Thoughts upon Reading Tolkien's New & Expanded LETTERS

So, I'm reading through the newly expanded version of Tolkien's Letters. One thing I hadn't properly realized is that these letters were part of Carpenter's original manuscript back in 1981, but Carpenter had to cut them due to cost. Turns out that Carpenter had a pretty keen eye on what could bear cutting -- most of this new stuff isn't terribly interesting, but I discovered a few nuggets.

VINDICATED!! (Me, sorta)

Naturally, whenever you read new primary material, your first instinct is to check to see if anything contradicts something you've said in print ... especially biographically. Well, I've made three big "biographical" claims, and here's my sigh of relief:

1. Concerning my claim that, in 1954, Tolkien and colleagues contrived to create CS Lewis's academic chair at Cambridge in exchange for them nominating EM Forster for the Nobel Prize. Nothing in Letters supports or contradicts this.
2. In my recent article for Notes & Queries, I claimed that one reason that Tolkien wrote "On Translating Beowulf" as he did is because of a quiet sense of competition with CS Lewis, whose own essay collection Rehabilitations was threatening to "scoop" an idea he'd had for years. Well, Letters contains one new letter to Tolkien's publisher Philip Unwin during this period (#36b), but nothing that contradicts my argument.
3. In the metrical appendix to Speculative Poetry and the Modern Alliterative Revival, I argued that the reason that Tolkien didn't mention Sievers types for Sir Gawain and the Green, despite believing that they applied to this Middle English alliterative poem, is because his metrical essay on Gawain's meter was intended for a BBC broadcast, and he didn't want to get too technical. The peer reviewer for my anthology, I remember, was extremely skeptical -- they wanted me to say, I think, that Tolkien was anticipating later medievalist scholarship by jettisoning the Sievers types completely. 
1. However, I'm happy to say that Letter 137d seems to justify my claim! In a response to P. H. Newby, BBC, Tolkien writes, "Some introductory remarks and comment would, I think, be necessary, though these must of course be very brief and untechnical" (p. 248).

THE MOST AMUSING

Now, Tolkien's not normally someone given to explicit discussions of politics, but in one letter to his son Michael (#194a), Tolkien starts going off on socialism and taxes and the Soviet invasion of Hungary in 1956 ....

... and then, as he gets into full swing, he branches off into the topic of education before bursting out suddenly with, "ALL LEFTISTS ARE ANTI-PHILOLOGY!"

 
If you know Tolkien, then you know that "anti-philology" is the absolute worst insult he knows. I literally burst out laughing, and I still can't stop.

RANDOM TIDBITS

And then, of course, there are the random interesting tidbits. In order:

• #18a (pp.32-33) -- Tolkien has some critical things to say about Kenneth Sisam's editorial judgment, which is particularly interesting given John M. Bowers's book Tolkien's Lost Chaucer. (I blogged about Bowers's book here.)
• #38a (p. 60) -- "Women are often far less introspective than men"
• #49a (p. 86) -- "There are too many abstract words and isms in the world to-day; and one may find patriotism and even 'duty' fail, when love of one's own folk will endure."
• #91c (p. 149) -- The US will continue buying stuff, but as for the British, "We have still a King." I don't think Tolkien is referring to god, but to the British monarchy.
• #116 (p. 185-86) -- This isn't a new letter, but an artist named Milein Cosman was once considered for illustrations of Farmer Giles of Ham, although Tolkien ultimately didn't like them, and the publishers went with Pauline Baynes instead. This is only interesting to me, but Cosman was someone whom the poet Sydney Keyes -- a friend of John Heath-Stubbs -- had a major crush on as a teenager. So random!
• #135b (p. 240) -- Tolkien thinks "[Henry] Sweet in life was a great man and ill-treated by this University". This is especially interesting because, of course, Sweet was most famous for his Anglo-Saxon Reader, but he never got a university appointment ... mainly because he such an ass hat. Interesting that Tolkien considers him poorly treated.
• #137c (p. 247) -- everyone already knows that CS Lewis frequently reviewed Tolkien's books, and this letter reaffirms one such behind-the-scenes arrangement. This is mainly interesting to me because I'm currently finding reviewers for my own book ... and I'm highly conscious that I don't have Tolkien's social and professional advantages.
• #144a (p. 271) -- In the wake of Tolkien's broadcast on Sir Gawain's metrics for the BBC in 1954, he wonders to PH Newby, "Do you think you could stomach any further proposals on the alliterative line? So many people showed (to me surprising) interest when they listened to Sir Gawain that there may perhaps be an audience for it" (271).
• Off the top of my head, Tolkien never did anything further in this vein (perhaps after being discouraged by Newby?), but this is good evidence that Tolkien did have hopes, at least slightly, on expanding popular knowledge on alliterative poetics.
• #194a (pp. 366-67) -- this is the amusing "All leftists are anti-philology" letter, but it's also simply a valuable, clear exposition of Tolkien's political views -- views he otherwise remains silent about.
• #254a (p. 482) -- I'm not familiar with this medieval text beyond its praise of virginity for women, but Tolkien has something interesting to say about Hali Meiðhad: "One may read with disgust the degraded feministic arguments of Hali Meiðhad" (482). Since Tolkien is explicitly against hatred of the body (in this context meaning perpetual virginity), I wonder what he considers "feministic" about this text? I'll have to look into this some more. 
• On the same page, amusingly, Tolkien also mentions "that highly dubious character Socrates" (482).
• #290 (p. 52) -- not a new letter, but a reminder that Tolkien, like CS Lewis, was skeptical about what we now call "research," which he considered illegitimately analogous with science. The problem? "There is such a lot to learn first" (520). I hear that, 'brutha. My own research career started very, very late.
• #300 (p. 547) -- again, not a new letter, but I just saw Tolkien talking about CSL's alliterative poem, "We were Talking of Dragons." Tolkien says, "The lines which Jack gives as examples are not unfortunately entirely accurate examples of Old English metrical devices" (547). 
• Tolkien doesn't say which lines, sadly, and now I'm dying of curiosity. I'm wonder if he means the verse that contains Tolkien's own name, which Lewis seems to mispronounce to fit his meter -- I actually wrote an entry on that. Otherwise, CSL's verses seem entirely metrical to me, and I'm curious to see with what Tolkien would have disagreed.
• #315a (pp. 566-67) -- we all know Tolkien was conservative, and didn't much care for the American Counterculture. Well, this letter pretty explicitly confirms that he disliked the student protest movement as well, even when they praised him. "I am afraid that it does not please or appease me. I have no wish to be read, or liked by, or even known by such folk. ... A more intelligent reading of my books would have indicated that I should have been more honoured by their silence and complete dissociation from the hooligans ...." (567).