The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrun critique begins
In the US, The Washington Post was impressed by the latest edition to the JRR Tolkien catalogue:
“Given the global reach and phenomenal success of the Tolkien franchise, it is difficult sometimes to focus on what a strange, brilliant, obsessive writer he actually was. Millenniums hence, when our own culture has become as remote as that of the Eddas, some far-future historian or scribe struggling to make sense of the countless 20th- and 21st-century iterations of Middle-earth — in books, films and music, toys, jewelry and clothes — may well interpret them as evidence that we, too, were a world in thrall to Northernness.”
The Washington Post
However, The Telegraph was less enthusiastic:
“Elsewhere it achieves a stark beauty: ‘Steeds went striding, /stonefire glinted, /rocks were ringing,/roads resounding. /In hoar forests/harts were startled, /over hill and valley/hooves were beating.’ Thanks to the rhythm you can hear the approaching horses. However, such moments of magic are few and far between. Most fans of Jackson’s fantasy franchise will ignore the critical apparatus by the editor Christopher Tolkien (the author’s son) and end up bemused. It is some kind of achievement to bulk up the equivalent of 500 Twitter messages to 377 pages but there is no disguising the fact that everyone involved is simply flogging a dead Norse.”
The Daily Telegraph
The Times, in the most comprehensive and balanced review, looks closely at the work from many angles:
As for the fate of the two poems here published, Tolkien fans will need no persuasion of their merits. Scholars will read them with close attention, to see what Tolkien’s famously original mind made of the old Königsproblem. The general reader? Many will stumble over the archaisms, for the poems are seventy years old at least, and written by a man closer in time and spirit to William Morris than to modern readers. Those who persevere will learn much about Eddic poetry and the great legend of the North, and feel something of the “demonic energy” they project and the “new literary sensation” they created on rediscovery. This is the most unexpected of Tolkien’s many posthumous publications; his son’s “Commentary” is a model of informed accessibility; the poems stand comparison with their Eddic models, and there is little poetry in the world like those.
The Times
The Guardian went one better than all its rivals and managed to conduct a questions and answers session with the reclusive Christopher Tolkien:
Why did you decide to publish it [The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrun] now?
“The reason was purely one of time and energy. I had always intended to publish these poems one day, ever since I first read them after my father’s death, and indeed I made an abandoned draft of an edition years ago; but when I finally reached the conclusion of the 12-volume History of Middle-Earth in 1996 I took a long break, and didn’t publish any further work of my father’s until The Children of Húrin in 2007.”
The Guardian
To read the entire questions and answers session with Christopher Tolkien, in which he comes across very well and far removed from the cantankerous hermit many would have us believe, click on the following link:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/may/05/jrr-tokien-sigurd-gudrun-poem
Posted: May 8th, 2009
Author: Floresiensis
Categories: JRR Tolkien
Comments
It is very difficult to assess this poem. Tolkien obviously intended it for readers who were already familiar with the legend (very few). This makes some bit of sense because the original audience for the Eddaic poem was also familiar with the particulars of plot. So in a sense, though the language is not filled with archaisms (as one would find in William Morriss’s Sigurd the Volsung), the poem is nevertheless archaic. I have an inkling that Tolkien knew this and perhaps did not care if the poem became popular. It was for afficianados of “the great legend of the North” (Morris).
Morris, though he may seem a bit archaic to those who misread him (his archaisms are not merely throwbacks to poetic diction) created an original epic poem, Sigurd the Volsung, which was a better popular retelling of the story, evidenced by multiple printings in Britain and America. It is still an astounding read, and when one considers that it may be the longest poetic work in English, it is a masterpiece of simplicity — a joyful (for the reader, at least) adventure to an exotic time and place. After reading this, readers may go back and really enjoy the Tolkien work. LOR fans will love the Morris chapter on the forging of “the sword that was broken.” For those intimidated by long poems, but who love fantasy, get over it — you’ll get so involved after a couple of chapters that you will forget you are reading poetry at all. I found my first copy at http://www.abebooks.com
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