Roots and Branches: Selected Papers on Tolkien

by Tom Shippey

Professor Tom Shippey is best known for his books 'The Road to Middle-earth' and 'J.R.R. Tolkien. Author of the Century'. Yet they are not the only contributions of his to Tolkien studies. Over the years, he has written and lectured widely on Tolkien-related topics. Unfortunately, many of his essays, though still topical, are no longer available. The current volume unites for the first time a selection of his older essays together with some new, as yet unpublished articles.

Genres: Essays, Nonfiction

432 pages, Paperback

First published April 30, 2007

About the author

Thomas Alan Shippey is a British medievalist, a retired scholar of Middle and Old English literature as well as of modern fantasy and science fiction. He is considered one of the world's leading academic experts on the works of J. R. R. Tolkien about whom he has written several books and many scholarly papers. His book The Road to Middle-Earth has been called "the single best thing written on Tolkien".

Shippey's education and academic career have in several ways retraced those of Tolkien: he attended King Edward's School, Birmingham, became a professional philologist, occupied Tolkien's professorial chair at the University of Leeds, and taught Old English at the University of Oxford to the syllabus that Tolkien had devised.

He has received three Mythopoeic Awards and a World Fantasy Award. He participated in the creation of Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings film trilogy, assisting the dialect coaches. He featured as an expert medievalist in all three of the documentary DVDs that accompany the special extended edition of the trilogy, and later also that of The Hobbit film trilogy.

Also publishes as T.A. Shippey.

Reviews

[Dan'l Danehy-Oakes · Rating 5 out of 5]

Subtitled "Selected Papers on Tolkien," that is precisely what this is; a collection of essays from a time period ranging from 1982 to 2005. The majority of them are from the 2000s, and about half of those are, for whatever reason, from 2004. The book has no copyright date, but the year given below the colophon is 2007.

(It is, incidentally, number 11 in the "Cormarë series," from Walking Tree Publishers. Not only is this a series of books on JRRT, Walking Tree appears to be a publisher whose sole mission is producing books on Tolkien. I did not know that such a thing existed, and if I had unlimited time and money I would probably be buying a lot more from them; as it is, I will probably buy some more in time.)

Shippey is, or was, a professional philologist like JRRT, and his history somewhat parallels Tolkien's. Like Tolkien, he spent his earliest years abroad (in India as opposed to Tolkien's South Africa); he attended the same school (King Edward's); and he taught at both Oxford and actually held the same chair at the University of Leeds that had been JRRT's before he got into the faculty of Oxford. (Unlike JRRT, however, he traveled extensively abroad, including work in America.) Shippey discusses the roots of philology and how they were tied to the (re)discovery of various ancient texts, and how they worked with those texts to learn not only what they meant, but what they implied about the cultures that had produced them. He repeatedly states that philology is an exact science. At any rate, this common interest gives him insights into JRRT's thinking that, I think, are generally undeniable.

The essays are divided up into four sections.

The first section is "The Roots: Tolkien and his Predecessors," with essays concerning Tolkien's relationships with subjects ranging from the Beowulf-poet, the Eddas, and the Kalevala, to Richard Wagner. The philology begins almost immediately:

The first essay in this section, "Tolkien and the Beowulf-poet," is one of the ones I like best; it discusses Tolkien's apparent belief that he, and only he, properly understood not only the poem, but the poet, and how this influences not only the obvious work like "The Monsters and the Critics" and "The Homecoming of Beohtnoth Beorhthelm's Son," but the Middle-earth corpus. I should make it clear that _all_ the essays in this section discuss not only the various ancient (or not-so-ancient in the cases of _Kalevala_ and Wagner), but how they impacted Tolkien's fiction.

The second section, "Heartwood: Tolkien and Scholarship" is perhaps the densest of the four. It is all about Tolkien's professional work. With the possible exception of "Tolkien's Academic Reputation Now," (where "Now" was 1989), they again have ties to his "other" career, though some of them are a bit tenuous. The standouts here are "History in Words: Tolkien's Ruling Passion," one of several essays that discuss how word-history shapes Tolkien's fiction (far more than I had realized) and "Tolkien and Iceland: The Philology of Envy."

