Language and Human Nature
Encyclopedia
Language and Human Nature is a joint literature project that was begun, but never completed, between C. S. Lewis
and J. R. R. Tolkien
.
In the 1940s, a news release from Lewis and Tolkien's publisher had announced that the book was to be published in 1950. However, the book was not published, and until 2009, scholars had believed that the draft of the book had never been started. In 2009, Steven Beebe, Regents’ Professor and Chair of the Texas State University Department of Communication Studies, discovered the beginning pages of the manuscript in the Oxford University Bodleian Library
. Professor Beebe stated "What is exciting is that the manuscript includes some of Lewis’s best and most precise statements about the nature of language and meaning. Both Lewis and Tolkien wrote separately about language, communication, and meaning, but they published nothing collaboratively."
C. S. Lewis
Clive Staples Lewis , commonly referred to as C. S. Lewis and known to his friends and family as "Jack", was a novelist, academic, medievalist, literary critic, essayist, lay theologian and Christian apologist from Belfast, Ireland...
and J. R. R. Tolkien
J. R. R. Tolkien
John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, CBE was an English writer, poet, philologist, and university professor, best known as the author of the classic high fantasy works The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion.Tolkien was Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon at Pembroke College,...
.
In the 1940s, a news release from Lewis and Tolkien's publisher had announced that the book was to be published in 1950. However, the book was not published, and until 2009, scholars had believed that the draft of the book had never been started. In 2009, Steven Beebe, Regents’ Professor and Chair of the Texas State University Department of Communication Studies, discovered the beginning pages of the manuscript in the Oxford University Bodleian Library
Bodleian Library
The Bodleian Library , the main research library of the University of Oxford, is one of the oldest libraries in Europe, and in Britain is second in size only to the British Library...
. Professor Beebe stated "What is exciting is that the manuscript includes some of Lewis’s best and most precise statements about the nature of language and meaning. Both Lewis and Tolkien wrote separately about language, communication, and meaning, but they published nothing collaboratively."