We’re coming into the middle of the semester, with advising season just around the corner and the glories of Whitman on Walls! only a few weeks away. (More to come very soon about WoW!)
For my classroom visit on Week 6, I sat in on English 1100c on mythopoesis with Professor Cynthia Schmidt, a PhD student whose oral exam committee I very much enjoyed being on back in September.
Professor Schmidt’s class explored J.R.R. Tolkien’s poem, and invented word, “Mythopoeia.” Professor Schmidt has been priming her students with ideas about fairy tales and collective acts of fiction-making since the start of the semester, and it was exciting to listen to the students put the pieces together as they read Tolkien’s shaping argument in favor of creating the “artificial mythology” that would become the famous tales of Middle Earth.
I wasn’t able to stay through Tolkien’s maritime turn, though it’s my favorite bit of the poem, in which he imagines stories as ways to navigate the choppy seas of the universe –
Blessed are the men of Noah’s race that build
their little arks, though frail and poorly filled,
and steer through winds contrary towards a wraith,
a rumour of a harbour guessed by faith.
The heroic couplets ring a little old-fashioned in my ear, though they also remind me of my youthful love for Tolkien’s myths and stories.. It was nearly a century ago when Tolkien wrote the poem in response to an argument with his friend C.S. Lewis. It was great to see Professor Schmidt share these ideas with the students of her Core Literature class today!
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