Of course I do not enjoy everything by JRR Tolkien that has been published; but - with one exception - I do find all his works (finished and incomplete) to be worthwhile and respect-worthy...
Except for one thing.
That is the lecture entitled "Valedictory address to the University of Oxford" and included as final piece in the collection The Monsters and the Critics, and other Essays (Paperback, 1987; Edited by Christopher Tolkien).
This was a public lecture delivered on the occasion of Tolkien's retirement in June 1959, after reaching the age of sixty-seven. Tolkien had been associated with the University first as an undergraduate (forty-eight years earlier); and had then served in two different Professorships (Anglo-Saxon, then English Language and Literature) for the exceptionally long span of thirty-four years.
To my mind; this final lecture should have been - overall - a warm and genial event; a celebration of Tolkien's relationship with a university he (mostly) loved and respected.
But instead Tolkien adopted what comes-across as a petty, narrow, carping, and mean-spirited attitude; displaying an unattractive defensiveness towards his critics and intellectual enemies; and a persisting resentment concerning the academic decisions and trends he regarded as mistaken.
Especially given that, by this time, the Lord of the Rings had been published and Tolkien had become somewhat famous outside of the academy - I would have hoped for a public demonstration of the man's greatness of soul and largeness of spirit.
But I suspect that I would have found the actual lecture to be an embarrassing event to attend; altogether unworthy of Tolkien.
I would have hoped for his themes to be broad and of general interest (as befits a public lecture); rather than this indulgence in nit-picking over the minutiae of past disputes relating mainly to the departmental syllabus and examinations!
Valedictory means a goodbye; and when saying goodbye for the last time, one surely ought to attempt a heartening farewell?
One ought not to leave a "nasty taste" lingering after departure.
Altogether; the Valedictory Address strikes me as a disappointing and saddening leave-taking of Tolkien's life as Professor - the only of all his productions that I would prefer had not happened.
It would be good to know who-all were in attendance and - what's an adequate word? - 'interesting'? 'fascinating'? 'rewarding'? to read an anthology of their comments. The most I have read about it are Christopher's remarks in that collection (but not yet whatever Mary Salu and Robert T. Farrell may say of their version in their 1979 memorial Festschrift) and the quotation from The Oxford Mail given by Christina Scull and Wayne G. Hammond in their 2017 Companion and Guide. Seemingly almost nobody got to read any version of it until 20 years later - after Humphrey Carpenter devoted three sentences to it in his biography in 1977 - but what did the hearers think? There are clearly warm and genial passages toward the end, and presumably directed to people present - Norman Davis, his successor, "and many other men and women of the Studium Anglicanum [...] some yet young and very much with us still; but all [...] nearly all dear to my heart." And, what weight is due to what Scull and Hammond tell us of the letter sent to Tolkien on 22 October at the request of the English Faculty Board including its "regret that it will not in future have the benefit of your wise advice and unsparing help in its deliberations. It wishes at the same time to express its sense of the distinction which your wide, meticulous, and imaginative scholarship has brought to the faculty and the University" and to Tolkien's reply noting "one result of retirement that I never expected is that I actually miss the meetings of the Board. Not, of course, the agenda, but the gathering together of so many dear friends"? Neither of those strike me as merely formal or polite, with Tolkien's playfulness more hearty than catty.
ReplyDeleteThere is clearly frustration, disappointment, and only a moderate hopefulness - "That hostility has now happily died down" - in the address, but it seems at heart sensible and positive to me, and I liked and admired it when I first read it (when it appeared, while I was a Oxford?), and still do, rereading it now to check my memories of it, after further Oxford experience and having learnt more about Tolkien and his scholarship and colleagues.
David Llewellyn Dodds
@David LD - My responses are, of course, personal. I've noticed that the quotations and references to the lecture nearly always ignore the main themes and the bulk of the lecture, and focus on the last few paragraphs of appreciation that you mention, or where Tolkien quoted some Anglo Saxon and Quenya poetry. Yet, even in these last phrases, for me the effect is marred by some grumpy and grudging comments!
ReplyDeleteInteresting point! For, "the main themes and the bulk of the lecture" are what I like and admire most... I just had a peek in the Festschrift in the Internet Archive (where, if one were signed up for the Texts to Borrow programme - as I am not - one could read around easily), and, searching for the word Valedictory, did not encounter any editorial discussion, but did find the Address quoted on the last page of "The Man and the Scholar" by his old student and friend and to whatever extent 'co-editor' S.T.R.O. d'Ardenne - which means she got a look at it sometime (if only before the Festschrift went to press?), and her quotation does not seem to have a disappointed or disapproving tone. That leaves me wondering which of the other contributors might have been in the audience, and what they thought about the Address being published, if so.
