Masaryk University Faculty of Arts Department of English and American Studies


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J R R Tolkien as a Great English Poet of

The New Lay of the Volsungs and The New L
ay of Gudrún. The first one is about the Volsung 
family that was betrayed and wiped out by another family; at the end comes the revenge. 
The second one, which basically follows in time, is the story of two women competing for 
the heart of one man and it all ends in tragedy. Both are full of bloodshed, betrayal, love and 
heroism and there are traces that some of the heroes and heroines might have been real 
historical figures. In some ways, the couple of poems is similar to The Fall of Arthur, in others 
not. Both are some kind of compilation of earlier famous versions of certain stories to which 
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For e a ple, „He preser ed the ´ hro i le´ traditio of Arthur´s easter a paig o erseas, ut totall
changed its nature and purpose. Arthur defends 
´‘o e´, he does ot assault it (The Fall of Arthur 110). 


Tolkien added something of his own. Both are also written in the alliterative verse. The main 
difference is not evident at first sight, because it lies in the process of creation. While the 
Arthurian poem has the number of draft pages thrice as big as the length of the final version, 
there is o tra e of earlier drafting whatsoever (The Fall of Arthur 171). Another difference 
is the number of those famous previous texts that served as the source. The Arthurian 
legends are more famous and logically there are more authors that wrote their own 
variat
io s. The stor of “igurd, Gudrún, Brynhild and others however, is less known and so 
there are not so many sources to rely on. In fact, there are only two 
– The Poetic Edda and 
The Prose Edda
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. Tolkien did not focus only on Anglo-Saxon language, but he was also a 
professor of Old Norse. Even though both lays are written in Modern English, their titles are 
in Old Norse 
– Volsungak ida En Nýja and Gudrúnark ida En Nýja, as well as all the titles of 
particular cantos. And there is another Old Norse feature. According to Tolkien, the 
difference between English and Norse alliterative verse is both in visual and stylistic aspect. 
I Old E glish Breadth, full ess, refle tio , elegia effe t, ere ai ed at. Old Norse poetr
aims at seizing a situation, striking a blow that will be remembered, illuminating a moment 
with a flash of lighting 
– and tends to concision, weighty packing of the language in sense 
a d for ... (The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrún foreword). Tolkien wrote in English but 
preserved this Old Norse style and thus created a piece of poetry never seen before. 
Even though the last two poems are also connected with old historical writings, the 
amount of 
Tolkie ´s i e tio is so e hat higher tha i pre ious t o. The first of the , 
The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth Beorhthelm's Son, is based on Old English poem The Battle 
of Maldon. In this battle, which was actually fought in 991, the Anglo-Saxon troops were 
defeated by the Vikings and the leader of Anglo-Saxon army, Beorhtnoth, was killed. This 
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In the introdu
tio to „The La s , Tolkie i troduces also these sources and he discusses widely their origin. 


much is known and this much is also described in the original poem. But Tolkien focused only 
on a short period of time which followed after the battle 
– two soldiers, "the youthful 
romantic Torhthelm and the practical old farmer Tidwald" (Carpenter 190),
are sent to the 
battlefield to find the dead body of Beorhtnoth. The poem is actually a dialogue written in 
alliterative verse, which the two soldiers hold while searching, finding and returning with the 
body. Besides some scenic notes that are also included, it consists only of direct speech so it 
is a very short drama.
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In this poem, Tolkien peeped into the world of playwrights and then 
quickly returned back to his scholar one by adding two essays, one to the beginning and one 
to the end. 
King Sheave is partly legendary, partly maybe a historical person who was mentioned 
in several old chronicles
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Beowulf and Edda. He was described as a young man who came 
on a boat out of nowhere, people liked him and in the end they made him their king. Tolkien 
wrote the story in both prose and poetry. The poem is 153 lines long, written in alliterative 
verse. In his treatment, Sheave is only a boy, but he has a special aura around him that 
brings happiness and wealth to the land where he stays. In the end he leaves, but in the 
kingdom remain his seven sons who later established eleven peoples - the Danes, Goths, 
Swedes, Northmen, Franks, Frisians, Swordmen, Saxons, Swabes, English, and the 
La go ards. This Tolkie ´s pla e e t of “hea e to the root of so a atio s akes hi a 
more fantastic and mythical figure than he used to be introduced before - chronicle writers 
tried to write more believably and authors of epic poems, even though they shaped reality 
and created stories, did not write fairytales. And it is also this fantastic element that is to be 
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Actually, it was performed as a radio play that was transmitted on the BBC Third programme (Carpenter 
190).
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bthel eard's Chro i al, A glo-Saxon Chronicle, William of Malmesbury's Gesta regum anglorum. 


found mainly in works mentioned in the next chapter, works, which came out largely from 
Tolkie ´s i agi atio a d were only here and there enriched by actual historical sources.



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