Tom Shippey

Thomas Alan Shippey (born 9 September 1943)

Like J. R. R. Tolkien, Shippey became fond of Old English, Old Norse, German and Latin, and of playing rugby.

Medievalist

Shippey became a junior lecturer at the University of Birmingham, and then a Fellow of St John's College, Oxford, where he taught Old and Middle English. In 1996, after 14 years at Leeds, Shippey was appointed to the Walter J. Ong Chair of Humanities at Saint Louis University's College of Arts and Sciences, where he taught, researched, and wrote books.

He has published over 160 books and articles, and has edited or co-edited scholarly collections such as the 1998 Beowulf: The Critical Heritage and in 2005 The Shadow-walkers: Jacob Grimm's Mythology of the Monstrous. Among several influential articles on the Old English poem Beowulf are an analysis of its principles of conversation, a much-cited discussion of the "obdurate puzzle" of the "Modthrytho Episode" (Beowulf 1931b–1962), which seems to describe a cruel irrational queen who then becomes a model wife, and an analysis of "Names in Anglo-Saxon and Beowulf", with special reference to those elsewhere unrecorded. He has also written on Arthurian legend, including its reworkings in medieval and modern literature. His medieval studies have extended as far as to write a book on the lives and deaths of the great Vikings "as warriors, invaders and plunderers", exploring their "heroic mentality", with special reference to the pervasive Norse Bad Sense of Humour.. See further "Vikings: Legend, History, Mindset", online at academia.edu

Since his retirement and his return to England, he has continued his research. His retirement in 2008 was marked by a festschrift, Constructing Nations, Reconstructing Myth, edited by Andrew Wawn, Graham Johnson and John Walter, with contributions from former students and former colleagues. His Tolkien scholar colleagues including Janet Brennan Croft, John D. Rateliff, Verlyn Flieger, David Bratman, Marjorie Burns, and Richard C. West marked his 70th birthday with a further festschrift, Tolkien in the New Century,

Modern fantasy and science fiction

A fan and follower of science fiction from teenage years, in the early 1980s Shippey worked with Brian Aldiss with the concept of world-building in his Helliconia trilogy.

Under the pseudonym of "John Holm", he was the co-author, with Harry Harrison, of The Hammer and the Cross trilogy of alternate history novels, consisting of The Hammer and the Cross (1993), One King's Way (1995), and King and Emperor (1996).

Shippey has edited both The Oxford Book of Science Fiction Stories, and The Oxford Book of Fantasy Stories. and still contributes literary reviews to the London Review of Books. He has given many invited lectures on Tolkien and other topics. Shippey comments on his interest in Tolkien that

Shippey and Tolkien met later in 1972 when Shippey was invited for dinner by Norman Davis, who had succeeded Tolkien as the Merton Professor of English Language. When he became a Fellow of St. John's College that same year, Shippey taught Old and Middle English using Tolkien's syllabus.

His first Tolkien book, The Road to Middle-earth, was published in 1982. In this he attempted to set Tolkien in the tradition of comparative philology, a discipline founded by Jacob Grimm, which he regarded as the major source of Tolkien's inspiration. In 2000, however, he published Tolkien: Author of the Century, in which he attempted also to set Tolkien in the context of his own time: "writing fantasy, but voicing in that fantasy the most pressing and most immediately relevant issues of the whole monstrous twentieth century – questions of industrialised warfare, the origin of evil, the nature of humanity". This would include writers affected by war like Kurt Vonnegut, William Golding, and George Orwell. Road rigorously refutes what was then the long-running literary hostility to Tolkien, and explains to instinctive lovers of Lord of the Rings why they are right to like it. It has been described as "the single best thing written on Tolkien", and "the seminal monograph". The book has received over 900 scholarly citations. Both Road and Author have been often reprinted and translated. In 2000, Michael Drout and H. Wynne looked back at Shippey's books as landmarks in Tolkien research; they comment that "The real brilliance of Road was in method: Shippey would relentlessly gather small philological facts and combine them into unassailable logical propositions; part of the pleasure of reading Road lies in watching all these pieces fall into place and Shippey's larger arguments materialize out of the welter of interesting detail."

