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E. V. Gordon

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Eric Valentine Gordon
Born(1896-02-14)14 February 1896
Salmon Arm, British Columbia,Canada
Died29 July 1938(1938-07-29)(aged 42)[1]
Manchester,England
NationalityCanadian
Education
Known forPioneering research onOld Norse
Spouse
​
(after 1930)​
Children4
Scientific career
FieldsGermanic philology
Institutions

Eric Valentine Gordon(14 February 1896 – 29 July 1938) was a Canadianphilologist,known as an editor of medievalGermanictexts and a teacher of medieval Germanic languages at theUniversity of Leedsand theUniversity of Manchester.[2]

Early life

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Gordon was born on Valentine's Day, 1896, inSalmon Arm, British Columbia;his mother was a Presbyterian Scot and a teacher.[3]

He was educated atVictoria College, British ColumbiaandMcGill University.In 1915 he was one of the eight CanadianRhodes Scholars,in his case studying atUniversity College, Oxford.He joined the Canadian Field Artillery in 1916 but was discharged for medical reasons. He worked for the rest of the First World War for the Ministries of National Service and of Food.

Returning to Oxford in 1919, Gordon took a second-classBAin 1920, partly under the tutelage ofJ. R. R. Tolkien.He began aB Littdegree at Oxford. However, a job opportunity in the English Department at theUniversity of Leedscame up. As the head of department,George S. Gordonwrote to D. Nichol Smith on 18 October 1922, 'I am overwhelmed here with students, and have now an Honours School of nearly 120... A committee has been appointed to see what an be done to find me Seminar accommodation, and I am urged to an increase of staff'. On 29 October, he continued 'Tolkien suggested a graduate called Gordon,—at present B-Litting. His name is a disadvantage, but we could get over that'.[4]E. V. Gordon abandoned his B Litt to take up the position at Leeds.

University of Leeds

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Gordon worked at Leeds from 1922 to 1931, introducing first Old Norse and later modern Icelandic to the curriculum. While at Leeds, he wrote hisAn Introduction to Old Norse(first published 1927) and collaborated with Tolkien, who worked at Leeds from 1920 to 1925, particularly on their edition ofSir Gawain and the Green Knight(first published 1925). After Gordon arrived at Leeds, Tolkien wrote in his diary "Eric Valentine Gordon has come and got firmly established and is my devoted friend and pal."[5]It appears he worked hard at Leeds: in termtime 1923 he was teaching around fifteen hours per week;[6]in one letter of May 1930 he claimed to have worked one hundred and five hours in a single week (admittedly while excusing himself from taking on a new task).[7]

Gordon was promoted to a Professorship of English Language in 1926 following Tolkien's departure and oversaw the University Library's acquisition of the library ofBogi Thorarensen Melsteð,establishing the library as one of the world's best Icelandic collections.[8]Accordingly, for his services to Icelandic culture, Gordon was made a Knight of theRoyal Icelandic Order of the Falconin 1930.[9]

With Tolkien, Gordon also began theViking Club.In this club they would readOld Icelandicsagas(and drink beer) with students and faculty, and invent originalAnglo-Saxonsongs. A collection of these was privately published as the bookSongs for the Philologists.Most of the printed copies were destroyed in a fire and only about 14 are said to exist.[10]

Gordon was active in theYorkshire Dialect Society,and in 1930 he, with Leeds's Professor of FrenchPaul Barbier,was a founder member of theYorkshire Society for Celtic Studies,joining its executive committee and pledging £10 over ten years towards the endowment of a lectureship in Celtic Studies at Leeds University.[11][12]On Gordon's departure from Leeds, he was succeeded byBruce Dickins.Among Gordon's best Leeds students were the scholarsAlbert Hugh Smith(whom Gordon gave his notes towards an aborted study of East Yorkshire place-names, which Smith went on to complete);[13]J. A. Thompson, the translator of Halldór Laxness's classic novelIndependent People;[14]Stella Marie Mills, who went on to work at theOxford English Dictionary;[15]andIda Lilian Pickles,[16][failed verification]whom he married in 1930. Together they had four children (the eldest of whom, Bridget Mackenzie, went on to lecture in Old Norse at Glasgow University);[17]Tolkien composed them a longOld Englishpraise-poem in the Old Norsedrottkvætt-metre, entitledBrýdleop,as a wedding present.[18]

