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Article: There and back again: Tolkien reconsidered.(author J. R. R. Tolkien)
- Article from:
- The Horn Book Magazine
- Article date:
- March 1, 2002
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2002 Horn Book, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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I first set eyes on J. R. R. Tolkien when I was eighteen years old, a first-year undergraduate at the University of Oxford, sitting in a cavernous lecture hall with pen poised hungrily over notebook. For those first few seconds, however, nobody took notes; we were gazing startled at the chunky gray-haired figure hitching up his academic robe over his tweed jacket. We were listening.
"Hwaet!" he cried.
... we Gar-Dena in gear-dagum peod-cyninga prym gefrunon, hu oa aepelingas ellen fremedon ...
Professor Tolkien had been beginning his lectures by reciting the first lines of Beowulf in Anglo-Saxon since before I was born; he'd held the Chair of ...