My Latest Publication (on THE FALL OF ARTHUR)

So, yesterday brought in the mail my contributor's copy (plus one extra) of TOLKIEN STUDIES Volume XIII, which includes my essay " 'That Seems to Me Fatal': Pagan and Christian in The Fall of Arthur". This is a piece I presented a part from at Kalamazoo two years back (or was it three?), and a somewhat some substantial excerpt at a symposium later that year; I also read the whole thing out at last year's MythCon in Colorado Springs, not as a main presentation (that was devoted to my guest-0f-honor speech re. Charles Williams' Arthuriad) but as a side-presentation suitable to the Arthurian theme of that conference.

My basic thesis is simple: that a passage in Tolkien's Letter to Waldman sets down succinctly Tolkien's reasons for rejecting the Arthurian mythos as the basis of his own 'Mythology for England'.  It's an idea I've had in mind to do for years, and the long-delayed publication of THE FALL OF ARTHUR finally gave me the opportunity.

This piece is dedicated to the memory of my friend Jim Pietrusz, Arthurian extraordinaire. I wish I'd been able to write this essay a year or two earlier: I'd have loved to have found out what he thought of it.


I also make one other appearance in this year's volume, in that my contribution to the Shippey festschrift (my essay 'Inside Literature: Tolkien's Exploration of Medieval Genres") gets mentioned in the essay-by-essay review of the book, including the following passage:

. . . with seven pages of notes and bibliography,

his scholarship clearly suggests an impressive

depth lurking beneath. Rateliff earns several

scholar points by venturing into other languages

to explore the Tolkien apocrypha, valuable

material, though some of it is unfinished

and all is far less explored than the novels.

I love the idea of racking up some 'scholar points', and think I'll have to figure out a way to put that on a button.

Obviously I haven't had a chance to do more than skim the contents, but thanks to the good folks at the Tolkien Society the full table of contents of the issue can be seen here:

https://www.tolkiensociety.org/2016/06/contents-of-tolkien-studies-volume-13-announced/

--John R.
current reading: SUMMER OF LOVE: THE MAKING OF SGT PEPPER by George Martin.