Alaric Hall
and Samuli Kaislaniemi, '“You Tempt me Grievously to a Mythological
Essay”: J. R. R. Tolkien’s Correspondence with Arthur Ransome',
in “Ex Philologia Lux: Essays in Honour of Leena Kahlas-Tarkka”,
ed. by Jukka Tyrkkö, Olga Timofeeva and Maria Salenius, Mémoires de
la Société Néophilologique de Helsinki (Helsinki: Société
Néophilologique, forthcoming).
'“You
Tempt me Grievously to a Mythological Essay”: J. R. R. Tolkien’s
Correspondence with Arthur Ransome', edits a letter from Tolkien to
Ransome held in the Brotherton Library of the University of Leeds. On
December 13th 1937, the celebrated children’s author Arthur Ransome
wrote to J. R. R. Tolkien with a few comments on Tolkien’s newly
published book 'The Hobbit'. Tolkien lost no time in replying, and
his letter provides one of his earliest comments on his published
fiction, and a relatively early explicit commentary on his mythic
writing. This article publishes for the first time Tolkien’s
response to Ransome in its entirety, and answers some of the
questions regarding the chronology of Tolkien’s correspondence
which arise. An analysis of the letter reveals that while, as many
scholars have shown, the ‘sources’ and ‘inspirations’ of 'The
Hobbit' include the likes of 'Beowulf' and the 'Poetic Edda', already
in 1937—and contrary to his own later claims—Tolkien’s
principal primary source for fleshing out his prose stories with
characters, places, and references to historical events was the vast
legendarium he had created himself.
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