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The J. R. R. Tolkien Companion and Guide: Volume 3: Reader’s Guide PART 2. Christina Scull
Читать онлайн.Название The J. R. R. Tolkien Companion and Guide: Volume 3: Reader’s Guide PART 2
Год выпуска 0
isbn 9780008273491
Автор произведения Christina Scull
Жанр Критика
Издательство HarperCollins
to get Gawain and Pearl into your hands as soon as possible. The spirit is indeed willing; but the flesh is weak and rebellious. It has contracted lumbago, from amongst its weapons of delay – with the colourable excuse that an old man, robbed of helpers by mischance, should not shift bookcases and books unaided. Every book and paper I possess is now on the floor, at home and in college, and I have only a table to type on. When the turmoil will subside, I do not know for certain; nor in what state of weariness I shall then be. [Tolkien–George Allen & Unwin archive, HarperCollins]
Although he now felt that the translations did not need very much work to finish, again Tolkien was delayed in attending to them, partly because he could not decide on the form of the general introduction and commentary that were needed to accompany the poems. ‘On the one hand’, Christopher Tolkien has said,
he undoubtedly sought an audience without any knowledge of the original poems; he wrote of his translation of Pearl: ‘The Pearl certainly deserves to be heard by lovers of English poetry who have not the opportunity or the desire to master its difficult idiom. To such readers I offer this translation.’ But he also wrote: ‘A translation may be a useful form of commentary; and this version may possibly be acceptable even to those who already know the original, and possess editions with all their apparatus.’ He wished therefore to explain the basis of his version in debatable passages; and indeed a very great deal of unshown editorial labour lies behind his translations, which not only reflect his long study of the language and metre of the originals, but were also in some degree the inspiration of it. As he wrote: ‘These translations were first made long ago for my own instruction, since a translator must first try to discover as precisely as he can what his original means, and may be led by ever closer attention to understand it better for its own sake. Since I first began I have given to the idiom of these texts very close study, and I have certainly learned more about them than I knew when I first presumed to translate them.’
But the commentary was never written, and the introduction did not get beyond the point of tentative beginnings. [*Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Pearl and Sir Orfeo (1975), p. 7]
Tolkien mentioned in a letter to his Aunt *Jane Neave that a translation of Pearl attracted him because of the poem’s ‘apparently insoluble metrical problems’ (18 July 1962, Letters, p. 317). Later, in a letter to his grandson Michael George (see *Michael Tolkien) he wrote that ‘Pearl is, of course, about as difficult a task as any translator could be set. It is impossible to make a version in the same metre close enough to serve as a “crib”. But I think anyone who reads my version, however learned a Middle English scholar, will get a more direct impression of the poem’s impact (on one who knew the language)’ (6 January 1965, Letters, p. 352).
Tolkien’s translation of Pearl was published at last in 1975, posthumously in *Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Pearl and Sir Orfeo, edited by Christopher Tolkien.
A three-part version of the translation was broadcast on BBC Radio 3 from 19 May 1978, adapted by Kevin Crossley-Holland and read by Hugh Dickson. A commercial recording of Tolkien’s Pearl read (with *Sir Orfeo) by Terry Jones was first issued in 1997.
EDITION IN MIDDLE ENGLISH
By summer 1937 E.V. Gordon completed work on the edition of Pearl in Middle English begun in 1925. He had given up hope of any contribution by Tolkien, though he told Kenneth Sisam at Oxford University Press (*Publishers) that he would still welcome Tolkien’s participation, for the good of the book; but he did not want long delays, as he had other commitments and Pearl was due to replace Sir Gawain on the Oxford English syllabus in 1938, offering opportunities for sales of the new edition. Therefore, by the start of September 1937, he sent his manuscript to Tolkien for comment and revision, and suggested a date by which the work should be done. (Gordon’s actions in this paragraph, and much else in our account of the edition of Pearl, are documented in correspondence held in the Oxford University Press archives, Oxford.)
Sisam, Gordon’s editor, thought that the edition needed cutting. Gordon, reasoning that it is much easier to cut someone else’s work than to reduce one’s own, hoped that Tolkien would be willing to do so with Pearl. In December 1937 Tolkien replied that he was willing to attempt to reduce its length, but was opposed to the drastic reduction that had been suggested. It was agreed that Gordon and Tolkien together would work on the revision; but Gordon wrote to Sisam that he feared it would take a long time.
On 29 July 1938 E.V. Gordon died. Tolkien then began to help in the settling of his friend’s affairs and academic obligations, as far as he was able to do so. Among these was the edition of Pearl, which was still in abeyance when Tolkien wrote to Stanley Unwin c. 18 March 1945 that he was ‘in trouble with the widow of Professor E.V. Gordon of Manchester, whose posthumous work on Pearl I undertook, as a duty to a dead friend and pupil, to put in order; and have failed to do my duty’ (Letters, p. 114). By mid-1947 Gordon’s widow, Ida, a scholar of Middle English in her own right (see entry for *E.V. Gordon), herself took over the task of completing the edition of Pearl for publication. As she later wrote in its preface, at the time of her husband’s death ‘the edition was complete – complete, that is, in that no part was missing and all had been put into form, if not final form’ (p. iv). On c. 22 July 1947 Tolkien sent Mrs Gordon a revised introduction to the work, and by early August sent her related linguistic matter as well as general comments and suggestions. In a return letter she asked for Tolkien’s advice about preparing the manuscript for publication, and he agreed to assist her further. He did not do so at once, however, much to the consternation of Mrs Gordon and Oxford University Press. Kenneth Sisam warned her that Tolkien was a perfectionist; but his busy Oxford schedule, and matters such as the completion of The Lord of the Rings, also contributed to delay. On 13 June 1949 Tolkien advised D.M. Davin at Oxford University Press that only half of the glossary for Pearl remained to be done – referring, presumably, to his review of the glossary for revision. Probably in June 1950 Tolkien at last completed his revisions. In her preface Mrs Gordon wrote: ‘Many factors combined to delay publication, and … I started the work of final revision in 1950 …’ (p. iv).
On 19 August Ida Gordon sent the manuscript, now finished except for the introduction, to Oxford University Press; in this she incorporated Tolkien’s suggestions and corrections, as well as notes left by her husband. She herself made emendations to the text, restored one reading on Tolkien’s advice, and in general brought order to the material. Tolkien also suggested two changes of punctuation, and wrote one note that Mrs Gordon could not read. During September 1950 Tolkien replied to further queries about the work. On 13 September Mrs Gordon wrote to Tolkien that she was still worried about the introduction to Pearl, though a section which Tolkien had rewritten simplified the task considerably; and in other sections she felt that there may be some unnecessary detail, which she would try to reduce.
But more drastic cuts were called for by the publisher. On 6 June 1951 Ida Gordon commented to D.M. Davin at Oxford University Press that although she could understand some of the suggestions he sent her in regard to Pearl, she felt that the work would suffer if its associated matter were cut in half, as Davin had asked on the advice of Kenneth Sisam. The section Davin targeted