Tolkien on Chaucer, 1913-59
traces J. R. R. Tolkien's critical engagements with Geoffrey Chaucer from his undergraduate Oxford essays in 1913 to remarks in his retirement lecture in 1959. Reprinted with both Tolkien's own annotations and new notes from the authors, this book analyses his major articles such as "Chaucer as a Philologist:
The Reeve's Tale
", as well as his unpublished edition of the
Reeve's Tale
and his lectures on the
Clerk's Tale
and the
Pardoner's Tale
. Though his scholarship was best known for his work on Beowulf, Tolkien was also an expert on Geoffrey Chaucer. He lectured on Chaucer, edited Chaucer, and published essays on Chaucer.
reprints many of these works for the first time, and documents Tolkien's career-long engagement with the poet and traces his influence in Tolkien's own works. Bowers and Steffensen reveal how the
was a source for Tolkien's description of Merry and Pippin's battle with Saruman, and how the
influenced Tolkien's own story of men fighting to the death over a gold treasure. Chaucer emerges as a major source of inspiration for Tolkien's creative writings and profoundly formative in the creation of
The Lord of the Rings
.