This essay explains the background for two famous essays on the alliterative meter by the Inklings, “The Alliterative Metre” (C.S. Lewis) and “On Translating Beowulf” (J.R.R. Tolkien). The latter essay, I argue, owes its final published form to a sense of academic urgency that Lewis’s own publication had unwittingly instilled in his friend Tolkien.

Details the usages of “gnomes” in L. Frank Baum and J.R.R. Tolkien

Although Marxist critics, including Frederic Jameson, have found little to admire about fantasy literature in general or J. R. R. Tolkien specifically, one of the prime qualities of Tolkien’s The Hobbit (1937) is its instantiation of depth—the serious treatment of the conflict between the ancient world and modern. As such, works such as The Hob…[Read more]

This book, by J.R.R. Tolkien and E.V. Gordon, was privately printed in 1936 for the English Department, University College, London. This digital version (July 2023) has been revised and edited by Ronald Kyrmse (certur@gmail.com) with the sole purpose of serving as a basis for research and scholarship.

The whereabouts of the manuscript of “Doworst” by Tolkien are unknown. This paper reproduces what is known of the text and comments on its history.

O paradeiro do manuscrito de “Doworst” por Tolkien é desconhecido. Este artigo reproduz o que se conhece do texto e comenta sobre sua história.

The prime source of information about Middle-earth calendars is Appendix D to Prof. J. R. R. Tolkien’s translation of the Red Book of Westmarch. Thence have these quotations been extracted, in order to achieve a concordance among our reckoning of months and days on the one hand, and the five systems known to have been employed by the Eldar, the H…[Read more]

A principal fonte de informações sobre os calendários da Terra-Média é o Apêndice D da tradução do Livro Vermelho do Marco Ocidental feita pelo Prof. J.R.R. Tolkien. Foi dali que se extraíram estas citações, para obter uma concordância entre nossa contagem dos meses e dias por um lado, e por outro lado os cinco sistemas que se sabe terem sido…[Read more]

Mount Dolmed (from Sindarin dol + med “wet head”) rose in the First Age above an important pass through the Blue Mountains, between Beleriand and Eriador.
The great dwarven cities of Gabilgathol [Nogrod in Sindarin] and Tumunzahar [Belegost] were built in its vicinity, to the southeast and northeast respectively.
The Blue Mountains [Ered Lui…[Read more]

Some examples from J.R.R. Tolkien’s Elvish handwriting

Livros de J.R.R. Tolkien publicados no Brasil até agosto de 2020

These runes are known to us only from a slip of paper written by J. R. R. Tolkien. The analysis is in English and Portuguese.

A partial analysis of the Lay written by JRRT in Elvish characters