Tolkien and Tennyson

[tree_and_leaf]

I was listening to Radio 3's Drama on 3, which consisted of dramatised readings of Tennyson's sea poetry - largely because of the sheer brilliance of the acapella/ folk trio Coope, Boyes and Simpson, who were singing sea songs (much as I love Tennyson, I find Enoch Arden rather tiresome)

The play, if that's what you'd call it, concluded with Crossing the Bar, and though the later literary reference this usually throws up for me is 'Anne of the Island', it suddenly struck me that this voyage into death is really rather like the voyage from the Grey Havens into the West.

Well - I'm not claiming it as a direct influence; in any case both of them are playing with (a) a fairly natural metaphor and (b) a number of older images, such as the voyage of S Brendan, that Breton legend about the ferryman who took the dead in his boat to Little Britain, and, I bet, also the ship of souls in Dante's Purgatory (which is itself riffing on similar voyages, most noticably as a blessed counterpart to Charon's boat, though here a sea under God's good heaven replaces the underworld river).

And maybe I should stop typing/ free associating.... I have an interview for a scholarship tomorrow, and I've also just finished redrafting a thesis chapter - though I bet my supervisor will still think the conclusion is too 'preachy'. Sigh.

Comments

[mrstater.livejournal.com]

Best of luck for your scholarship interview, and on getting your thesis to say what you want in the best way. :)

[tree_and_leaf]

Thank you!

The sad thing is, I can see my supervisor's point - but I do want to make some sort of effort to engage with the ideas of the text I'm writing about at something more than a descriptive level. Maybe I should have done theology instead.... except I like stories and poetry. *sigh*

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

Nice idea.

*good luck hugs* for the scholarship interview.

[grondfic.livejournal.com]

Good luck today. I'm sure you'll be fine.

[parrot-knight.livejournal.com]

Good luck for the scholarship interview!

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

Good luck with the interview.

I love Crossing the Bar - I don't see how Tolkien could have escaped it at a pretty early age with his education, even if he wasn't personally fond of Tennyson (no idea if this was the case). It seems to have been a fasionable genre (http://rpo.library.utoronto.ca/poem/491.html).

[parrot-knight.livejournal.com]

I have now followed the link through to Drama on 3, and really must 'listen again' to this, and pay more attention to the strand as a whole - the previous weeks read as if they were good too.

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

BTW, does Listen Again work on a Mac?

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

"Only one ship follows us; a black-sailed unfamiliar
Towing at her back a dark and birdless silence.
In her wake no waters brood or break."

[tree_and_leaf]

It does, yes: occasionally it will throw up odd error messages, bt it's never yet refused to play anything.

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

Good to hear - am drifting ever closer to Mac-dom.

[intertext.livejournal.com]

Have you ever noticed the ending of "The Death of Arthur" in Idylls of the King? How much it makes one think of the moment when Mordor falls? I'm without books at this precise moment, or would quote something pithy. I've often been struck by how similar a lot of Tolkien's imagery is to that of Tennyson's ~ there's a paper there somewhere...

By the way, introducing myself, as I'm friending you. I've keep noticing your posts in some of my flist, and anyone who likes Dorothy Sayers, Reginald Hill and Arthur Ransome is a "kindred spirit" as Anne Shirley would say.

[tree_and_leaf]

*points to next enrty and sighs*

But thanks, though.

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

*is sad*

[tree_and_leaf]

Macs are love - and the new Macbooks are really quite reasonably priced.

On the subejct of Crossing the Bar, I have a vague memory of it set as a hymn in the old Church of Scotland hymnbook. (That bit out of In Memoriam about 'Our little systems have their day" is also in the New English Hymnbook, oddly enough, though I can't find it at the moment)

[tree_and_leaf]

Theres a lot of really good, off-the-beaten-track stuff on R3, which I generally don't know about until it's too late. Listen Again is a great invention, though - I get so much more from BBC Radio now.

[tree_and_leaf]

I didn't know the Clough.

That motif would be an interesting subject for an article, for anyone doing Eng Lit.

[tree_and_leaf]

I'm going to kick myself, but what is that? I can't place it at all.

[tree_and_leaf]

I'm going to kick myself, but what is that? I can't place it at all.

[tree_and_leaf]

That hadn't occurred to me, but it's an excellent thought. All this talk of Tennyson is making me determined to go and beg, steal, or borrow some (the trouble with being a student is that the book you want is inevitably in the wrong part of the country)

And hello and welcome - particularly as I note you also like Mary Stewart.

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

Alas, I can't remember!

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

an interesting subject for an article

That occurred to me, alas, after I got my lowest mark on my Victorians paper. I ought to do some English research again, really, if just for fun.