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That’s what the headline on the news story says. (Thanks, Graydon, for pointing it out to me.) Judging from the descriptions, the material is actually about 2,000 pages of handwritten text gathered into four bound volumes, containing Tolkien’s appraisal of Beowulf and portions of his own translations of the poem.
And where was this found? In the bottom of a box of papers at the Bodleian. A US academic named Michael Drout recognized it for what it is while looking for something else:
An assistant professor of English at Wheaton College in Norton, Massachusetts, Dr Drout was researching Anglo-Saxon scholarship at the Bodleian, and asked to see a copy of a lecture on Beowulf given by Tolkien in 1936.“Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics.” (Of course.)
It was brought to him in a reading room in a large box. Professor Drout, who reads Anglo-Saxon prose to his two-year-old daughter at bedtime, said: “I was sitting there going through the transcripts when I saw these four bound volumes at the bottom of the box.I can respect the level of geekdom of someone who reads Anglo-Saxon to his toddler and can recognize Tolkien’s fingerprints.“I started looking through, and realised I had found an entire book of material that had never seen the light of day. As I turned the page, there was Tolkien’s fingerprint in a smudge of ink.”
The news story’s a little hazy on the whole thing, and thinks the interesting part is that this material might have some tenuous connection to the movies. Professor Drout’s site is more forthcoming with the details:
Tolkien wrote a complete prose translation of Beowulf, a fragmentary verse translation, and many, many pages of commentaries. The Tolkien Estate has approved my proposal to edit and publish the translations and commentaries in two volumes, and I have begun work on the project. It will be at least a year until the translations are ready for publication. I will post updates here if any new information becomes available.My man.
I think I'm going to buy Drout's current book--the one on Tolkien's lectures about Beowulf.
It's no mean thing that, in the introduction to his new translation of Beowulf, Seamus Heaney cites only one Anglo Saxon scholar for waking Oxford and the rest of the critical world up to the reality of Beowulf as something more than a mildly interesting cast-off of Norse folklore: and that's Tolkien.
I wonder why the surprise about the find, though. I read that Tolkien had been working on his own translation way back in H. Carpenter's bio. And whenever I go to Harvard Bookstore's used level, I half expect to find a copy somewhere.
The news to me is that it was never published.
This will be cool!
As John Farrell notes, it's not news (though it's never been widely publicized) that Tolkien translated Beowulf. Many scholars have read the manuscript: it's in the unrestricted part of the Tolkien collection, so anyone who can get a reader's ticket to the Bodleian (that's the tough part) can see it.
But it has never been published, or seen by casual readers yet. Every once in a while, some writer on Tolkien will mention having read his (published) translation of Beowulf: this is probably a mindographical error for his translation of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (first published 1975).
So if the translation was a "discovery" by Drout, it was a personal discovery, and I'm sure that's what he meant when talking to the reporter. The 2000 pages probably includes Tolkien's complete lecture notes on the subject - he lectured on Beowulf frequently for 25 years. The translation is certainly nowhere near that long, I'm told by a friend who's seen it.
Prof. Drout is an industrious and worthy, if sometimes over-niggling, scholar (all traits shared by Tolkien). I'm delighted he's bringing this into print, and I mean to get his other Tolkien book RSN.
Some of Tolkien's commentary on (and translation of) Beowulf was published in Finn and Hengest: The Fragment and the Episode (ed. Alan Bliss). The translation is just a snippet, though, as it's confined to the Finn/Hengest story section.
I can respect the level of geekdom of someone who reads Anglo-Saxon to his toddler and can recognize Tolkien's fingerprints.
Of course, true geekdom lies in reading Physical Review Letters to your infant...
(A former colleague used to do that. He figured he needed to read the articles anyway, and the tone of voice was more important to his daughter than the actual content of the bedtime "story"...)
I remember reading "The Monsters and the Critics" for a college paper on Beowulf, lo these many years ago (1971 I think it was), and would love to read this! I have just looked it up on Amazon and intend to order it soon.
I also think the author of that Times piece and A.C. Douglas, referred to elsewhere on Teresa's blog, need to read "On Fairy Stories."
Chad, your colleague who read Physical Review Letters to his baby daughter reminds me of the movie, Three Men and a Baby. Tom Selleck's character does something very similar -- but in that case it's newspaper articles about boxing. It was hilarious. And as a librarian, I approve of reading to kids! That's how I got hooked. There's a photo my dad took when I was about 2 months old: my mom is sitting next to the bassinet. With one hand she is reaching into the bassinet (holding my bottle, but you can't see it or me); with the other she is holding a book on her lap.
Professor Grout has a weblog, in which he expresses bemusement at the whole slashdot thing. He makes it quite clear that it was a personal discovery, that there was nothing secret or hidden about these papers, and that he never said there was.
I think the thing that's really astonishing about this is that nobody's previously worked out that Tolkien's translation of Beowulf by Tolkien would be publishable.
And, er, doesn't everyone read inappropriate material to their tiny children?
Lois: For the record, I've read "On Fairy-Stories". If someone shoved it into my hands and said, "Here, this will make you think better about fantasy", I would never want to read fantasy again. There's good material in it, but also a great deal of claptrap.
"The Monster and His Critics" is a much better introduction to The Matter of Fantasy, imho.
Kevin, you may be right; it has been a while since I read it myself.
In retrospect, "claptrap" is probably a stronger word than I meant to use, and certainly a ruder one. I'll just say that parts of it underwhelmed me to the point that I'm vaguely surprised I finished reading it.
There's already a good verse translation by Cole Porter:
Beowulf,
Beowulf,
Prowess proud, this poem's proof;
Perfect prince, praised by all
Friends to fairly fill a fine hall.
Niggardly? No, not he;
Giving great gifts most graciously.
His tale takes off when Grendel gave the people pure pains,
Grabbing graven gold and dropping dozens of Thanes,
Then there came a king's kin to deliver the Danes:
Beowulf, Beowulf, Beowulf!