Tolkien Seminar - "G.B. Smith and J.R.R. Tolkien: a meaningful friendship"

"To celebrate the 50th year anniversary of Tolkien’s death (1892-1973), a conference dedicated to his meaningful friendship with G.B. Smith, poet and alumnus of Corpus, who died at the Battle of the Somme in 1916."

We are pleased to announce the seminar "G.B. Smith and J.R.R. Tokien: a meaningful friendship" which will be on Tuesday and Wednesday 21st / 22nd March. The venue will be Corpus Christi College, Merton Street, Oxford – the College where Smith himself was a student between 1912 and 1915, and to whom Tolkien himself originally applied for a Degree in Classics.

Organisers: Doug Anderson, Oronzo Cilli, Beppe Pezzini
Other confirmed speakers: Mark Atherton, John Garth, Grace Khuri, Stuart Lee, Kris Swank, Allan Turner, Federica Calabrese, Lucia Simonson, Ivano Sassanelli.

The relationship between G.B. Smith and J.R.R. Tolkien had enormous influence on their human and artistic development during their school and university years, and also played an important role in the development of Tolkien's imagination and legendarium after Smith's death. However, the nature, development and implications of this 'meaningful friendship' (Garth) have often been neglected by scholars (with due exceptions) and not yet fully explored. Topics that will be discussed in this exploratory workshop include the sources, content and style of Smith's poetry, Tolkien's editorial work on Spring Harvest, biographical aspects of their relationship, (literary) influence on Tolkien's work (early and later), and others.

The conference website is:

https://www.ccc.ox.ac.uk/alumni/events ... ien-meaningful-friendship

with a link to the registration form:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAI ... 6lAczDK3-_eN1Dog/viewform