University of Manchester, and death

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In 1931, Gordon was made Smith Professor of English Language and Germanic Philology at theUniversity of Manchesterwhere his research focused on Old and Middle English. Among his students wasA. R. Taylor,who later succeeded Gordon at Leeds.[19]He died unexpectedly in 1938 of complications following an operation to remove gallstones. After his death, Gordon's widow Ida took on a number of his teaching duties at Manchester, finishing and posthumously publishing a number of his works, before retiring in 1968.

Select bibliography and archives

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An extensive bibliography of Gordon's publications can be found inTolkien the Medievalist,edited byJane Chance(London: Routledge, 2003), pp. 273–74.

In 2014, the estate of Gordon's eldest daughter Bridget Mackenzie sold a collection of letters to the Brotherton Library of the University of Leeds, written variously to Gordon, his wife Ida and Mackenzie byJ. R. R. Tolkien.[20][21]Mackenzie passed Ida and Eric Gordon's books toSt Andrews University Library.[22]

Books

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Articles and notes

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  • 'Scandinavian Influence in Yorkshire Dialects',Transactions of the Yorkshire Dialect Society,4.24 (1923), 5-22
  • 'Philology: General Works', inThe Year's Work in English Studies, 1922,ed. by Sidney Lee and F. S. Boas (London: Oxford University Press, 1924), 18-24
  • 'The Date of Hofuðlausn',Proceedings of the Leeds Philosophical and Literary Society: Literary and Historical Section,1 (1925), 12-14
  • and A. H. Smith, 'The River Names of Yorkshire',Transactions of the Yorkshire Dialect Society,4.26 (1925), 5-30
  • 'Old English Studies', inThe Year's Work in English Studies, 1924,ed. by F. S. Boas and C. H. Herford (London: Oxford University Press, 1926), 66-77
  • 'Middle English', inThe Year's Work in English Studies, 1924,ed. by F. S. Boas and C. H. Herford (London: Oxford University Press, 1926), 78-98
  • 'Scarborough and Flamborough',Acta Philologica Scandinavica,1 (1926–27), 320-23
  • 'Old English Studies', inThe Year's Work in English Studies, 1925,ed. by F. S. Boas and C. H. Herford (London: Oxford University Press, 1927), 67-82
  • 'The Traditions ofKormáks saga’,Transactions of the Philological Society(1931-32), 39-67
  • 'The University of Iceland',Universities Review,5 (1932), 26-30
  • 'Introduction',The Saga of Hrolf Kraki,trans. by Stella M. Mills (Oxford: Blackwell, 1933), vii-xii
  • and C. T. Onions, 'Notes on the Text and Interpretation ofPearl’,Medium Ævum,1.2 (September 1932), 126–36, 2.3 (October 1933), 165-88
  • ‘Wealhþeowand Related Names',Medium Ævum,4.3 (September 1935), 169-75
  • 'The Date of Æthelred's Treaty with the Vikings: Olaf Tryggvason and the Battle of Maldon',Modern Language Review,32.1 (January 1937), 24-32
  • and Eugène Vinaver, 'New Light of the Text of the AlliterativeMorte Arthure’,Medium Ævum,6.2 (June 1937), 81-98
  • 'OnHrafnkels saga Freysgoða’,Medium Ævum,8.1 (February 1939), 1-32

