in the colleges’, as you put it. Tolkien took a long time to satisfy himself about his translation, and no doubt lent copies to friends asking for comments — he gave me one to take abroad for holiday reading, for example. (I didn’t like it much, incidentally.) But these would be only drafts in the process of making the final version, and I do not think it is realistic to speak of ‘this early translation’ at all. There was no single ‘early translation’, and the published text will embody what he wished to preserve.

Professor Davis suggested Jan contact George Allen & Unwin “to make absolutely sure (though I think it would be a waste of time)”, and this is what Jan did next. Rayner Unwin replied to the inquiry on 22 May 1981, “it is true that there was a version of Pearl circulating but not published in the middle 1940’s. In fact, this was little changed from the version eventually published after Professor J.R.R. Tolkien’s death. To the best of my knowledge there are no copies of this early version of Pearl or of Gawain in writing or on tape available. If there were, they would be with the Tolkien executors […].”

And so we come to the final letter in the series, in which Jan made a last inquiry with “the Tolkien executors”. Christopher Tolkien replied on 25 September 1987 — twenty-three years ago next week! —

As with so many of my father’s works, his translation of Pearl was a long-continued process of refinement over many years. The printed text you refer to was not an edition, but was an experimental type-setting carried out by B.H. Blackwell (Oxford). It never went beyond the stage of a first proof in galleys, and was a mass of printing errors. It thus has, in itself, no interest. […] I hope have [sic] made myself clear. The point is, that the printed proof made in the 1940s (which I no longer possess, in any case) is, so to speak, a merely casual incident in the process of refinement of the translation, and did not in itself in any way affect that process.

So, to sum up. Copies of Tolkien’s Pearl translation were indeed “circulating” in the 1940’s (Rayner Unwin, Norman Davis), most likely among Tolkien’s friends, of whom some didn’t like it (Norman Davis, again). We can’t really be sure how closely the early version resembled the final one, as we have two opposing opinions: Rayner Unwin says it was “little changed”, but Norman Davis and Christopher Tolkien imply otherwise. But we are now in a slightly better position to judge the claim in the contributor blurb from Essays and Studies (1953), that Tolkien was “[w]ell known […] for his verse translation of The Pearl”. It was not a total exaggeration, though there should probably be an implied addition: he was well-known for it among his friends and colleagues in the colleges. This is more or less the conclusion we had drawn already — but at least now we have a real basis for it, and knowledge of at least one more contemporaneous reader of the translation.

They “saw loose the leaves of the book” — but who?

The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth Beorhthelm’s Son has been reprinted several times, so it is now seldom read in its original setting: Essays and Studies, the periodical of the English Association. This publication can be rather hard to come by too, so it’s no wonder. But as a work moves from its original setting into subsequent ones, it’s not uncommon to lose something along the way. Texts frequently pick up one variance or another, but I’m thinking of something else: the original paratext. In this case, what I have in mind in the author blurb about Tolkien in the “Notes on Contributors”. Here it is:

J.R.R. Tolkien, born in 1892, is Merton Professor of English Language and Literature at Oxford. Well known for his edition of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (with the late E.V. Gordon), for his work on Beowulf, and for his verse trans-lation of The Pearl. Professor Tolkien’s fairy-story, The Hobbit, is a great favourite. [1]

Something caught my eye here: that Tolkien was “well known […] for his verse translation of The Pearl”. Was he really? This is surprising, considering that it wasn’t published until two years after his death!

According to Wayne Hammond and Christina Scull’s précis, Tolkien made his translation of the poem during 1925–6 while he was supposed to be working on an edition of it with his Gawain collaborator, E.V. Gordon. In 1936, he submitted the translation to J.M. Dent for publication, but although they rejected it, it caught the attention of Guy Pocock, who arranged for part of it to be read on the radio in August of that year. Shortly thereafter, George Allen & Unwin considered publishing it, but all thought of that was swiftly swept aside in the wake of The Hobbit the following year. [2]  A few years later in 1942, the renowned publisher and bookseller Basil Blackwell prepared to publish the translation at last. Galley proofs were even printed in March 1943 (Christopher Tolkien owns a set). All Tolkien had to do was write an introduction. Alas, the ever dilatory (and at this point, very distracted) Tolkien could not get the job done, and — to make a long story a little shorter — the translation never reached the public during his lifetime. [3]

He certainly intended to publish it, discussed it repeatedly, and was forever on the verge of actually doing it, but this simply never happened. So how did he become so “well known” for it? That is a riddle worthy of Gollum (or better, Bilbo, since it’s not actually a proper riddle :).

I suppose private copies may have been circulating among Tolkien’s friends and colleagues, rather like Songs for the Philologists and Tolkien’s edition of Sir Orfeo. But if so, I have not read of any surviving. Perhaps he passed around his own (only?) copy. But that would have been risky, wouldn’t it, my precious, yesss. The radio broadcast probably helped, but how large a portion of the translation was read? It’s a long poem, well over a thousand lines! Was the unknown author of the contributor blub in Essays and Studies exaggerating? Was this one of Tolkien’s friends, someone who had indeed read and passed around the translation?

All these questions prompted by an all but forgotten note on a contributor! Perhaps someone can unearth a little more infor-mation. In the meantime, I suppose it’s true after all that “lesser work can earn more pay; / And the longer you reckon, the less hath more” [4].


[1] Essays and Studies, Vol. 6 (1953), [n.p.].

[2] Gordon died unexpectedly in 1938, and plans for the edition of The Pearl went on hold. The edition was eventually completed by Gordon’s widow Ida (with assistance from Tolkien) in 1953, the same year Beorhtnoth was published!

[3] Christina Scull and Wayne G. Hammond. The J.R.R. Tolkien Companion and Guide: Reader’s Guide. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2006, pp. 748–9, et seq.

[4] This, like the title of the post, is from Tolkien’s translation of The Pearl, finally published in 1975. The title comes from 70.9, the closing quotation from 50.11–2.