Medievalism: Tales After Tolkien Society

The Tales After Tolkien Society promotes short-form medieval scholarship in popular cultural genres, including but not limited to: fantasy, science fiction, westerns, romance, horror, crime, historical, children’s and young adult fiction, and cross-genre writing. "The Tales After Tolkien Society recognizes the foundational place J. R. R. Tolkien’s work has not only for the fantasy genre, but for popular medievalisms far more widely."

The blog also offers brief comments on recent medievalist scholarship, book and article reviews, and other popular cultural uses of medievalist themes.

The motivation for the blog came about from the 2011 issue of the Modern Language Association of America's publication Profession. "In it is a cluster of articles discussing the evaluation of digital scholarship, and in the introduction to that cluster is the suggestion that digital scholarship needs to be encouraged among junior scholars—those who have not yet been awarded tenure and those who find themselves off the tenure track but not secure in identities as independent scholars."

Other advantages that digital scholarship offers are an "ability to track emergent trends in research and scholarship," a reading and an evaluation of the pieces by peers via comments and page analytics, and a space for detailed discussion of current articles.

They are currently seeking new contributors to the blog. Please contact Helen Young for more information at talesafterolkien@gmail.com.

Picture Day Friday: Reply to Fan Letter by Harper Lee

On June 7, 2006, Harper Lee wrote this extraordinary letter to her young admirer in response to a request for a photograph.

[Click on the image to read better.]

When Is a Book Not A Book?

A book is not a book when it's a book containing parts of one book or multiple books. This medieval book reliquary was called a cumdach or a book shrine. For example, the cumdach of Dimma's Book was produced in the twelfth century to encase the eighth century Gospel Book copied by the scribe Dimma.

Another example is the cumdach of Columba's Psalter. It was a copper and silver-plated book shrine that was made in the second half of the 11th century to hold the psalter of St. Columba, a manuscript that was created in the 6th or 7th century.

These shrines were fancy dust jackets, if you will. The cases were meant to directly resemble a book, symbolizing the important manuscripts found inside, and to protect the manuscripts from damage.

The shrines rival the books for super bling. This here on the left is the Gospel book known as the Codex Aureus or the Golden Book. It was made in the 9th century for the Holy Roman Emperor Charles II. The cover of the book is covered with gold, gems, sapphires, emeralds, and pearls.

[Both the images in this post are used with permission. They are copyrighted by Jenny Weston of Leiden University, The Netherlands and taken from http://medievalfragments.wordpress.com.]

When Did Romances Start to Get Such a Bad Rap?

"Stock characters, repetitive structures, contrived endings, formulaic words and phrases, simplistic emotions, commonplace sentiments"... Sounds familiar? How many times have modern romances been accused of this by the literary fiction stalwarts and even the science fiction and fantasy genre enthusiasts? Romances cannot be taken seriously pooh-poohs the Earnest Literature Reader; they're too pedestrian.

And yet, those quoted words above were not used to describe modern romances, but rather Middle English romances. Like modern romances, they were part of an enduring genre, ragingly popular in their heyday (over five centuries). Again like modern romances, popularity didn't mean that they didn't come under fire from the literary greats. And also like modern romances, they were commissioned by and read by people (well, men) who were well-educated, important, and successful.

Those Middle English romances and today's modern romances have been successfully popular across all demographics and yet are unpalatable to a notable few. It is as if something that is widely-read cannot have literary merit. Modern-day publishers think that reading comprehension and attention spans have declined these days—whether this is true or not, the market has bought this assessment and made the pronouncement that if something can be comprehended by many and is accessible to many, then perforce, it lacks rigor and complexity of language and thought.

And why stop at Middle English romances. Go further back to Old English tales, Nordic fairytales, and the grand sagas from Ireland and Iceland. All throughout history, you will find that stirring romantic stories of derring-do, love, the vanquishing of evil, the triumph of the noble (I don't mean aristocratic) hero (and heroine), the advancement of the underdog, and other such themes have been disparaged as the purview of the dim.

The philosophers of the ancient period and early Middle Ages are the Chaucers of the later medieval periods are the Austen contemporaries are the modern-day New Yorkers. Behind every romantic tale in history is a line of its detractors.

So modern romance novelists and readers who advocate for mainstream acceptance and respect towards the genre have an uphill battle ahead of them. But they're fighting the good fight.

Picture Day Friday: Lay vs. Lie, a grammar graphic

Summer Reading: Big Fat Book Edition

Some of my acquaintances who're readers and bloggers have been talking about desiring to read long instead of quick shorts. When I mean long, I mean more than 500 pages versus the usual 80,000 to 100,000 word stories. When I mean, quick, I mean stories with fast pacing and easy characterizations and subject material. Thus, the BFB or Big Fat Book project was born.

What qualifies as a BFB is not merely size, i.e., the hefty doorstopper, but also complex story lines, intricate plotting, and not obvious character motivations and thoughts and actions.

Back in March, Sunita blogged about initiating a BFB read-a-long among her blog readers. I thought long and hard about it, and decided, nope, I did not have the bandwidth to do it. I had BFB envy, but it wasn't a sufficient motivator. However, I kept up with Sunita's BFB posts in March to see how she did.

Then in June, I was alerted by her that another BFB read-a-long was coming up in July. I still thought that it was going to be a tough sell for me. Likewise, I was tempted by Kay's post, but resisted.

Then yet another person, Liz McCausland, decided to join in and posted about it. What was different about this one was the possibility of listening to an audiobook as part of the BFB read-a-long. I went, "Hmmm..." even though I am not a fan of audiobooks. Liz tried to encourage me in the comments section. But then a comment from Kaetrin finally clicked, and I was like, "YES! Count me in."

Her comment was that instead of sitting around twiddling my thumbs while listening to audiobooks and letting my attention wander then scrambling around trying to find the spot where I had stopped listening, I should do something that is not too engrossing while listening, i.e., something mindless, so I can keep my mind on the book and let my body have something to do, too. Her brilliant suggestion was to exercise while listening to the book.

I now have The Game of Kings, the first book in the Lymond Chronicles, by Dorothy Dunnett from the library. It's a book I have always wanted to read ever since author Jo Beverley recommended it highly, but have been daunted by the size. The paperback version tops 550 pages and the audio version has 25 hours worth of unabridged recording on CD. *GULP*

I am hoping that this will be synergistic for me: the exercise will help the listening and the listening in turn will help the exercising. Thus, I will be trying my first audiobook and my first BFB this summer. Hoping to post updates here so you can follow along with my progress (or lack thereof).