Christopher Tolkien says that in compiling the commentary to accompany his father's translation of Beowulf he intended to paint a portrait of his father's thought. That portrait, as it emerges in the commentary, is very much of its place and time. One observes all the tools and habits of fin de siecle philology: questions of multiple traditions being stitched together, inquires into lost Teutonic mythology, careful reconstructions of corrupted portions of the text. On the other hand, we can also see in Tolkien's treatment of Beowulf the unitary impulse (that is the desire to view texts as the work of one mind organizing traditional material to serve its purposes rather than viewing texts as accretions that evolved under the hands of innumerable redactors with conflicting agendas) that was simultaneously arising in Homeric scholarship in the 1930s and 40s (see Milman Perry and A.B. Lord). The unique factor that J.R.R. Tolkien contributes is to blend these two approaches with a maverick willingness to use his imagination in seeking answers to scholarly questions. In painting this portrait, then, Christopher Tolkien is not only raising a memorial to his father, he is also bringing important information to light for those interested in the intellectual history of the 20th century.
I got my Super Nintendo Entertainment System when I was eleven years old. That's a couple years after it first came out. The occasion was a little dramatic: to celebrate the end of a two-and-a-half year course of treatment for cancer. I had no idea that it would be waiting for me at home after the final doctors visit. It was a nice spring day, the trees were waving gently in the breeze outside the bay windows. With a cup of tea resting on the coffee table, I set down to play. What was that first game? It was The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past . Around twenty years later, my SNES still works as does that Zelda cartridge. It's been a long way from boyhood in Southern Connecticut to manhood in North Houston, but I'm still playing. Why am I still playing? There were stretches when I didn't. Many times, I've just been too busy. There were also seasons when it felt embarrassing to still be playing video games....
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