Volume 37 Number 2 Article 13 Spring 4-17-2020 The Inklings and King Arther: J.R.R. Tolkien, Charles Willams, C.S. Lewis, and Owen Barfield on the Matter of Britain Ed. Sørina Higgins Jared Lobdell Follow this and additional works at: https://dc.swosu.edu/mythlore Part of the Children's and Young Adult Literature Commons Recommended Citation Lobdell, Jared (2020) "The Inklings and King Arther: J.R.R. Tolkien, Charles Willams, C.S. Lewis, and Owen Barfield on the Matter of Britain Ed. Sørina Higgins," Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature: Vol. 37 : No. 2 , Article 13. Available at: https://dc.swosu.edu/mythlore/vol37/iss2/13 This Book Reviews is brought to you for free and open access by the Mythopoeic Society at SWOSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature by an authorized editor of SWOSU Digital Commons. An ADA compliant document is available upon request. For more information, please contact [email protected]. To join the Mythopoeic Society go to: http://www.mythsoc.org/join.htm Mythcon 51: A VIRTUAL “HALFLING” MYTHCON July 31 - August 1, 2021 (Saturday and Sunday) http://www.mythsoc.org/mythcon/mythcon-51.htm Mythcon 52: The Mythic, the Fantastic, and the Alien Albuquerque, New Mexico; July 29 - August 1, 2022 http://www.mythsoc.org/mythcon/mythcon-52.htm Additional Keywords J.R.R Tolkien, Tolkien, King Arthur, Inklings, C.S. Lewis, Owen Barfield, Britain This book reviews is available in Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature: https://dc.swosu.edu/mythlore/vol37/iss2/13 Review Essays —. “Mythopoeia.” 1931? Tree and Leaf. HarperCollins, 2001, pp.85-90. Warner, Marina. The Dragon Empress. Atheneum, Macmillan Publishing, 1972. —. Fantastic Metamorphoses, Other Worlds. Oxford, 2001. —. From the Beast to the Blonde. Chatto & Windus, Ltd., 1994. —. In a Dark Wood. Vintage Books, 1977. —. Long Ago and Far Away: Eight Traditional Fairy Tales. Hesperus Press, 2014. —. No Go the Bogeyman: Scaring, Lulling & Making Mock. Farrar, Strauss & Giroux, 1998. —. Once Upon a Time: A Short History of Fairy Tale. Oxford, 2014. —. Stranger Magic: Charmed States & the Arabian Nights. Chatto & Windus, 2011. —. Wonder Tales. ed. Marina Warner. Oxford University Press, 1994. Wordsworth, William and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Lyrical Ballads. 1798. Edited by Thomas Hutchinson, London, 1920. Zipes, Jack. Fairy Tales and the Art of Subversion. Routledge, 2006. —. The Irresistible Fairy Tale: The Cultural and Social History of a Genre. Princeton, 2012. —. Grimm Legacies: The Magic Spell of the Grimm’s Folk and Fairy Tales. Princeton, 2014. BARBARA L. PRESCOTT is an independent scholar, literary anthropologist, and editor of SONNET, a journal of poetry. She has studied the early published and unpublished poems of Dorothy L. Sayers and is currently transforming her research into a book, Lyric Muse: The Oxford Poetry of Dorothy L. Sayers. Barbara Prescott lives in Wheaton, IL. I NKLINGS , A K ING , A N D A N U NSURPRISING P RIZE : T H E I N K L I N G S A N D K I N G A RTHUR JARED LOBDELL THE INKLINGS AND KING ARTHUR: J. R. R. TOLKIEN, CHARLES WILLIAMS, C. S. LEWIS, AND OWEN BARFIELD ON THE MATTER OF BRITAIN, Sørina Higgins, ed. Berkeley CA: Apocryphile Press, 2018, ISBN 9781944769895, x + 555 pp., $49.99. HIS IS A HIGHLY IMPORTANT BOOK, AND INDEED a landmark in its field—even T though the bounds of the field may be a bit indistinct. The subtitle here pretty exactly describes the intention and contents of the volume: the reasons I say the bounds of the field are not entirely clear are suggested by the specificity of the subtitle (“Inklings” here meaning Tolkien, Williams, Lewis and Barfield, and the subject being their connections more or less with the King specifically, 170 Mythlore 134, Spring/Summer 2019 Review Essays or at least his court—not with any other part of the Matter of Britain). They are similarly suggested by the first chapters of the book, “Introduction—Present and Past: The Inklings and King Arthur” (pretty much the same as the title) ; then “Inventory of Inklings Arthuriana,” and then, most wide-ranging (apparently): “Texts and Intertexts: The Matter of Logres: Arthuriana and the Inklings .” The uncertainty as to the bounds and chronology of the “Inklings” is not uncommon these days—or, to be more accurate, there is increasing agreement that “the Inklings” does not refer—and certainly does not refer only— to the group to which Tolkien and Lewis gave the name, which met from sometime around 1932 till after World War II in Oxford. (Owen, by the way, told me he did not consider himself in any way a “full member” of that group.) Moreover, there is a subsidiary uncertainty here (or at least I detect one): are the terms “Arthuriana” and “King Arthur” and “The Matter of Logres” interchangeable—and by the way, how