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For the relationship between the fictional Dolbear and real life Inkling Havard, see:
http://notionclubpapers.blogspot.co.uk/2010/11/how-similar-are-dolbear-humphrey-havard.html
I guess 'bear' means bear, because Dolbear is stereotypically bear like^ - while 'Dol' means pain, and is the medical 'unit' for pain - so maybe this is a pun on the fact that the real-life model for Dolbear - Havard - contributed an appendix to CS Lewis's book 'The Problem of Pain'.
This Dolbear may mean 'Pain (expert)-bear'.
?
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^Tendency to fall asleep, gruffness, hairiness.
http://notionclubpapers.blogspot.co.uk/2010/11/how-similar-are-dolbear-humphrey-havard.html
Note added 7 October 2015:
The above is probably wrong - the name Dolbear is apparently a version of one of Robert Havard's nicknames 'Dull Bear' - which itself may have derived from or been linked with Dolbear and Goodall - the name of a chemist/ pharmacist in Oxford up to 1937
http://www.oxfordhistory.org.uk/high/tour/south/108.html
If Havard was called Dull Bear then this would also explain the many bear references in Dolbear's character in the Notion Club Papers.
This information comes from an interview with Robert Havard's son Mark (aka Colin)
https://mythgamer.wordpress.com/2012/03/25/meeting-colin-havard-an-inklings-son/
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7 comments:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/wmjas/2753154376/
Very Tolkien-esque...
It just struck me that there may well be name-play between 'Robert' and 'Rupert' and another play with Dyson miscalling him 'Humphrey' in the nickname 'Rufus' (for 'Rupert').
What is they etymology of the surname 'Dolbear'? There might be scope for more wordplay here.
David Llewellyn Dodds
P.S. You might want to link your 20 Novemeber 2010 post as well.
D.L.D.
@David - I've added the link. But I will refrain from further speculations on these topics, since my track record is so poor!
Let me encourage you to consider going on speculating, with whatever admitted tentativeness! For the case in point, I'd never heard of 'dol' as unit of pain, and never attended how Latin 'dolor' found its way into English, with all the fanciful possibilities of interaction with Old English 'dol' and Middle English 'dul' and thier Germanic (etc.) analogues - like the 'tol' in Tolkien. Whereas I'm now grazing delightedly among (etymological) dictionaries and wondering 'what might Toliken have been up to with this in mind?' - all because you ventured!
David Llewellyn Dodds
@DLD - Thank you! The problem is that I am so deeply ignorant of languages - even my own.
But I do appreciate reading JRR (and Christopher) Tolkien 'at work' on their philology, teasing out the history of a word - and what that tells us of the lives of people in the past - usually via TA Shippey as the intermediary.
Have you read Shippey's Road to Middle Earth? Probably the best single book ever written about Tolkien.
http://notionclubpapers.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/tom-shippey-great-tolkien-scholar.html
I'm more dangerous dabbler than anything like a philologist, though I'm with you in enjoying seeing real ones at work. (But, by contrast, I am also too fond of rushing in where scholars fear to tread.)
Yes, that is a wonderful book! I was just thinking to look it up to see if he explains in detail something I seem to have just thought of (but may have forgotten that I once read it there: a too-common experience, with me). I need to catch up with more of his work - I've got a book-token to spend - maybe more Shippey is the answer!
David Llewellyn Dodds
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