Tolkien Day in Cornwall

He spent some of his holidays in Cornwall and was familiar with the landscape, rural culture, people and language. Cornwall provided an early link between Anglo-Saxon England and Tolkien’s fantasy worlds of elves and orcs. 

Three of the foremost experts on Tolkien, will be giving presentations as part of the Tolkien Day at the University. The free event is open to members of the public and will take place at Chapel Lecture Theatre on the Cornwall Campus from 11:30 – 16:00. Patrick Curry, Tom Shippey and Terri Windling will share their knowledge on the far-reaching impact of Tolkien, the ‘father’ of modern fantasy literature.

The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings drew immense world-wide recognition and the popularity of these books has had a lasting effect on literature and more recently on film. Today, Tolkien’s influence is also clear from the degree to which computer game designers have drawn from Tolkien’s creation of new worlds, new creatures, and whole new alphabets and languages. Despite all this, Tolkien has often been neglected by academics. 

Professor Nick Groom explains, ‘The academic neglect of Tolkien can be put down to sheer prejudice, as his work doesn’t fit into an easy category. Yet his books have generated intense activity and enthusiasm, from the live role play battles of the 1980’s to the online computer games of today such as World of Warcraft, which attracts a staggering 11.5 million players a month. His books contain maps, a chronology of history and extra information on areas such as heraldry, all of which allows for different ways into the text and for contemporary outlets such as PC games and of course a series of Oscar-winning films and dozens of spin-off products.’

He added, ‘At the University we are interested in Tolkien’s mythology of England and his approach to different regional identities, which are deeply rooted in English literature and the landscape. We use his work as a point from which to focus on writing, place and identify.’

Professor Groom teaches Tolkien at postgraduate level and next year plans  to launch an undergraduate option for BA English students dedicated to Tolkien’s achievements as a writer, scholar, and critic. Tolkien was not only an author and poet, but also Merton Professor at Oxford and a skilled linguist of ancient languages. He worked for example on the Oxford English Dictionary tracing the history of words starting with the letter W, from ‘walnut’ to ‘warlock’.

Although Tolkien’s work goes in waves of fashion and popularity, the University of Exeter’s School of English is committed to developing academic research into one of England’s most popular and influential English writers.