The real “business,” so to speak, happened on Thursday nights after the day’s business was done, when the group could linger late into the night, deep in discussion or listening to each other’s scribblings–scribblings that would later become their lectures, published poems, novels, radio broadcasts, or plays.Ĭharles Williams joined the Inklings when his employer, the Oxford University Press, relocated from London to Oxford to avoid bombing during World War II. You’d see them head straight to a back room, closed off from the rest of the pub, where they’d lunch, drink beer, and enjoy the type of hearty or mundane conversation that happens in the current of a busy, typical day. Giles’ Street, it’s very likely you’d see Lewis, Tolkien, and several of their friends enter the Eagle and Child pub. If you could time travel back to Oxford in the 1930s on a Tuesday morning (almost any Tuesday will do), and make your way to St. Increasingly, they began inviting other colleagues to join them, and soon had regular gatherings. Both professors at Oxford, they already met often for conversation, and adopted the Inklings moniker after a university group of the same name disbanded in 1933. The Tolkien-Lewis friendship predated the unofficial “official” Inklings group. They made us realise literature’s power to move us deeply–to feel heroism, suspense, longing, even virtues like prudence and temperance (would I have known to leave the wardrobe door open? Would I have gorged myself on Turkish delight? Struck the bell on Charn?). Similarly, Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia series is part of the fabric of our childhood imaginations. And now, as hopefully a new generation of Tolkien fans emerges, we have The Rings of Power series. We were the lucky ones who got to watch those stories of our childhood come to life with Peter Jackson’s film trilogy. When those fans (among them my dad) grew up, they read Tolkien’s books to their kids (among them, me). There was already a Tolkien Society begun in Tolkien’s lifetime, and the books exploded in popularity with college students and young adults during the counter-culture of the mid ’60s and ’70s. Can you imagine? Can you imagine not having these books, and their influence on popular culture and literally every fantasy novel published since? I’m not sure we can!įor many of us fans, the roots of our love for Tolkien’s world go deep. of the R.” he means The Lord of the Rings, of course. But for his interest and unceasing eagerness for more I should never have brought The L. Only from him did I ever get the idea that my ‘stuff’ could be more than a private hobby. Tolkien wrote that “The unpayable debt that I owe to was not ‘influence’ as it is ordinarily understood, but sheer encouragement. This friendship was crucial to their writings, and it’s incredible to think that without it, Lewis’s books would’ve been wholly different Tolkien’s might not be published at all! Lewis, you’ll know that they knew each other–perhaps even that they were friends for most of their adult lives. If you know even a little about the authors J. Although plenty of scholarly groups like this existed in Oxford and Cambridge and other university towns, the Inklings is remembered because among its members were two of the most famous authors of the twentieth century: J. The group called themselves “the Inklings.”Īctive in the 1930s-40s, the Inklings met regularly for fellowship and to discuss their latest compositions. Not Yale, not Harvard, not Ca– well, you get the point, it’s clear I have my favourite! (I kept my windows open last night!) In the spirit of fall and all the back-to-school associations that brings, today’s post is an introduction to an academic group of literature enthusiasts who met in the most quintessential scholarly setting in the world: Oxford University. As I write this, it’s September and at last we’re getting the first delicious stirrings of fall.
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