"'Sir Gawain and the Green Knight', J. R. R. Tolkien’s 1953 W. P. Ker Memorial Lecture: An Updated Chronology and Related Findings"

Abstract

On 15 April 1953, J. R. R. Tolkien was at the University of Glasgow to deliver the W. P. Ker Memorial Lecture on Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, later published in The Monsters and the Critics, and Other Essays (1983). Based on new archival research at Glasgow and Oxford, this article offers new information on Tolkien’s appointment to deliver this lecture, his journey to and stay at Glasgow, and his relationship with Norman Davis (1913–1989), further illuminating the lecture’s significance in the context of Tolkien’s life as both an academic and creative writer, Tolkien’s links to Glasgow, and his academic and literary reputation at the time. The article, therefore, provides additional biographical, intellectual, cultural, and historical details related to the lecture at the time Tolkien was ushering his masterpiece, The Lord of the Rings (1954–1955), to print