My thesis will serve as an inquiry into the extent of J. R. R. Tolkien’s use of medieval poetics and genre in his own imaginative writings. This will be achieved through the intertextual study of his works, with the literature of the medieval period. I hope that my research will contribute to the fascinating discussion regarding Tolkien’s writings as works of medieval reception through focusing primarily on how Tolkien utilized medieval poetic techniques and genre of medieval texts as a means of developing the lore of his imaginative world.  

The imaginative writings of Tolkien which I will be researching include The Hobbit (1937) and The Lord of the Rings trilogy (1954-55). The nature of my research topic will require specific research into the poetry of Tolkien’s work, which is compiled by the Tolkien Gateway website, where the poems are helpfully sorted by book, meaning this will be a useful online resource for my research https://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Poems_in_The_Lord_of_the_Rings. While this project will discuss primarily The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, my research will for contextual purposes, require study into his posthumously published works including The Silmarillion (1977) and The Unfinished Tales of Númenor and Middle-Earth (1980). This poses somewhat of a challenge as I have not read these large texts in full and may therefore struggle to locate the passages required for my contextual study. I will therefore be looking closely at the YouTube channel ‘Nerd of the Rings’ https://www.youtube.com/c/NerdoftheRings which produces videos summarizing and explaining the contents of these texts, which should allow me to locate the segments needed with greater ease. 

In terms medieval literature, I will need to focus on the poems that were of specific inspiration to Tolkien, whilst considering them within their historical and generic contexts. As a philologist, Tolkien’s studies drew him to Old English literature, works such as the poems found in The Exeter Book, such as The Wanderer, The Seafarer, The Ruin, and Christ I, were texts subject to Tolkien’s academic inquiry, and would later become fundamental inspirations for Tolkien’s fictitious literature, and therefore will serve as important texts for my intertextual study. Most notably, however, the epic poem Beowulf was a particularly essential text of Tolkien’s interest, and therefore it shall, as well as its fellow texts of The Beowulf Manuscript, be of foremost importance. Middle English literature was also considerable influence on Tolkien’s works and thus, texts such as Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Pearl, and Sir Orfeo will be of immense importance to my study. The works of Geoffery Chaucer such as The Canterbury Tales and Troilus and Criseyde will also prove useful and are located in The Riverside Chaucer (2008). 

Any study related to Tolkien will require the context of his academic work. An overview of this is well established in Stewart D. Lee’s A Companion to J. R. R. Tolkien (2014) and includes helpful critical engagement from its contributors. Part II ‘The Academic’ of this book is dedicated specifically to Tolkien’s academic career, and chapter two ‘Academic Writings’ by Thomas Honegger will be of value. Part IV ‘Context’ will also be of significant use to me, outlining Tolkien’s engagement with Old English (Chapter 15) and Middle English (Chapter 16), as well as Norse (Chapter 17) and Celtic (Chapter 18) influences, and should it be of use, a chapter on Shakespeare to Gothic influences (Chapter 20).  

In studying the contribution that medieval sources made to Tolkien’s imaginative writings, I have identified three scholarly sources which I believe will play a primary role in my research of this topic. The first of these I have already discussed, Stewart D. Lee’s A Companion to J. R. R. Tolkien (2014). The second is The Road to Middle-earth: How J.R.R. Tolkien Created a New Mythology (2005) by Tom Shippey. This text will provide great insight into the role of language in Tolkien’s work, as Shippey, who by trade is a philologist, examines Tolkien’s philological work, as a means of contextualizing a discussion on Tolkien’s creative work. Because my thesis will focus on the role of language in Tolkien’s works, this text will be necessary for my research. It also provides in its ‘Appendix A’ a list of Tolkien’s sources which will without doubt prove informative to my own research. Finally, I have identified The Keys of Middle-earth (2005) by Stewart D. Lee, which once again considers the medieval influences on Tolkien’s writings. Unlike Shippey’s The Road to Middle-earth, however, it is more focused on the influence of medieval tropes than that of language. Through studying these texts hand in hand, I will be provided with a holistic view of Tolkien’s use of medieval sources. My aim will also be to build on the conversation started in these texts by focusing specifically on Tolkien’s poetry and the broader question of genre and how these elements inform one another. 

In terms of Tolkien’s own academic writings, his Beowulf: a translation and commentary (2014) and his essay/ lecture Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics (1936) will be informative as to his own critical engagement with the source text. The same can be said of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight with Pearl and Sir Orfeo (2004), again works of translation which contain an introduction to the texts in question and another essay/ lecture on Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, which once again will be significant help in understanding his thoughts on the source text. In terms of Tolkien’s philosophical approach to works of fiction, his essay On Fairie Stories (1947) will prove helpful. 

On a final note, and by way of returning to the discussion of IT in my research, I will work closely with the online databases such as booleweb and jstor, which I already know to contain useful journal articles on Tolkien’s literature.