Professor Michael Drout at Wheaton College in Norton, Mass., is a Medievalist and Tolkien scholar who has created a distinctive niche as an expert in the writings and legacy of J.R.R. Tolkien. "The Two Towers," the long-awaited second installment of the "Lord of the Rings" film trilogy (to be released December 18) will further solidify the author's works to new generations, according to Drout, and will build on the new cinematic interpretation of Middle Earth.

"The three-part screen saga and the related surge of interest in all things Tolkien continue to have an impact on what people are reading, talking about and exploring online," he says. Though still in his 30s, the Wheaton English professor has become one of the nation's leading Tolkien researchers.

He discovered an unpublished book by Tolkien while working on a project in an Oxford library in 1996. The book, Beowulf and the Critics, was published this week. "Tolkien showed that Beowulf was a much greater work than the literary establishment recognized," says Drout. "I think the same can be said of The Lord of the Rings."

In October Drout was chosen by the Tolkien Estate to edit Tolkien's translations of Beowulf and his many commentaries on the poem. "People have been waiting for years to see Tolkien's translation. I think they'll find it was worth the wait," says Drout, noting that in his opinion Tolkien's translation is superior to that of Seamus Heaney, whose translation of Beowulf made the New York Time's Bestseller list.

Drout will publish the Beowulf translations in two volumes, one of the translations themselves, one of commentaries on the poem that he is drawing from over 1800 manuscript pages of material provided by the Tolkien Estate. One of the translations includes hand-written annotations by Tolkien's close friend C.S. Lewis, author of the beloved Narnia books.

"It's an enormous honor to have been chosen by the Estate," says Drout. "They're showing a lot of confidence in a young scholar."

Drout is also working on three other Tolkien initiatives:

* He is engaged in a major online project with other Tolkien scholars across the country and abroad--and with a dozen of his students at Wheaton--compiling an electronic bibliography of everything ever written about J.R.R. Tolkien. The collection represents the world's most complete electronic bibliography of Tolkien scholarship, and will be a searchable database housed at Wheaton College.

* Drout is also establishing a new scholarly journal "Tolkien Studies" at Wheaton.

* He is teaching a first-year seminar this semester, "Problems of Fantasy," which examines "The Lord of the Rings," and "Harry Potter," as well as several other works of the popular fantasy canon. His senior seminar, "J. R. R. Tolkien and Ursula Le Guin" addresses fantasy at a more sophisticated level.

Interestingly, Drout notes that the trailer for "The Two Towers" includes one of the characters reciting a short poem. He says he recognizes it as Tolkien's translation of a famous passage of an Old English poem called "The Wanderer." He would be happy to speak with you about the relationship between Tolkein's fascination with Old English and renewed interest in the antiquated tongue as a result of the trilogy. Drout can recite the relevant few lines of the Wanderer in Old English and can also read Tolkien's invented Elvish languages.

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Book: Beowulf and the Critics