...there is much else that may be told.
Raymond Wilson Chambers (12 November 1874 – 23 April 1942) was a British academic and a friend of J.R.R. Tolkien.[1]
Life and works
Chambers was born on 12 November 1874, at Staxton in Yorkshire.[2] He was an Anglo-Catholic[1] and a profoundly religious man.[2] Since 1890 he studied in University College London, receiving his Bachelor's degree in 1894 and his Master's degree in 1902. He also was appointed Quain Student (in 1899), Librarian (from 1901 to 1922) and Assistant Professor (in 1904) there.[2] In 1922[2] or 1923[1] he became Quain Professor of English language and literature.
Chambers's first published work, Widsith: A Study in Old English Heroic Legend, appeared in 1912 and was dedicated to old Germanic heroic poetry, especially to the Old English poem Widsith. In 1914 Chambers published his revision of A.J. Wyatt's edition of Beowulf. Chambers continued to study this poem, and in 1921 he published his second book, Beowulf: An Introduction to the Study of the Poem. A revised and extended second edition of this book came out in 1932.[2]
Chambers retired from the Quain Chair in 1941 due to failing health. He died on 23 April 1942 at Swansea in Wales.[1]
Chambers and Tolkien
Tolkien likely read Widsith: A Study in Old English Heroic Legend as undergraduate.[1] By 28 July 1922, Tolkien had agreed to review Chambers's Beowulf: An Introduction to the Study of the Poem for G.N. Clark, editor of the English Historical Review.[3]
Friendship of Tolkien and Chambers likely started around 1922. Tolkien praised Chambers's scholarship and considered him “the greatest of living Anglo-Saxon scholars”, while Chambers also wrote in praise of Tolkien scholarship, calling Tolkien's lecture Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics "the finest appreciation" of the Old English poem. Chambers sent his publications to Tolkien, while Tolkien likely sent his publications to Chambers in return. Tolkien also sent Chambers some of his creative works, such as his poem Doworst and his drafts of the poem The Fall of Arthur.[1]
On 24 May 1932 Chambers sent to Tolkien an inscribed copy of the second edition of Beowulf: An Introduction to the Study of the Poem. Considering that during that time Tolkien was regularly lecturing on Beowulf at Oxford and working on a series of lectures on that topic, he would have read the new edition of Chambers's book as soon as possible.[1]
At that time Tolkien was also in the middle of writing The Hobbit. It is likely that Chambers's book provided some inspiration for the story, especially for the character of Beorn. The book included a summary of Russian fairy-tale Ivashko Medvedko, that could inspire the initial name of the character, Medwed. The Anglo-Saxon word beorn and its possible original meaning "bear" were mentioned in this book as well.[1] In mid-August of 1937 Tolkien directed his publisher to send a copy of yet-unpublished The Hobbit to Chambers, and Chambers wrote very enthusiastically about this book. Tolkien also sent to Chambers one of his author's copies of The Hobbit after the book was published.[1]
Later Tolkien wrote the short story named Sellic Spell, in which the plot of the Beowulf is re-told as a fairy-tale. This story might also be inspired by the work of Chambers, who studied parallels between the Beowulf and various fairy-tales.[4]
Selected bibliography
- 1912: Widsith: A Study in Old English Heroic Legend
- 1921: Beowulf: An Introduction to the Study of the Poem
External links
Further reading
- Douglas A. Anderson, "R. W. Chambers and The Hobbit", in ’Tolkien Studies, Vol. III (eds. Douglas A. Anderson, Michael D.C. Drout, Verlyn Flieger)
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 1.8 Douglas A. Anderson, "R. W. Chambers and The Hobbit", in ’Tolkien Studies, Vol. III (eds. Douglas A. Anderson, Michael D.C. Drout, Verlyn Flieger)
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 Charles Jasper Sisson, "Raymond Wilson Chambers: 1874-1942". Proceedings of the British Academy XXX (1944), pp 427-39
- ↑ Christina Scull, Wayne G. Hammond, "Addenda and Corrigenda to The J.R.R. Tolkien Companion and Guide (2006) Vol. 1: Chronology", Hammond&Scull.com, accessed 14 April 2014
- ↑ Paul Acker, "Tolkien's Sellic Spell: A Beowulfian Fairy Tale", Tolkien Studies: Volume 13, 2016, pp. 31-44