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Tolkien's Lost Chaucer

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Tolkien's Lost Chaucer

By: John M. Bowers
Narrated by: Jennifer M. Dixon
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About this listen

Tolkien's Lost Chaucer uncovers the story of an unpublished and previously unknown book by the author of The Lord of the Rings. Tolkien worked between 1922 and 1928 on his Clarendon edition Selections from Chaucer's Poetry and Prose, and though never completed, its 160 pages of commentary reveals much of his thinking about language and storytelling when he was still at the threshold of his career as an epoch-making writer of fantasy literature. Drawing upon other new materials such as his edition of "The Reeve's Tale" and his Oxford lectures on "The Pardoner's Tale", this book reveals Chaucer as a major influence upon Tolkien's literary imagination.

©2019 John M. Bowers (P)2020 Tantor European Literary History & Criticism World Literature
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Youtubing finds no videos of John M.Bowers so perhaps the good professor has some speech impediment that made self narration of this book impossible . However the choice of a 'music therapist ' (whatever that might be) , of a female 'counsellor' with an " old-fashioned BBC British with American overtones" voice (from her website) for an American male professor verges on giving listeners the finger. The music therapist's voice might be acceptable for a poor rendition of some minor pseudo Agatha Christie novel- "Murder Most Foul Of An Audible" perhaps- but listening to her timid reading of Middle English from phonetic cue cards robs one of the will to live, as does her total and obvious lack of any passion for the topic.

My own interest in Tolkien was limited to his being the foremost Old English scholar of his age (of any age?) . I'm no LOTR fan boy and would rather take "Beowulf , the Monsters..." to bed with me than the Hobbit. So I was intrigued by the premise of this book and decided to stick with it all the way through despite the Music Therapist's best efforts to get me to send it back. And stick with it I did, through all 14+ interminable hours of Prof Bowers mind numbingly boring prose. If his intent was to write * the*autoritative reference work for PhD students then he succeeded, if however he aimed to write an engaging read for those of us of the laity, as suggested by the 'Lost work' title , he failed miserably. Ubi sunt the well crafted prose which one might reasonably expect from a distinguished English professor? Ubi sunt the humour to draw in readers faced by a wall of never ending dates and factoids? Ubi sunt the bloody PASSION that , no doubt, Prof Bowers feels for the topic?
The print book needs to be on the shelf of every post-grad English student for whom it will be invaluable for the facts it presents...and presents...and presents ad nauseum. The audible needs to be 'pulped' .

Appalling Narration Ruins It

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