Читать книгу The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien - Christopher Tolkien - Страница 12

[In 1920 Tolkien was appointed Reader in English Language at Leeds University, a post that was later converted into a Professorship; see no. 46 for an account of the interview leading to his appointment. Tolkien was now married to Edith Bratt; by 1923 he had two children, John and Michael. In 1922 he published a glossary to a Middle English Reader edited by his former tutor, Kenneth Sisam. He also began work with E. V. Gordon on an edition of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. The following letter, acknowledging receipt of an article about that poem, is addressed to the wife of Joseph Wright, editor of the English Dialect Dictionary (‘E.D.D.’). Tolkien had studied philology with Wright at Oxford.]

13 February 1923

The University, Leeds

Dear Mrs Wright,

I am very grateful to you for the offprint – and also for your kind remarks about the glossary. I certainly lavished an amount of time on it which is terrible to recall, and long delayed the Reader bringing curses on my head; but it was instructive.

I need hardly say that I am quite convinced by your article and am delighted to feel confident that another rough patch in ‘Sir G.’ is now smoothed out finally by you.

We have just passed through a somewhat disastrous Christmas, as the children chose that time to sicken for measles – by the beginning of January I was the only one in the house left up, the patients including the wife & nursemaid. The vacation work lay in ruins; but they (not the work) are all better now and not much the worse. I escaped. I hope you are well, and that Professor Wright is well – I have not heard any news of him lately, which I have interpreted favourably.

Middle English is an exciting field – almost uncharted I begin to think, because as soon as one turns detailed personal attention on to any little corner of it the received notions and ideas seem to crumple up and fall to pieces – as far as language goes at any rate. E.D.D. is certainly indispensable, or ‘unentbehrlich’ as really comes more natural to the philological mind, and I encourage people to browze in it.

My wife wishes to be remembered to you both and joins her greetings to mine.

Yours sincerely

J. R. R. Tolkien.

Philology is making headway here. The proportion of ‘language’ students is very high, and there is no trace of the press-gang! JRRT.