Prologue: Concerning Chaucer -- Unexpected journeys -- Four Chaucerians: Walter W. Skeat, Kenneth Sisam, George S. Gordon, C.S. Lewis -- Tolkien as editor: text and glossary -- The Chaucerian incubus: the notes -- Tolkien as a Chaucerian: The Reeve's Tale -- Chaucer in Middle-Earth -- Coda: Fathers and sons.
Summary:
Tolkien's Lost Chaucer uncovers the story of an unpublished and previously unknown book by the author of The Lord of the Rings. Tolkien worked between 1922 and 1928 on his Clarendon edition Selections from Chaucer's Poetry and Prose, and though never completed, its 160 pages of commentary reveals much of his thinking about language and storytelling when he was still at the threshold of his career as an epoch-making writer of fantasy literature. Drawing upon other new materials such as his edition of the Reeve's Tale and his Oxford lectures on the Pardoner's Tale, this book reveals Chaucer as a major influence upon Tolkien's literary imagination.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.