of English Studies, p. 104). But as D.J. Palmer has pointed out, however reasonable this might seem, it avoided consideration of various practical factors and vested interests:
Exactly what literature was to be studied in an English School? The pabulum of philologists was solidly medieval; linguistic interest did not, except by chance, coincide with literary quality; and on modern literature philologists had little to say that was of interest to literary critics. Moreover, even if the principle were conceded that philology was ‘a necessary adjunct’ to literary study, was it any more so than history, or philosophy, or rhetoric, or comparative literature? These issues would directly affect the actual organization of an English School and the definition of its scope and flexibility. [The Rise of English Studies, p. 105]
In the background of this debate was the opinion held by some that the study of English literature, and especially of more recent works, would be a ‘soft’ option compared to other schools, and that Philology, a precise and demanding discipline, would provide some ‘stiffening’. Thus even before an English School was established at Oxford in 1894 there were competing interests and ideas of what its syllabus should cover, and what part, if any, Philology should play in it.
T.A. Shippey has noted that even philologists were divided in how they approached or used their subject:
At one extreme scholars were drawing conclusions from the very letters of a language: they had little hesitation is ascribing texts to Gothic or Lombardic authors, to West Saxons and Kentishmen or Northumbrians, on the evidence of sound-changes recorded in spelling. At the other extreme they were prepared to pronounce categorically on the existence or otherwise of nations and empires on the basis of poetic tradition or linguistic spread. They found information, and romance, in songs and fragments everywhere. [The Road to Middle-earth (2nd edn. 1992), pp. 16–17]
Philology was able to identify the changed names of leaders and heroes in later poetry with earlier writings, and in some cases these did preserve memories of actual people and events. Shippey comments: ‘The change of viewpoint marks an enormous if temporary shift of poetic and literary interest from Classical to native. It also shows how philology could seem to some, the “noblest of sciences”, the key to “spiritual life”, certainly “something much greater than a misfit combination of language plus literature”’ (The Road to Middle-earth (2nd edn. 1992), p. 17, quoting Leonard Bloomfield and Holger Pedersen). Also,
the thousands of pages of ‘dry as dust’ theorems about language-change, sound-shifts and ablaut-gradations were, in the minds of most philologists, an essential and natural basis for the far more exciting speculations about the wide plains of ‘Gothia’ and the hidden, secret traderoutes across the primitive forests of the North, Myrkviðr inn ókunni, ‘the pathless Mirkwood’ itself. You could not have, you would never have got the one without the other. [p. 19]
Tolkien’s interest in words manifested itself while he was still a child. When his mother (*Mabel Tolkien) introduced him to Latin it ‘delighted him. He was just as interested in the sounds and shapes of the words as in their meanings ….’ He liked French less: ‘the sounds did not please him as much as the sounds of Latin and English [*Languages]. She also tried to interest him in playing the piano, but without success. It seemed rather as if words took the place of music for him, and that he enjoyed listening to them, reading them, and reciting them, almost regardless of what they meant’ (Humphrey Carpenter, Biography, p. 22). On several occasions in later life Tolkien referred to the effect the sound of certain words had on him. On 7 June 1955 he wrote to *W.H. Auden: ‘It has been always with me: the sensibility to linguistic pattern which affects me emotionally like colour or music …’ (Letters, p. 212). On 22 November 1961 he wrote to his Aunt *Jane Neave: ‘As for plenilune and argent [in his poem *Errantry], they are beautiful words before they are understood – I wish I could have the pleasure of meeting them for the first time again! – and how is one to know them till one does meet them?’ (Letters, p. 310).
In his lecture *English and Welsh, given in 1955, he commented that ‘most English-speaking people … will admit that cellar door is “beautiful”, especially if dissociated from its sense (and from its spelling). More beautiful than, say, sky, and far more beautiful than beautiful’ (*The Monsters and the Critics and Other Essays, p. 190). He continued, concerning Welsh, the language which influenced his Elvish language Sindarin (*Languages, Invented): ‘In Welsh for me cellar doors are extraordinarily frequent, and moving to the higher dimension, the words in which there is pleasure in the contemplation of the association of form and sense are abundant’ (The Monsters and the Critics, pp. 190–1). He wrote in his letter to Auden of discovering Finnish, which influenced his Elvish language Quenya, that ‘it was like discovering a complete wine-cellar filled with bottles of an amazing wine of a kind and flavour never tasted before. It quite intoxicated me …’ (Letters, p. 214).
Tolkien also described to Auden how he developed his interest in languages while still at school:
I went to King Edward’s School and spent most of my time learning Latin and Greek; but I also learned English …. I learned Anglo-Saxon at school (also Gothic, but that was an accident quite unconnected with the curriculum though decisive – I discovered in it not only modern historical philology, which appealed to the historical and scientific side, but for the first time the study of language out of mere love: I mean for the acute aesthetic pleasure derived from a language for its own sake, not only free from being useful but free even from being the ‘vehicle of a literature’). [Letters, p. 213]
According to Humphrey Carpenter, *Robert Cary Gilson, the Head Master at King Edward’s School,
encouraged his pupils to explore the byways of learning and to be expert in everything that came their way: an example that made a great impression on Ronald Tolkien. But though he was discursive, Gilson also encouraged his pupils to make a detailed study of classical linguistics. This was entirely in keeping with Tolkien’s inclinations; and, partly as a result of Gilson’s teaching, he began to develop an interest in the general principles of language.
It was one thing to know Latin, Greek, French and German; it was another to understand why they were what they were. Tolkien had started to look for the bones, the elements that were common to them all: he had begun, in fact, to study philology, the science of words. [Biography, p. 34]
To assist his studies he began to buy books on Philology, including a copy of Chambers’s Etymological Dictionary in which he noted in February 1973: ‘This book was the beginning of my interest in Germanic Philology (& Philol. in general’ (Life and Legend, p. 16). At Oxford Tolkien took Comparative Philology as a special subject for Honour Moderations, then abandoned Classics for the Language side of the English School.
As Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon (1925–45) he was required to teach not only literary aspects of works such as *Beowulf, but also the philological aspects of Old English. He gave lectures on such subjects as Old English Dialects, The Common Germanic Consonant-Changes, and Old English Historical Grammar (Inflexions). That he had a deep interest in such matters is shown in the languages he himself devised, especially Quenya and Sindarin, which underwent shifts and changes similar to those of real world languages, which could be ‘traced’ back to a common and original ‘Quendian’ tongue and developed in different branches according to events explained in *‘The Silmarillion’.
Although words and language remained of prime importance to him, Tolkien thought the divide between Language and Literature unfortunate and unnatural, and as a teacher at *Leeds and Oxford he tried to bridge it in the English syllabi. In his application for the Rawlinson and Bosworth chair of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford he promised ‘to advance … the growing neighbourliness of linguistic and literary studies, which can never be enemies except by misunderstanding
