Nicholas (nwhyte) wrote,
Nicholas
nwhyte

The Lay of Aotrou and Itroun, by J R R Tolkien, ed. Verlyn Flieger

Second paragraph of third chapter:
The fragment has no title, though it obviously presages Tolkien's much longer and more elaborate tratments of both the fair-copy manuscript and the typrescript of ‘Aotrou and Itroun’, as well as the final version published in The Welsh Review. The verse is alliterative and unrhymed, though the line is metrical, in iambic tetrameter. The story breaks off at the moment of the lord’s approach ‘with lagging feet’ to the cave of the fay.
This is minor Tolkieniana, to be honest. It's a poem published in 1930 about a Breton lord who buys a magic potion for his wife; and it all goes horribly wrong. Verlyn Flieger, who is one of the most prolific and interesting Tolkien scholars out there, has done a great job of presenting the poem itself and three earlier goes (a draft and two other poems on closely related themes). But even the completist can rest easy without this on their shelves. You can get it here.

This was my top unread book acquired in 2017. Next on that pile is Tower [of London], by Nigel Jones.
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Tags: bookblog 2021, writer: tolkien
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