Creative writing and translations

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  • 'The Lay of Attila',Microcosm,7.4 (Winter 1922), 22-25
  • 'A Ballad of Tristram',Gryphon,4.3 (December 1922), 94 (repr. inLeeds University Verse, 1914-1924,ed. by the English School Association (Leeds: Swan Press, 1924)
  • 'The Lay of Thrym',Microcosm,7.3 (autumn 1922), 3-5
  • 'The Lay of Wayland',Microcosm,8.3 (autumn 1923), 20–23.
  • 'A Skald's Impromptu', inA Northern Venture: Verses by Members of the Leeds University English School Association(Leeds: Swan Press, 1923), 6
  • 'They Sat There', inA Northern Venture: Verses by Members of the Leeds University English School Association(Leeds: Swan Press, 1923), 7
  • 'Sú klukka heljar' and 'When I'm Dead', inSongs for the Philologists,withJ. R. R. Tolkienet al. (London: Department of English and University College, 1936), pp. 16, 26.
  • trans.,Scandinavian Archaeology,by Haakon Shetelig and Hjalmar Falk (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1937)

See also

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References

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  1. ^The Guardian (1938), p. 11.
  2. ^Unless otherwise stated, information in this entry derives fromDouglas A. Anderson,' "An Industrious Little Devil": E. V. Gordon as Friend and Collaborator with Tolkien', inTolkien the Medievalist,ed. byJane Chance,Routledge Studies in Medieval Religion and Culture, 3 (New York: Routledge, 2003), pp. 15–25.ISBN0-415-28944-0.
  3. ^For a biography of Gordon's aunt and mother, see Jean Barman,Sojourning Sisters: The Lives and Letters of Jessie and Annie McQueen(Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2003).
  4. ^The Letters of George S. Gordon, 1902–1942,ed. by Mary C. Gordon (London: Oxford University Press, 1943), p. 146.
  5. ^Carpenter, Humphrey (2000). J. R. R. Tolkien: A Biography. New York: Houghton Mifflin, page 111.ISBN0-618-05702-1.
  6. ^Christina Scull and Wayne G. Hammond,The J. R. R. Tolkien Companion & Guide: Chronology,rev. edn (London: HarperCollins, 2017), under 'Leeds academic year 1923–1924'ISBN9780008214517.
  7. ^Matthew Townend, 'E. R. Eddison'sEgil's Saga:Translation and Scholarship in Inter-War Old Northernism',Saga-Book,42(2018), 87-124 (p. 119).
  8. ^University Library, Leeds,A Catlogue of the Icelandic Collection(Leeds: University Library, 1978), p. vii.
  9. ^Douglas A. Anderson,' "An Industrious Little Devil": E. V. Gordon as Friend and Collaborator with Tolkien', inTolkien the Medievalist,ed. by Jane Chance, Routledge Studies in Medieval Religion and Culture, 3 (New York: Routledge, 2003), pp. 15–25 (at p. 18).ISBN0-415-28944-0.
  10. ^TolkienBooks.net – Songs for the Philologists
  11. ^The Yorkshire Society for Celtic Studies, Session 1930-31,pp. 2, 15.
  12. ^The Yorkshire Society for Celtic Studies, Session 1937-38,pp. 12-13.
  13. ^A. H. Smith,The Place-Names of the East Riding of Yorkshire and York,English Place-Name Society, 14 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1937), p. vii.
  14. ^Halldór Laxness,Independent People,trans. by J.A. Thompson (London: Harvill Press, 1999), p. 1.
  15. ^Christina Scull and Wayne G. Hammond,The J. R. R. Tolkien Companion & Guide: Reader's Guide, Part I: A–M,rev. edn (London: HarperCollins, 2017), s.v. Mills, Stella Marie;ISBN9780008273484.
  16. ^"History of the School of English".Archived fromthe originalon 20 June 2011.
  17. ^Bridget Mackenzie, 'Corrienessan',Ambaile: Highland History & Culture:http:// ambaile.org.uk/detail/en/1268/1/EN1268-corrienessan.htm.
  18. ^Leeds, Brotherton Library, Tolkien-Gordon Collection,MS 1952/2/16.
  19. ^C. E. F. [Christine Fell], 'Arnold Rodgers Taylor',Saga-Book,23 (1990–93), 489–90.
  20. ^"Tolkien-Gordon Collection".Leeds University Library.Leeds University.Retrieved12 March2015.
  21. ^Tolkien-Gordon Collection,Leeds UniversityMS 1952.
  22. ^Gordon CollectionArchived16 April 2016 at theWayback Machine.

Sources

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