Over at the Times Literary Supplement, there’s a detailed article about the Norse mythology that gave rise to Tolkien’s latest (last?) book published by his son Christopher Tolkien. “The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrun” is all poetry — don’t miss that crucial detail. And it fills in a mysterious gap in the Nibelung legend.
Here’s Tom Shippey’s evaluation:
As for the fate of the two poems here published, Tolkien fans will need no persuasion of their merits. Scholars will read them with close attention, to see what Tolkien’s famously original mind made of the old Königsproblem. The general reader? Many will stumble over the archaisms, for the poems are seventy years old at least, and written by a man closer in time and spirit to William Morris than to modern readers. Those who persevere will learn much about Eddic poetry and the great legend of the North, and feel something of the “demonic energy” they project and the “new literary sensation” they created on rediscovery. This is the most unexpected of Tolkien’s many posthumous publications; his son’s “Commentary” is a model of informed accessibility; the poems stand comparison with their Eddic models, and there is little poetry in the world like those.
