C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien Remembered

 

I am reading Tolkien's letters as well as a book offering a fresh look at the Inklings entitled The Company They Keep: C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien as Writers in Community by Diana Pavlac Glyer. The letters, in particular, convey a wonderful sense of who Tolkien was outside his work as a scholar and professor. Daily life accounts provide poignant insight into this complex figure.



With all of this reading on Tolkien and Lewis, it recently occurred to me that I should create a short video concerning our visits to the gravesites of these two great authors. I decided to include two sections about Cambridge and Oxford. All featured photos are culled from my images from two different trips to the UK.

Despite the fact that Tolkien was not particularly impressed by the bard, I decided to use incidental music from Shakespeare's plays for the first two featured music tracks.  This is followed by a poor recording of mine from Tolkien's parish, St. Aloysius Catholic Church. (For an interesting article on Tolkien and the Catholic Church, see here.) The home shared towards the end of the video is where Tolkien and his wife resided for many years in Oxford. We visited Sandfield Rd as my sister-in-law and her husband lived across the street for some time.  The person speaking for about a minute while we are walking is my brother-in-law.

I hope you enjoy this brief view from the UK! I'm concluding this with Tolkien's letter to his daughter a few days after the death of his friend as well as a compilation video I found on YouTube of Tolkien video.  My short video is at the bottom of the page.

To Priscilla Tolkien [Written four days after the death of C. S. Lewis.] 26 November 1963

Dearest, Thank you so much for your letter. . . . . So far I have felt the normal feelings of a man of my age – like an old tree that is losing all its leaves one by one: this feels like an axe-blow near the roots. Very sad that we should have been so separated in the last years; but our time of close communion endured in memory for both of us. I had a mass said this morning, and was there, and served; and Havard and Dundas Grant1 were present. The funeral at Holy Trinity, the Headington Quarry church, which Jack attended, was quiet and attended only by intimates and some Magdalen people including the President. Austin Farrer read the lesson. The grave is under a larch in the corner of the church-yard. Douglas (Gresham)2 was the only ‘family’ mourner. Warnie was not present, alas! I saw Owen Barfield, George Sayer and John Lawlor3 (a good mark to him), among others. Chris. came with us. There will be an official memorial service in Magdalen on Saturday at 2.15 p.m. It was very sweet of you my dearest to write. . . . . God bless you. Daddy.

Tolkien, J.R.R.. The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien: Revised and Expanded Edition (p. 478). (Function). Kindle Edition.