Discovering Tolkien's Lost Chaucer

Chaucer was part of Tolkien's mental furniture, so to speak, that he spent a lifetime rearranging. 
(pg. 3)

I find that I have been reading too many books quickly to keep up with sharing about them. Maybe I shall catch up at some point, but one book I have been reading for several weeks now (it is certainly more of an academic book) is Tolkien's Lost Chaucer, which was published more recently (2019) by Oxford University Press.

Naturally, I was intrigued when I ran across this new book on Tolkien, especially concerning something I had never associated him with before, Geoffrey Chaucer (born 1343). Chaucer, of course, known for The Canterbury Tales, a book of stories told by pilgrims who set off from a pub in London on a pilgrimage to Canterbury Cathedral. On their journey, they each have to tell an interesting tale. 

Being that I read The Canterbury Tales a couple years ago in full for the first time, and then subsequently stayed in Canterbury shortly thereafter, visiting the cathedral and staying on the Canterbury Cathedral grounds,  I readily accept how providential it is that I come across certain books and authors at certain times and somehow engage with the book, the author, the place, and the background in unique ways that help me grasp a true appreciation of it all.

In walks this book by John M. Bowers, which explores the work that Tolkien did during the 1920's on a Clarendon edition (of Oxford University Press) Selections from Chaucer's Poetry and Prose, though the book was never completed and never published. Tolkien wrote 160 pages of commentary which reveals a lot of his thoughts and ideas of storytelling and language. This was written at a time before he wrote any Middle-earth history, and I am most thoroughly enjoying how the author shows how his commentary on Chaucer is revealed in his later writings in The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, the greater tales of Middle-earth, his essays, his translations, etc.

For me, it is deeply interesting to learn about favourite authors, and how and where they gather their inspiration from. Most prominently, it is from all the stories and legends they ever read, built upon one another in a new perspective of story and myth. "Tolkien well understood how his stories grew 'out of all that has been seen or thought or read', that has long ago been forgotten, descending into the deeps."

This book goes through the process from the early explanation of how this project came into Tolkien's life, how he wrote and edited it (including several photographs of his handwritten commentary, notes, and edits), and the collaborators involved (including C.S. Lewis, who was not a collaborator on the project, but who was a significant part of Tolkien's literary process, and who was an expert on medieval works).

I already knew how detailed and intricate Tolkien's attention and writing was. No word was solitary, it had an etymology, a meaning, and when he wrote commentary he commented on such things, just as he would his own writing. He was a quick-starter, and had trouble completing projects because of this. He would get caught in the details of something rather minor (to most of us). He tended to write more than what was asked of him, and he would be asked to edit it down, but he found that the notes were too important to remove. He was a niggler, always tweaking and altering something because it was never quite perfect. He was the character Niggle in the short story he wrote much later, "Leaf by Niggle". Always working on that perfectly painted leaf that would never be completed because it was never perfect enough. 

It was not Tolkien's fault that the Clarendon Chaucer edition was never published; there were other factors at play, including other folks who did not complete their part to get it finalized. Tolkien grew frustrated at times when his part was finished but the project failed to move forward. It is interesting to see how for various reasons it kept getting pushed out, and seemed to be missing that piece or person to push it forward. Perhaps it is a lesson learned that in collaboration, we need a group of people who fill the different gaps of personality - quick-starter, driver, detail-oriented, finisher, etc so that each trait that each participate is gifted with can be used to complete the project.