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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).

      For Tolkien, translation not only made a work of the past available to modern readers who could not read the older language, it was also a means by which the translator could study the poem and get close to the thought of its author, and could by the words he chose for the translation provide a commentary on the original. Tolkien had begun translations of Pearl and of *Sir Gawain and the Green Knight for his 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 when I first presumed to translate them’ (*Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Pearl and Sir Orfeo, p. 7).

      His translations of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Pearl, and *Sir Orfeo were published together in 1975. His unfinished verse translation of Beowulf is still largely unpublished, but his prose translation was published in 2014. That Tolkien had a translation of the Middle English Owl and the Nightingale apparently complete by 8 April 1932 is indicated by C.S. Lewis in a letter to his brother; it was, however, apparently not complete to Tolkien’s satisfaction. In 1967 he wrote to Professor Leyerle: ‘I have at present given up the task …. It comes off well enough in certain passages, but in general octosyllabic couplets are defeating for a translator; there is no room to move’ (Tolkien Papers, Bodleian Library, Oxford).

      In addition to his verse in English, Tolkien composed poetry in his created Elven languages (perhaps most notably Galadriel’s lament, Namárië) and in Old English, Middle English and Gothic.

      CRITICISM

      Carl Phelpstead in ‘“With Chunks of Poetry in Between”: The Lord of the Rings and Saga Poetics’, Tolkien Studies 5 (2008), explores how Tolkien’s incorporation of verse within several of his prose tales, from The Story of Kullervo to The Lord of the Rings, was derived from the Icelandic sagas, in part through *William Morris. In ‘Early Influences on Tolkien’s Poetry’, in Tolkien’s Poetry, ed. Julian Eilmann and Allan Turner (2013), Allan Turner discusses the influence on Tolkien of Francis Thompson, William Morris, the T.C.B.S., Georgian poetry, classical poetry, and exotic forms.

      Jason Fisher in ‘Parody? Pigwiggery? Sourcing the Early Verse of J.R.R. Tolkien’, Beyond Bree, October and November 2009, discusses Tolkien’s early ‘fairy’ poems such as Goblin Feet and his later comments on diminutive fairies in On Fairy-Stories.

      Michael D.C. Drout comments in his introduction (‘Reading Tolkien’s Poetry’) to Tolkien’s Poetry, ed. Eilmann and Turner (2013), that the popularity and vast sales of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings mean that ‘we can safely conclude that Tolkien’s poetry is among the most widely disseminated in the past century’ (p. 1). Though many readers admit to skipping them, the verses ‘are essential to the aesthetic and thematic effects’ of Tolkien’s fiction. ‘There are nearly 100 poems in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings’ in numerous forms, metres, and styles, some of which ‘contain certain information that is unavailable elsewhere in the text. Others reveal the characters of their speakers, demonstrate cultural differences and traditions or present otherwise-lost history …. The verses, therefore, cannot be dismissed as filler, incidental ornamentation or self-indulgent excrescence: on multiple levels they are woven throughout the work’ (pp. 3–4).

      Julian Tim Morton Eilmann, in ‘I Am the Song: Music, Poetry, and the Transcendent in J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle-earth’, in Light beyond All Shadow: Religious Experience in Tolkien’s Work, ed. Paul E. Kerry and Sandra Miesel (2011), also considers the songs and poems in The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit to be ‘an integral element in the narrative’ (p. 101) which serve ‘the purpose of social and cultural communication’. The poetry

      imparts historical knowledge and is the genre for prophecies …. Furthermore, one has to consider the simple, playful joy of singing and reciting poetry, its aesthetic pleasure. But this is not the crucial point of art reception in Middle-earth. Repeatedly the text of The Lord of the Rings implies that certain forms of poetry are able to evoke vivid images and ideas in the recipient’s mind, causing an effect that is repeatedly called ‘enchantment’. [p. 103]

      He cites several examples, including Frodo in the Hall of Fire, and discusses the power of song in *The Silmarillion (see *Music).

      Studies of Tolkien’s alliterative verse include Carl Phelpstead, ‘Auden and the Inklings: An Alliterative Revival’, Journal of English and Germanic Philology, October 2004; Mark F. Hall, ‘The Theory and Practice of Alliterative Verse in the Works of J.R.R. Tolkien’, Mythlore 25, nos. 1/2, whole nos. 95/96 (Fall/Winter 2006); Tom Shippey, ‘Alliterative Verse by Tolkien’, J.R.R. Tolkien Encyclopedia, ed. Michael D.C. Drout (2006); and Shippey, ‘Tolkien’s Development as a Writer of Alliterative Poetry in Modern English’, Lembas Extra 2009: Tolkien in Poetry and Song (2009).

      On Tolkien’s poetry not in English, see further, Tom Shippey, ‘Poems by Tolkien in Other Languages’, in J.R.R. Tolkien Encyclopedia, ed. Michael D.C. Drout (2006); and Maria Artamanova, ‘Tolkien’s Writings in Old Germanic Languages’, in The Ring Goes Ever On: Proceedings of the Tolkien 2005 Conference: 50 Years of The Lord of the Rings, ed. Sarah Wells (2008).

Political thought. Tolkien’s political views on the whole were conservative, in that he supported the Conservative Party rather than the Labour Party, but also in that he wanted to conserve what was good, and not to assume that new ideas or inventions were good merely because they were new. He understood that *power could corrupt, and mistrusted those who sought it. He applauded the medieval ideal of nolo episcopari: that only the man who does not want to be a bishop is fit to be a bishop – by extension, that those who seek power are unfit to wield it. Letters he wrote to his son *Christopher during the Second World War are enlightening on all of these issues.

      His feelings were undoubtedly sharpened by the situation around him (*War) – the use of machines (*Environment) leading to destruction and loss of life, incompetency and corruption, controls and restrictions – and he found some relief in writing about them. On 29 November 1943 he wrote to Christopher, with deliberate overemphasis to make his point:

      My political opinions lean more and more to Anarchy (philosophically understood, meaning abolition of control not whiskered men with bombs) – or to ‘unconstitutional’ Monarchy. I would arrest anybody who uses the word State (in any sense other than the inanimate realm of England and its inhabitants, a thing that has neither power, rights nor mind); and after a chance of recantation, execute them if they remained obstinate! If we could get back to personal names, it would do a lot of good. Government is an abstract noun meaning the art and process of governing and it should be an offence to write it with a capital G or so as to refer to people. If people were in the habit of referring to ‘King George’s council, Winston [Churchill] and his gang’, it would go a long way to clearing thought, and reducing the frightful landslide into Theyocracy. Anyway the proper study of Man is anything but Man; and the most improper job of any man, even saints (who at any rate were at least unwilling to take it on), is bossing other men. Not one in a million is fit for it, and least of all those who seek the opportunity. [Letters, pp. 63–4]

      In a draft letter to Michael Straight at the end of 1955 he explained: ‘I am not a “socialist” in any sense – being averse to “planning” … most of all because the “planners”, when they acquire power, become so bad …’ (Letters, p. 235). In another draft letter, to Joanna de Bortadano in April 1956, Tolkien explained his doubts about ‘democracy’ as necessarily an ideal method of government: ‘I am not

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