tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4120372371184097111.post4421167330580730551..comments2023-01-07T21:51:48.750+01:00Comments on Parma-kenta: Tolkien Inside Anglo-Saxon SocietyTroelshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07515711722551393026noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4120372371184097111.post-29774558792120743462014-07-28T13:38:31.422+02:002014-07-28T13:38:31.422+02:00This comment is a result of an interesting convers...This comment is a result of an interesting conversation with Simon Cook on Google+, for which I am thankful. This conversation has made me realise that I would have to address this question explicitly.Troelshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07515711722551393026noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4120372371184097111.post-57928335843581757852014-07-28T13:35:51.939+02:002014-07-28T13:35:51.939+02:00When I do a review, I try as well as possible to a...When I do a review, I try as well as possible to accept the premises of the book – to review, if you will, the book that the book itself claims or attempts to be, rather than trying to review another book that I might have liked to see on the same general topic. <br /><br />This has been particularly relevant when reviewing Deborah Higgens' book. Announced at the end of 2013, <i>Anglo-Saxon Community in J.R.R. Tolkien's the Lord of the Rings</i> came out just two months prior to the release of <i>Beowulf: A Translation and Commentary</i> by J.R.R. Tolkien, and less than a week after the announcement of that latter book. <br /><br />Though it is terribly tempting to read Higgens' book through the lens of Tolkien's <i>Beowulf</i> and discuss what <i>other</i> book she might have written if her book had been finished a year later than it did, I have deliberately tried to abstain from taking that perspective (so much that I have, in fact, postponed my own reading of Tolkien's <i>Beowulf</i> until I had written this review). There is a short span of time where we can read these two book in their right order, so that our reading of Tolkien's translation and commentary on <i>Beowulf</i> may be read through the lens of Deborah Higgens' analysis of his usage of themes from <i>Beowulf</i> and other Anglo-Saxon sources helped shape his <i>Lord of the Rings</i>. <br /><br />Though contra-factual discussions are quite common in many parts of the Tolkien community (<i>what if</i> ... for instance, the balrog in Moria had seized the Master Ring? Even Tolkien engages in this in some of letters – <i>what if</i> the redemption of Gollum at the top of the stairs before Torech Ungol had been successful?), but I think it is rather pointless to discuss how <i>this</i> book would have different, if it had been written after the release of Tolkien's <i>Beowulf</i>; it would no longer be this book, but some other book that was not the one I wanted to review. <br /><br />Having said that, I would love to also review the (hypothesised) follow-up book or paper in which Dr. Higgens will discuss her topic through the particular lens of Tolkien's translation of and detailed commentary on the <i>Beowulf</i> poem and poet if she should decide to write that. Troelshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07515711722551393026noreply@blogger.com