Allan Turner is a linguist and medievalist, best known as aTolkien scholar. His 2005 bookTranslating Tolkien and his 2013 bookTolkien's Poetry have been welcomed by other scholars.
Allan Turner was born c. 1949. He was educated atDeacon's School,Peterborough. His bachelor's degree was in German at theUniversity of Reading, where he also gained an M.Phil with a dissertation onChristi Leiden, a medieval manuscript. He took another master's degree, in linguistics, atSt John's College, Cambridge. He obtained a certificate in education at theUniversity of Leeds. His PhD was in translation studies, fromNewcastle University. He taught successively in theuniversities of Basel,Trier,Greifswald, andMarburg, and most recently in theFriedrich Schiller University, Jena until his retirement. He has written or edited several books on the fantasy authorJ. R. R. Tolkien,[1][2] and has appeared as a keynote speaker at Tolkien conferences.[3]
Joe Christopher, reviewingTolkien's Poetry inMythlore, calls the volume "valuable" as the first scholarly collection onTolkien's verse, while noting that the essays are "uneven". He praises the contributions byTom Shippey, Carl Phelpstead, and Nancy Marsch onTolkien's metre and style, and Petra Zimmermann's essay on how Tolkien uses poetry inThe Lord of the Rings.[4]
Andrew Higgins, reviewing the book inJournal of Tolkien Research, calls it "a veryinteresting and compelling group of articles" in an under-studied area. He praises Turner's own chapter on influences on Tolkien's verse, including the Christian poetFrancis Thompson. He notes however that Turner largely discounts the influence of Thompson's "introspection and ... late Victorian sentimentality", except in "The Cottage of Lost Play"; and that Tolkien avoids being as "self-consciously 'arty'" as Thompson. He remarks, too, on Turner's suggestion that Tolkien's practice of embedding varied kinds of poem in a prose work may have come fromWilliam Morris. Further, Turner suggests that Tolkien's "hobbit poetry" may have been inspired by theGeorgian Poetry movement, which was "markedly English and rural in character".[5]
David Doughan, reviewingThomas Honegger's books ontranslating Tolkien, to which Turner contributed, comments that Turner is "not only a highly intelligent and (dare one say) perceptive scholar—[but] he writes comprehensible English." He writes that Turner deals with "many matters [of translating Tolkien] ... sagely", including the issue of handling Tolkien'spseudotranslation from the Common Speech,Westron, mainly represented as English in the text.[6]
Arden R. Smith, reviewing Turner'sTranslating Tolkien: Philological Elements in'The Lord of the Rings' inTolkien Studies, writes that the book is "the first single-author, book-length examination of the difficulties inherent in translating Tolkien into any other language." He describes it as systematic, and well-grounded in relevant theory, includingShippey's philological criticism.[7]
In 2014, to mark Turner's 65th birthday, Honegger and Dirk Vanderbeke edited afestschrift in his honour, entitledFrom Peterborough to Faëry: The Poetics and Mechanics of Secondary Worlds.[1]
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