Tolkien Studies: An Annual Scholarly Review, Volume VI by Douglas A. Anderson & Michael D. C. Drout & Verlyn Flieger

Author:Douglas A. Anderson & Michael D. C. Drout & Verlyn Flieger
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: West Virginia University Press
Published: 2009-05-31T16:00:00+00:00

J.R.R. Tolkien and The Wanderer: From Edition to Application

Stuart D. Lee

Towards the end of his Valedictory Address, presented on the 5th June 1959, Professor Tolkien chose, by way of conclusion, to read the famous ubi sunt lines from the Old English poem The Wanderer:

If then with understanding I contemplate this venerable foundation, I now myself frōd in ferðe am moved to exclaim:

Hwǽr cwóm mearh, hwær cwóm mago? Hwǽr cwóm máþþumgyfa?

Hwǽr cwóm symbla gesetu? Hwǽr sindon seledréamas?

Éalá, beorht bune! Éalá, byrnwiga!

Éalá, þéodnes þrym! Hú seo þrág gewát,

genáp under niht-helm, swá heo nó wǽre!

Where is the horse gone, where the young rider? Where now the giver of gifts? Where are the seats at the feasting gone? Where are the merry sounds in the hall? Alas, the bright goblet! Alas, the knight and his hauberk! Alas, the glory of the king! How that hour has departed, dark under the shadow of night, as had it never been! (MC, 239)

Douglas Gray, who was present at the lecture recalls:

. . . there was a stillness in the room as if the Green Knight himself had come in. He really understood, as few medievalists do, the importance of “performance” for medieval literature. (21)

Over thirty years before his final lecture, Tolkien remarked that these lines were:

Deservedly famous.1 One of the best expressions of this motive in literature . . . we do not gain much from the argument of scholars as to whether it is a native or a learned motive. We might say it is a human motive! . . . And the question “where are” of the departed has been asked (as one might expect) in many languages. (A 38, f. 36v)2

For many reasons the choice of these lines was fitting. They focus on transience, and no doubt Professor Tolkien himself saw this as a ­moment of passing. More importantly, as we shall see by consulting Tolkien’s work (predominantly his unpublished material), he engaged with this poem on a regular basis; and, by exploring these interactions, we can draw some interesting conclusions about Tolkien and his scholarship.

Before proceeding with the analysis of Tolkien’s interaction with the poem, it is worth reminding ourselves of the original text. The Wanderer is an Old English poem. It survives in a single copy in The Exeter Book (ff. 76v-78r), and is usually described as an elegy (and thus part of a series of Old English elegies, including such poems as The Ruin, The Seafarer, etc.). It is a powerful poem detailing an individual’s exile from society, his lonely wanderings, and at the same time it touches on themes of general loss.

The structure of the poem is fairly straightforward in one way, in that it has an opening and closing (almost like a prologue and epilogue), and in between is a lengthy speech by a single protagonist (but, as we will see later, the number of people speaking in the poem is not without debate). It begins with an image of a lonely individual suffering hardship (ll. 1-4). This,

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