Tolkien in such a way that it keeps all the delicacy and atmosphere of the original mediaeval poem.Īt some point in or around early 1936 Tolkien had offered his translation of this poem to the London publisher J.M. This was a broadcast of parts of Tolkien’s translation of the Middle English poem ‘Pearl’, described in the Radio Times as “perhaps the loveliest of all old English poems”, a lament of a distraught father for his little daughter, complete with elements of dream vision and medieval allegory. But there were still interesting finds! The earliest two of the Tolkien-related programmes found in this database are from the 1930s, and for this decade the Genome Project includes digitized files of the actual pages in the Radio Times with that particular day’s listings. I didn’t expect to find anything brand new – Tolkien scholarship has recorded and discussed Tolkien’s BBC interviews and other contributions for many years now. There are many (315 entries) but I was particularly interested in programmes in which Tolkien himself participated in some way. I’ve been meaning to have a little look there for Tolkien-related items for a while. The BBC Genome Project has been uploading on its site listings information which the BBC printed in Radio Times between 19.

Tolkein trainslation of pearl