ReplyDeleteSearching the Internet Archive for the combination Valedictory Address, most of the published examples (out of some 400 results) I encountered had to do with medical schools - and seemed to be farewells to graduating classes. So, I am brought to realize my ignorance of the giving or not of Valedictory Addresses by Professors at Oxford, and their subsequent publication or not. Might this be a Tolkienian novelty (underlined for those in the know by his references to Inaugural Lectures never given, since they are - as far as I know - customary and often published)?
Something else that occurred to me was, what if one extracted "the main themes and the bulk of the lecture" from the Valedictory context? How much would they differ from 'Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics' (and the fascinating draft material Michael Drout edited and published) or 'On Fairy-stories', or Lewis's 'English School' and 'English Syllabus' chapters in Rehabilitations and Other Essays (OUP, 1939)? Is the problem a clash between matter and circumstances? What he says, looking both back both to the 1930s and much further, and at the recent past and present, and to the future (now that some changes had been made), seems well worth saying, with specific reference to Oxford but more widely too with respect to the development of university education and academe - but where and how best to say such things? And, how problematical might it be in practice just because he would still be saying them more or less shortly after the end of his academic responsibilities? What might a version extracted from its context and revised by Tolkien be like, appearing five or seven years later, around the Time of Tree and Leaf (1964) or The Tolkien Reader (1966), or after, as his paperback fame grew by leaps and bounds? I wonder if he ever contemplated something of the sort? And, if not, why not?
David Llewellyn Dodds
@David - if you enjoy the Valedictory Address, that's fine - I don't want to spoil your enjoyment - or persuade you to find it bad!
ReplyDeleteNonetheless, quite aside from the subject matter being too narrowly specialized for the occasion; what I personally find embarrassing, and unworthy of Tolkien's great spirit, is the sniping tone - which, to me, does not come across as witty, but as small-minded!
No problems with persuading readers to think about what you find bad about it! Listening to Andy Sirkis's LotR audiobook recently got me attending again to what a superb master of tone Tolkien can be - with Saruman, with Orcs, with (variously grumpy) Gandalf, to mention three examples of complex appreciation of tone. What sharpness, what sniping, what swingeing criticisms should we enjoy - or not - in (for example) 'Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics', or in some of Tolkien's remarks about Cynewulf in the excerpts published in 2014 from his Beowulf lectures? Cynewulf whose 'Elene' he would happily have published an edition of, whose works he seems to have known so well, and made such subtle, good use of?
ReplyDeleteAfter reading around in the details about 1959 in Scull and Hammond's Chronology, I find that it strongly strikes me that a good part of the answer to my question as to why he might not have contemplated reworking the Address for publication is how urgently he wished to get on with the Silmarillion and related writings.
A 're-tuned' version of the Address, preserving 'matter' and passionate conviction but modulating tone would be an interesting exercise - the Scull-Hammond digested summary in their 2017 article about it seems worth considering in this light.
David Llewellyn Dodds
Reading the address immediately called to mind Bilbo Baggins' leaving party: “I don't know half of you half as well as I should like; and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve.” - leaving the Sackville Bagginses among those in attendance wondering if he was offering a compliment or giving offence. I like to think that Tolkien walked away, whistling and chuckling at his own speech.
ReplyDeleteBut that's just because I will stretch my hope beyond what may be realistic, out of deference to the Great man.
Somehow saving up reading the "Memories of JRR Tolkien" section of the 2023 issue of Postmaster and the Merton Record until after my previous comment, I find Nicholas Menon, whose "first year at Merton coincided with Tolkien's last", writing "He was a great hero of mine and I chose to specialise in Old and Middle English" - and "I was fortunate enough to attend his inspirational valedictory lecture in Merton hall in Trinity term 1959."
ReplyDeleteDavid Llewellyn Dodds
I just started the new Revised and Expanded Edition of Tolkien's Letters, restoring originally-intended selections (which are, so far, fascinating), but having just reread the Valedictory Address, I saw his (as I thought, familiar) application for the Rawlinson professorship in a new light: in how many ways it seems like a mild and merely positive statement of the matter of the Valedictory! How did Leeds by 1925 compare with Oxford variously throughout his long experience of it? Is the Valedictory, not hopeless, but deeply disappointed after 24 years of excruciatingly slow growth?
ReplyDeleteDavid Llewellyn Dodds
@David LD - I hope to start reading that soon.
ReplyDeleteI've now reread Letter 46 about George Gordon at Leeds, and it adds to that interesting comparison of English at Leeds by 1925 and, implicitly, in Oxford 16 years later, again in a mild, positive way. (I should have said "after 34 years" in my previous comment: I think my arithmetic was alright but my typing and proofreading were not!)
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of Leeds, I see that the Tolkien Guide website has a fascinating and richly illustrated post (dated 9 February) about "Tolkien and the Swan Press"!
David Llewellyn Dodds