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but in Britain during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries the words began to be more commonly used in a narrower sense: philologist as ‘a person versed in the science of language; a student of language; a linguistic scholar’ and philology as ‘the study of the structure and development of language; the science of language; linguistics. (Really one branch of sense 1).’ In the 1972–86 supplement to the OED this definition of philology was further qualified: ‘In Britain now usu[ally] restricted to the study of the development of specific languages or language families, esp[ecially] research into phonological and morphological history based on written documents …. Linguistics is now the more usual term for the study of the structure of language, and, with qualifying adjective or adjective phrase, is replacing philology even in the restricted sense.’ For comment on these and later definitions, see The Ring of Words: Tolkien and the Oxford English Dictionary by Peter Gilliver, Jeremy Marshall, and Edmund Weiner (2006).

      During the nineteenth century the discovery of similarities between Sanskrit and Greek and Latin led to the recognition of the Aryan or Indo-European family of languages, and the rise of Comparative Philology. More detailed study of existing languages and their history followed, as philologists sought to discover relationships between languages by comparison of their forms past and present, noting regular shifts and changes in sound and spelling over the years and deducing by analogy not only earlier lost forms, but also a common ancestral language from which the Indo-European family developed. From these relationships and fragmentary memories in later writings, some attempted to throw light on the history of the speakers of the languages, in particular the dark period towards the end of the Roman Empire when Germanic and other tribes pressed against its borders.

      In England this led to a greater interest in Old English and its relationship with other Germanic languages. A chair in Anglo-Saxon was established at *Oxford as early as 1795 (see *Oxford English School), but during the nineteenth century the responsibilities of its holder were gradually extended to include Old Low German dialects and the antiquities of northern Europe. German scholars played a major role in defining new philological methods, which were fostered at Oxford by the creation of a Chair of Comparative Philology for Max Müller. See further, Tom Shippey, ‘Scholars of Medieval Literature, Influence of’, in J.R.R. Tolkien Encyclopedia, ed. Michael D.C. Drout (2006), pp. 594–8.

      The first holder of the Merton Professorship of English Language and Literature, established in 1885, was *A.S. Napier, who had trained as a philologist in Germany and previously occupied a chair at the University of Göttingen. There was as yet no Honour School of English at Oxford, and those who had hoped that the Merton chair would go to someone more interested in Literature than Philology were disappointed. One of the major attacks on Philology came from John Churton Collins, who wrote that

      as an instrument of culture it ranks – it surely ranks – very low indeed. It certainly contributes nothing to the cultivation of the taste. It as certainly contributes nothing to the education of the emotions. The mind it neither enlarges, stimulates, nor refines. On the contrary, it too often induces or confirms that peculiar woodenness and opacity, that singular coarseness of feeling and purblindness of moral and intellectual vision, which has in all ages been the characteristic of mere philologists …. Instead of encouraging communion with the noblest manifestations of human energy, with the great deeds of history, or with the masterpieces of art and letters, it tends, as Bacon remarks, to create habits of unintelligent curiosity about trifles. It too often resembles that rustic who, after listening for several hours to Cicero’s most brilliant conversation, noticed nothing and remembered nothing but the wart on the great orator’s nose. [The Study of English Literature (1891), quoted in D.J. Palmer, The Rise of English Studies (1965), pp. 83–4]

      A different, more moderately expressed point of view was put forward by Henry Nettleship. Philology, he wrote, ‘can never, from the nature of the case, be hostile to literature, whatever temporary misunderstandings may arise between them. I believe also that philology is a necessary adjunct to the academical study of literature; that the academical study of literature, without philology, is a phantom which will vanish at the dawn of day’ (The Study of Modern European Languages and Literature (1887), quoted in Palmer, The Rise of English Studies, p. 104). But as D.J. Palmer has pointed out, however reasonable this might seem, it avoided consideration of various practical factors and vested interests:

      Exactly what literature was to be studied in an English School? The pabulum of philologists was solidly medieval; linguistic interest did not, except by chance, coincide with literary quality; and on modern literature philologists had little to say that was of interest to literary critics. Moreover, even if the principle were conceded that philology was ‘a necessary adjunct’ to literary study, was it any more so than history, or philosophy, or rhetoric, or comparative literature? These issues would directly affect the actual organization of an English School and the definition of its scope and flexibility. [The Rise of English Studies, p. 105]

      In the background of this debate was the opinion held by some that the study of English literature, and especially of more recent works, would be a ‘soft’ option compared to other schools, and that Philology, a precise and demanding discipline, would provide some ‘stiffening’. Thus even before an English School was established at Oxford in 1894 there were competing interests and ideas of what its syllabus should cover, and what part, if any, Philology should play in it.

      T.A. Shippey has noted that even philologists were divided in how they approached or used their subject:

      At one extreme scholars were drawing conclusions from the very letters of a language: they had little hesitation is ascribing texts to Gothic or Lombardic authors, to West Saxons and Kentishmen or Northumbrians, on the evidence of sound-changes recorded in spelling. At the other extreme they were prepared to pronounce categorically on the existence or otherwise of nations and empires on the basis of poetic tradition or linguistic spread. They found information, and romance, in songs and fragments everywhere. [The Road to Middle-earth (2nd edn. 1992), pp. 16–17]

      Philology was able to identify the changed names of leaders and heroes in later poetry with earlier writings, and in some cases these did preserve memories of actual people and events. Shippey comments: ‘The change of viewpoint marks an enormous if temporary shift of poetic and literary interest from Classical to native. It also shows how philology could seem to some, the “noblest of sciences”, the key to “spiritual life”, certainly “something much greater than a misfit combination of language plus literature”’ (The Road to Middle-earth (2nd edn. 1992), p. 17, quoting Leonard Bloomfield and Holger Pedersen). Also,

      the thousands of pages of ‘dry as dust’ theorems about language-change, sound-shifts and ablaut-gradations were, in the minds of most philologists, an essential and natural basis for the far more exciting speculations about the wide plains of ‘Gothia’ and the hidden, secret traderoutes across the primitive forests of the North, Myrkviðr inn ókunni, ‘the pathless Mirkwood’ itself. You could not have, you would never have got the one without the other. [p. 19]

      Tolkien’s interest in words manifested itself while he was still a child. When his mother (*Mabel Tolkien) introduced him to Latin it ‘delighted him. He was just as interested in the sounds and shapes of the words as in their meanings ….’ He liked French less: ‘the sounds did not please him as much as the sounds of Latin and English [*Languages]. She also tried to interest him in playing the piano, but without success. It seemed rather as if words took the place of music for him, and that he enjoyed listening to them, reading them, and reciting them, almost regardless of what they meant’ (Humphrey Carpenter, Biography, p. 22). On several occasions in later life Tolkien referred to the effect the sound of certain words had on him. On 7 June 1955 he wrote to *W.H. Auden: ‘It has been always with me: the sensibility to linguistic pattern which affects me emotionally like colour or music …’ (Letters, p. 212). On 22 November 1961 he wrote to his Aunt *Jane Neave: ‘As for plenilune and argent [in his poem *Errantry], they are beautiful words before they are understood – I wish I could have the pleasure of meeting them for the first time again! – and how is one to know them till one does meet them?’ (Letters, p. 310).

      In

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