"The Trunk: The Lord of the Rings, the Silmarillion," contains six essays on aspects of the Matter of Middle-earth. I thoroughly enjoyed all of these, but my favorites would have to be "Orcs, Wraiths, Wights: Tolkien's Images of Evil" and "'A Fund of Wise Sayings': Proverbiality in Tolkien." Shippey's insights remain thoroughly philological in basis, but he makes convincing cases for his conclusions.

"Twigs and Branches: Minor Works by Tolkien" covers "Beorhtnoth," the short poem "The Hoard," _Smith of Wooton Major_, and (a very brief contemporary review of) _Mr. Bliss_, and ends with a discussion of Peter Jackson's _Lord of the Rings_, in which he is far more generous than I am to the changes Jackson made not only in the story but in the _meaning_ of the story. He does make good cases for some things -- for example, the utter need to "show not tell" in a visual mediium -- but even he seems to agree that the things Jackson _added_ are, at best, peculiar and (in at least some cases) unsuited to JRRT's intentions.

Overall, this is an excellent collection of essays on a topic dear to my heart, from an angle that I find fascinating.

[Pete · Rating 4 out of 5]

A collection of essays/lectures by Tom Shippey. If you are at all interested in learning more about Tolkien, Shippey is the best place to start.

[Andrew Higgins · Rating 5 out of 5]

A seminal collection of Tolkien scholarship - Shippey is a giant and each of these papers pure gems - heavily heavily highlighted in my book!

[Regitze Xenia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some of these essays I'm definitely going to use, but overall this book provides a broad spectrum of insights and thoughts about LotR.

[Jack Mitchell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Every essay is interesting, which is not surprising coming from the leading Tolkien scholar of the 20th century.

[Mitch · Rating 4 out of 5]

In the introduction, Shippey explains that many of these essays come from very disparate sources (ranging from academic journals to informal lectures given to the Dutch Tolkien Society). As a result, there is no unifying central theme like in Shippey's The Road to Middle-Earth: How J.R.R. Tolkien Created A New Mythology, and I was worried that this book might feel a bit too disorganized and informal. I need not have worried! Even when Shippey is at his most informal here, he always has interesting and compelling observations to make about Tolkien's writings. Furthermore, some of the essays collected in this book (most notably the "Light-elves, Dark-elves, and Others: Tolkien's Elvish Problem") are some of the best bits of literary criticism I've ever read about Tolkien! Shippey is truly a master, and I'm very glad that I read some of his more obscure pieces.

[BRANDON · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolute essential reading for anyone who is a fan of Tolkien, or someone who enjoys Anglo-Saxon and is a Tolkien scholar. Or for people who just enjoy Tom Shippey. This collection of essays I left over a certain person's house and there it gathers dust. Luckily I read it before then and was just amazed with how fluent and remarkable Tom Shippey really is on his own. His books are classics and this collection of essays into Tolkien's world is just one example. Shippey is a courageous writer, and is not afraid to reasonably speculate what Tolkien might have thought or have been trying to do, etc.. He does so very convincingly and is never condescending to the reader or the critique. This is maybe a bit more scholarly and in-depth work than you will get than the wide-angled lens of say, Author of The Century, but well worth it from the person who sits in Tolkien's Chair.

[Othy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was somewhat disappointed by Tom Shippey's writing in this book. A lot of the essays and meandering brainstorms on things Tolkien, and not all of them say much at all. Some of them say very little, though some say quite a bit (which is why I gave it four stars instead of three). Sometimes I wondered how serious Shippey was about publishing some of these, as they seem almost written to write something about Tolkien. But, again, Shippey is insightful, and when he comes to his point it's almost always a good one, and one that helps me understand my favorite author better than before.

[Don Standing]

I would have liked this better had I read it first. But after reading "The Raod to Midlle-Earth" and "J.R.R. Tolkien: Author of the Century", I found little here that was new.