do they differ from “The Matter of Britain”—and where does Tristan fit in? In the end these points may not be significant in judging the value of the book. Let me go back to its landmark status. It is, I believe, in part the cooperative effort of a growing assembly of (often younger) professional Tolkien (and Williams and Lewis—and Barfield) and Inklings scholars, some associated with Signum University, who often embrace a wide variety of current critical techniques, which is good. And the assembly seems to me to be a genuine fellowship (which is also good). Here is a note from a recent blog from one of the contributors, showing what I take to be part of the major importance of the book: “Since the first call for chapters for The Inklings and King Arthur, this not-so-little book has been on its own adventure. Conference panels, keynote talks, digital round-table discussions, and crowd-sourced funding were all part of a long editorial and publication journey, shepherded all the way by editor Sørina Higgins” (Dickieson). When Professor Higgins circulated her original CFP for the volume, after the publication of Tolkien’s Fall of King Arthur, I had nothing to contribute unfortunately—not even a blurb for the book. I am accordingly an independent agent, with no ties to the project, and can praise—as I do—from the outside. In the course of that praise let me note another—or two other—attributes of the suggested landmark status. First, this is a professional fellowship, indeed almost a cooperative. The other day I mentioned to one of the scholars whose work is in this book my desire to put together a conference on The Great Divorce within easy traveling distance of my home between Lancaster and Harrisburg PA: he at once came up with a list of scholars who would be interested and even a Signum site within Mythlore 37.2, Spring/Summer 2019 171 Review Essays moderately easy distance. And (with the crowd-sourced funding) there is what amounts to cooperative publication—though I could be wrong on that, not being part of the cooperative. The key chapters—at least the key section of the book—are those already mentioned, the “Introduction,” the “Inventory,” and the “Intertexts” chapter. So let’s go over these, briefly. Here’s how Professor Higgins introduces her task: “The book begins, therefore, with a sizable section on questions of intertextuality: What is an ‘Arthurian text’? What constitutes the body of Arthurian work that preceded the Inklings? How do their writings interact with those of their predecessors and with each other?” (3). She continues: Arthuriana is clearly a very broad category indeed; clever contortions might allow the whole body of work by all the Inklings into the present volume. In fact, the inquiry ‘What is an Arthurian work?’ was precisely the first question each of the chapters in this volume had to address. Each author had to ask him- or herself: In what ways were the Inklings interacting with materials that might be considered ‘Arthurian’? If some interaction with Arthuriana is discernable, what are the nature and significance of that interaction? Do these authors share the sensibilities of their times, or do they react against prevailing ideologies? How far are their ‘Arthurian’ works similar to one another, and in what ways do they differ? This, then, means that the current volume examines most of the Inklings’ oeuvre, asking of each text whether it takes up questions of kingship, statehood, empire, quest, conquest, consciousness, chivalry, and hierarchy in ways that are in fruitful relationship with an Arthurian past, present, and future. The result is a rich conversation among the various Inklings, between the Inklings and their culture, and between the Inklings and ourselves. (26-27) (This concentration on “Arthuriana” occasionally serves the authors ill— particularly when some of Williams’s other novels besides War in Heaven might be useful and illustrative.) Let us begin here with chapter one, “The Matter of Logres: Arthuriana and the Inklings,” wherein the editor defines terms and provides an overview of the adaptability of cultural appropriations of Arthur throughout his “palimpsestuous” history, then sets the stage for the chapters to follow by giving a brief summary of each of the major Inklings’ Arthuriana. Of particular note, she remarks (justly), is her discussion of Owen Barfield’s only thoroughly Arthurian work, The Quest of the Sangreal. Holly Ordway follows this with a brief history of the major medieval Arthurian texts. Her focus is “on the sources that are most widely recognized as influential or important and that are also significant in some way to the Inklings’ writings” (62), and she also notes that 172 Mythlore 134, Spring/Summer 2019 Review Essays “the Arthurian legendarium provided fruitful material for commentary on current events” (65).