J.R.R. Tolkien's Double Worlds and Creative Process Language and Life

by Zettersten, Arne

• ISBN13: 9780230623149
• ISBN10: 023062314X
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2011-02-15
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan

Summary

A Swedish linguist, Professor Arne Zettersten, worked and published within the same project as Tolkien to edit the various manuscripts of theAncrene Wissefor the Early English Text Society, Oxford. The situation is unique in that Zettersten acquired first hand knowledge of how Tolkien related to languages, university studies and both scholarly and fictional writing. The book is a new comprehensive reading and analysis of Tolkien's strongly visualizing fantasy fiction, here examined in relation to his scholarly research in its totality and his unusual life experience. Into this new reading Zettersten weaves his memories of the linguistic equilibrist who spoke, wrote and reconstructed living, dead and invented languages. Zettersten approaches Tolkien's creative process through a review of his life within his near-simultaneous, different worlds. These were characterized by changes between his primary, real world, and his secondary, fictional world, between research and fantasy, between evil and humanity, in fiction as in real life.

Author Biography

Arne Zettersten is Professor of English Language and Literature at the University of Copenhagen.

Table of Contents

Foreword * Our First Meeting * Language * Like Lightning from a Clear Sky * Tolkien’s Double Worlds * Middle-earth * From Bloemfontein to Birmingham * From Sarehole to Shire * An Orphan Drawn to Reading * Student Life in Oxford * Soldier at the Front * Experience of War in Tolkien’s Fiction * Research as Motor * Interlude at Leeds * Interplay between Research and Fiction * A Don on a Sidetrack * The AB Language—A Unique Discovery * Fantasy for Children and Adults * The Final Years * Facts and Fiction *  On the Truth of Myths * The Reception of The Lord of the Rings in the World * New Media * Epilogue