As an acknowledged expert on Tolkien, Shippey served for a while on the editorial board of Tolkien Studies: An Annual Scholarly Review.

Family life

Shippey married Susan Veale in 1966; after that marriage ended, he married Catherine Elizabeth Barton in 1993. He has three children.

Film and television

Shippey has appeared in several television documentaries, in which he spoke about Tolkien and his Middle-earth writings:

1984: Tolkien Remembered 1996: J.R.R.T.: A Film Portrait of J.R.R. Tolkien 1998: An Awfully Big Adventure: J.R.R. Tolkien

2002: Page to Screen: The Lord of the Rings 2003: J.R.R. Tolkien: Origins of Middle-Earth

He participated in Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings film trilogy, for which he assisted the dialect coaches.

Publications

Apart from his published books, Shippey has written a large number of scholarly articles.

Books written Old English Verse (London: Hutchinson, 1972, ). Poems of Wisdom and Learning in Old English (Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 1976; 2nd ed., 1977 ). Beowulf. Arnold's Studies in English Literature series (London: Edward Arnold, 1978, ). The Road to Middle-earth (London: Allen & Unwin, 1982; Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1983), 2nd ed. (London: HarperCollins, 1993), Revised and Expanded edition (London: HarperCollins, 2005 ). J. R. R. Tolkien: Author of the Century (London: HarperCollins, 2001, ). Roots and Branches: Selected Papers on Tolkien (Zurich and Berne: Walking Tree Publishers, Cormarë Series 11, 2007, ). Hard Reading: Learning from Science Fiction (Liverpool University Press, 2016, ). Laughing Shall I Die: Lives and Deaths of the Great Vikings (Reaktion Books, 2018, ). Beowulf and the North Before the Vikings (Arc Humanities Press, 2022, ).

Translations Beowulf: Translation and Commentary (Expanded Edition). Ed. Leonard Neidorf. (Uppsala Books, 2024, ).

Books edited Fictional Space: Essays on Contemporary Science Fiction, (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1991, ). The Oxford Book of Science Fiction Stories, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992, ). Fiction 2000: On Cyberpunk and the Future of Narrative, with George Slusser, (U Georgia Press, 1993). The Oxford Book of Fantasy Stories, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994 ). Beowulf: The Critical Heritage, with Andreas Haarder (New York: Routledge, 1998 ). Medievalism in the Modern World: Essays in Honour of Leslie J. Workman, with Richard Utz (Turnhout: Brepols, 1998),. The Shadow-Walkers: Jacob Grimm's Mythology of the Monstrous, (Turnhout: Brepols, 2005 ). Hard Reading: Learning from Science Fiction. Liverpool University Press, 2016. Available on JSTOR (Open Access).

Old English Philology: Studies in Honour of R.D. Fulk, with Leonard Neidorf and Rafael J. Pascual (Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 2016 ).

Awards and distinctions

1984 – Mythopoeic Award, Mythopoeic Scholarship Award for Inkling Studies, The Road to Middle-earth 2001 – Mythopoeic Award, Mythopoeic Scholarship Award for Inkling Studies, J.R.R. Tolkien: Author of the Century 2001 – World Fantasy Award, Special Award Professional, J.R.R. Tolkien: Author of the Century

2008 – Mythopoeic Award, Mythopoeic Scholarship Award for Myth and Fantasy Studies, The Shadow-Walkers: Jacob Grimm's Mythology of the Monstrous 2008 -- Festschrift edited by Andrew Wawn, Graham Johnson and John Walter, Constructing Nations, Reconstructing Myth. 2014 – Festschrift edited by John Wm. Houghton, Janet Brennan Croft, Nancy Martsch, John D. Rateliff, and Robin Anne Reid, Tolkien in the New Century: Essays in Honor of Tom Shippey 2020 - Festschrift, edited by Eric Shane Bryan and Alaexander Ames, Literary Speech Acts of the Medieval North: Essays inspired by the works of T A Shippey,