Introduction
My sister, knowing my love of letter writing, gave me a copy of the collected letters of the man who might be the world's most well-known early medievalist: J.R.R. Tolkein (1892-1973). Tolkein has a distinctive and delightful epistolary voice, and the collection is worth reading whether you are interested in him as the writer of high fantasy or as a scholar of Old English literature and language.
One of the few of Tolkein's letters to survive from the period between 1918 and 1937 was his letter of application for the Rawlinson and Bosworth Professorship of Anglo-Saxon. When I am working on an application for an academic position, I usually end up re-reading it at some point. Please find it below for your reading pleasure.
To the Electors of the Rawlinson and Bosworth Professorship of Anglo-Saxon, University of Oxford
27 June 1925
Gentlemen,
I desire to offer myself as a candidate for the Rawlinson and Bosworth Professorship of Anglo-Saxon.
A Chair which affords such opportunity of expressing and communicating an instructed enthusiasm for Anglo-Saxon studies and for the study of the other Old Germanic languages is naturally attractive to me, nor could I desire anything better than to be reassociated in this way with the Oxford English School. I was a member of that School both as an undergraduate and a tutor, and during my five years' absence in Leeds am happy to have remained in touch with it, more especially, in the last two years, as an Examiner in the Final Schools.
I entered Exeter College as a Stapledon Exhibitioner in 1911. After taking Classical Moderations in 1913 (in which I specialized in Greek philology), I graduated with first class honours in English in 1915, my special subject being Old Icelandic. Until the end of 1918 I held a commission in the Lancashire Fusiliers, and at that date entered the service of the Old English Dictionary. I was one of Dr. Bradley's assistants until the spring of 1920, where my own work and the increasing labours of a tutor made it impossible to continue.
In October 1920 I went to Leeds as a Reader in English Language, with a free commission to develop the linguistic side of a large and growing School of English Studies, in which no regular provision had as yet been made for the linguistic specialist. I began with five hesitant pioneers out of a School (exclusive of the first year) of about sixty members. The proportion to-day is 43 literary to 20 linguistic students. The linguists are in no way isolated or cute off from the general life and work of the department, and share in many of the literary courses and activities of the School; but since 1922 their purely linguistic work has been conducted in special classes, and examined in distinct papers of special standard and attitude. The instruction offered has been gradually extended, and now covers a large part of the field of English and Germanic philology. Courses are given on Old English heroic verse, the history of English*, various Old and Middle English texts*, Old and Middle English philology*, introductory Germanic philology*, Gothic, Old Icelandic (a second-year* and third-year course), and Medieval Welsh*. All of these courses I have from time to time given myself; those that I have given personally in the past year and marked *. During this last session a course of voluntary reading of texts not specially considered in the current syllabus has attracted more than fifteen students, not all of them from the linguistic side of the department.
Philology, indeed, appears to have lost for these students its connotations of terror, if not of mystery. An active discussion-class has been conducted, on lines more familiar in schools of literature than of language, which has borne fruit in friendly rivalry and open debate with the corresponding literary assembly. A Viking Club has even been formed, by past and present students of Old Icelandic, which promises to carry on the same kind of activity independently of the staff. Old Icelandic has been a point of special development, and usually reaches a higher standard than the other special subjects, being studied for two years and in much the same detail as Anglo-Saxon....
The large amount of teaching and direction which my post has hitherto involved, supplement by a share in the general administration of a growing department, and latterly by the duties of a member of Senate at a time of special difficulty in University policy, has seriously interfered with my projects for publishable work; but I append a note of what I have found time to do. If elected to the Rawlinson and Bosworth Chair I should endeavour to make productive use of the opportunities which it offers for research; to advance, to the best of my ability, the growing neighbourliness of linguistic and literary studies, which can never be enemies except by misunderstanding or without loss to both; and to continue in a wider and more fertile field the encouragement of philological enthusiasm among the young.
I remain,
Gentlemen,
Your obedient servant,
J.R.R. Tolkein
From The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkein, ed Humphrey Carpenter (London, 1981), pp. 12-13.
Why I Love It So
Writing academic cover letters is an excruciating process: matching one's own research and teaching expertise to an often opaque description of the requirements of the post can be difficult enough, but moving productively through feelings of hope, fear, and inadequacy is even harder. Re-reading this letter reminds me that:
- A letter of application can be beautifully written: the repetition of the 'ex' sounds between the first and second paragraphs! The 'service of the Old English Dictionary'! The 'five hesitant pioneers'! (the limited use of adjectives and adverbs which thereby increase their effectiveness!) The structure of the final sentence!!
- It is possible to write clearly about one's achievements without boasting: the 'teaching paragraph' uses 'I' only four times, an astounding feat given that Tolkein was essentially describing the wholesale creation of a programme of linguistic study within the span of five years. By any standard, Tolkein's 1919-1920 teaching load was heavy: various Old and Middle English texts, the history of English, Old and Middle English philology, introductory Germanic philology, second-year Old Icelandic, and Medieval Welsh. By implication, he also supervised a reading group for students across the department, volunteering his own time outside of his teaching load.
- A good teacher inspires enthusiasm in their students: The Viking Club. Case closed.
- Highlight the highlights: Rereading this letter, I am struck by how streamlined it is. Only the most important and relevant matters are included.
- What the applicant will get out of the post matters just as much as what the post will get out of the applicant: I adore the fact that Tolkein OPENS THE DAMN LETTER with why he wants the job: to express and communicate his enthusiasm for Old English and also to return to Oxford again. The transition into reminding the electors upfront that he is a native son of the place is so, so smooth. The final sentence, which sums up again why he wants the post and why he is a good fit for it, is both tailored to the specifics of the professorship and summarises what he has demonstrated in the previous paragraphs of the letter.
The four dots indicate where the editor abridged the letter, so I do not know whether Tolkein says anything about his own research (the curious reader might wish to see Thomas Honegger's article on Tolkein's academic writings, and the Tolkein Bibliography on Wikipedia), but for me the most striking difference between good practice in 1925 and 2020 is how little an applicant could get away with saying about their own work. Tolkein seems to have regarded his own desirability as a candidate as hinging on his proven ability to successfully expand the study and teaching of philology, as well as what we would now call his interdisciplinarity: his ability to bring together linguistic and literary studies. Research, in the age before REF, seems a distant third.
In Conclusion
The academic job market for medievalists is miserable and getting more so. We are very far from the days where the successful applicant for an Oxford professorship could 'append a note of what I have found time to do' as the sole mention a 'research programme'. Academia has changed so radically between Tolkein's day and our own that it may seem ridiculous to read a century-old cover letter when applying for a modern-day job. And yet, this letter gives me hope that now and in the future, we can all find time to do the work we want to do, whether or not an academic post comes of writing a cover letter about it.
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