In Shippey's following discussion of Tolkien's 1936 lecture on Beowulf, Shippey quotes Tolkien as saying, "'Alas for the lost lore, the annals and old poets that Virgil knew, and only used in the making of a new thing!'" (p. 235).
Yes, there was an oral tradition behind Beowulf, but the text of Beowulf that has come down to us was written by a literate Christian missionary.
For further discussion, see the American Jesuit literary scholar Maurice B. McNamee's book Honor and the Epic Hero: A Study of the Shifting Concept of Magnanimity in Philosophy and Epic Poetry (1960, pp. 86-117). In three different discussion notes at the end of his essay, McNamee refers to Tolkien's "admirable essay" "'Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics'" (pp. 112n.21, 114n.25, and 117n.72).
Now, in my widely read OEN article "Some Reflections of the Work of C. G. Jung and Walter J. Ong" (dated December 28, 2024), I briefly discuss the self-described conservative Catholic convert columnist Ross Douthat's column "We Need a Great American Fantasy" (dated December 20, 2024) in The New York Times.
Now, in it, Ross Douthat mentions the British philologist and author J. R. R. Tolkien's three-volume fantasy novel The Lord of the Rings (1954-1955).
As everyone knows, Tolkien's three volumes of the fantasy novel The Lord of the Rings were turned into a trilogy of epic fantasy adventure films, released 2001-2003 - about the time when Shippey's book J. R. R. Tolkien: Author of the Century had been published in 2000. If Shippey were to publish a 25th anniversary edition of J. R. R. Tolkien: Author of the Century, he almost certainly would want to add a discussion of the trilogy of epic fantasy adventure films based on Tolkien's three-volume fantasy novel The Lord of the Rings.
According to the Wikipedia entry titled "The Lord of the Rings (film series)," total budget for the three films in English was $281 million dollars. The total box office for the three films in English was $2.964 BILLION DOLLARS!
Now, I have no idea how the total box office for those three films in English compares to the total box office for any other films or film series. However, I am impressed by the figure of $2.964 billion dollars.
Of course, the three films obviously feature images, just as the ubiquitous mom-son porn videos on the internet do - as I have discussed in my OEN article "On Interpreting the Ubiquitous Mom-Son Porn on the Internet" (dated December 19, 2024).
As a result of the images in the three films in the epic fantasy adventure trilogy The Lord of the Rings, the three films involve the viewers in engaging in what Jung refers to as fantasy thinking involving images and associative thinking.
As a matter of fact, the three films in the trilogy of epic fantasy adventure films also feature music - a feature not found in mom-son fantasy skits on the internet.
Now, the most efficient way for me to give you an overview of Shippey's book is to tell you its contents:
Half-title page (p. i).
Title page (p. ii).
Copyright page (p. iii).
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