Translating Tolkien: Philological Elements in "The Lord of the Rings" - Paperback

by René Dirven (Other), Allan Turner (Author)

The literary works of J. R. R. Tolkien, especially The Lord of the Rings, are marked by their author's professional interest in the history of English. This study shows how philological features such as nomenclature, archaism and echoes of Old English poetic forms have been reflected in a selection of published translations into Germanic and Romance languages. It demonstrates how current translation theory based on a hermeneutic approach can explain translators' compensation techniques such as the use of analogous historical resources in the target languages, and how these can preserve literary and poetic effects. In doing so, it also offers a survey of characteristic stylistic features in the source text.

Author Biography

The Author: Allan Turner was born in 1949 in Peterborough (England). After studying German and medieval studies at Reading, and linguistics at Cambridge, he spent the years from 1980 to 1995 as Lektor at the Universities of Trier and Basel. More recently he has taught both English and German at Newcastle and Northumbria Universities and at Newcastle College.