Ida Lilian Gordon (born
Wakefield
Wakefield is a cathedral city in West Yorkshire, England located on the River Calder. The city had a population of 99,251 in the 2011 census.https://www.nomisweb.co.uk/census/2011/ks101ew Census 2011 table KS101EW Usual resident population, ...
1907, died
Rosemarkie
Rosemarkie ( sco, Rossmartnie, from gd, Ros Mhaircnidh meaning "promontory of the horse stream") is a village on the south coast of the Black Isle peninsula in Ross-shire (Ross and Cromarty), northern Scotland.
Geography
Rosemarkie lies a quart ...
2001)
was a British academic, specialising in Medieval English and Old Norse.
Life
She took her BA in English at
Leeds University
, mottoeng = And knowledge will be increased
, established = 1831 – Leeds School of Medicine1874 – Yorkshire College of Science1884 - Yorkshire College1887 – affiliated to the federal Victoria University1904 – University of Leeds
, ...
from 1925–28, and completed her PhD there in 1930: 'A typographical study of the sagas of the
Vestfirðir
The Westfjords or West Fjords ( is, Vestfirðir , ISO 3166-2:IS: IS-4) is a large peninsula in northwestern Iceland and an administrative district, the least populous administrative district. It lies on the Denmark Strait, facing the east coas ...
:
Gull-Þórissaga,
Gíslasaga,
Hávarðarsaga,
Fóstbrœðrasaga and of their traditions'. In 1930, she married
E. V. Gordon
Eric Valentine Gordon (14 February 1896 – 29 July 1938) was a Canadian philologist, known as an editor of medieval Germanic texts and a teacher of medieval Germanic languages at the University of Leeds and the University of Manchester.
Early ...
, Leeds's Professor of English Language, with whom she had four children (the eldest of whom, Bridget Mackenzie, went on to lecture in Old Norse at Glasgow University).
J. R. R. Tolkien
John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (, ; 3 January 1892 – 2 September 1973) was an English writer and philology, philologist. He was the author of the high fantasy works ''The Hobbit'' and ''The Lord of the Rings''.
From 1925 to 1945, Tolkien was ...
composed the couple a long
Old English
Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain, Anglo ...
praise-poem in the Old Norse ''
drottkvætt''-metre, entitled ''Brýdleop'', as a wedding present.
Ida Gordon moved with her husband to Manchester on his appointment as Smith Professor of English Language and Germanic Philology at the
University of Manchester
, mottoeng = Knowledge, Wisdom, Humanity
, established = 2004 – University of Manchester Predecessor institutions: 1956 – UMIST (as university college; university 1994) 1904 – Victoria University of Manchester 1880 – Victoria Univer ...
. On his death in 1938, and with four children under 7 to support, she took on some of his teaching duties, working as a Lecturer until 1960, when she was promoted to Senior Lecturer. She retired in 1968. She visited Iceland twice, and in 1970 was a visiting professor at the
University of Victoria
The University of Victoria (UVic or Victoria) is a public research university located in the municipalities of Oak Bay and Saanich, British Columbia, Canada. The university traces its roots to Victoria College, the first post-secondary instit ...
, British Columbia.
Works and archives
Archives
In 2014, Ida's eldest daughter Bridget Mackenzie sold a collection of letters written variously to Ida and to her husband by
J. R. R. Tolkien
John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (, ; 3 January 1892 – 2 September 1973) was an English writer and philology, philologist. He was the author of the high fantasy works ''The Hobbit'' and ''The Lord of the Rings''.
From 1925 to 1945, Tolkien was ...
to the
Brotherton Library
The Brotherton Library is a 1936 Grade II listed Beaux-Arts building with some art deco fittings, located on the main campus of the University of Leeds. It was designed by the firm of Lanchester & Lodge, and is named after Edward Brotherton, ...
of the
University of Leeds
, mottoeng = And knowledge will be increased
, established = 1831 – Leeds School of Medicine1874 – Yorkshire College of Science1884 - Yorkshire College1887 – affiliated to the federal Victoria University1904 – University of Leeds
, ...
. Mackenzie passed Ida and Eric Gordon's books to
St Andrews University Library.
Gordon Collection
Books
* ''Pearl'', ed. by E. V. Gordon (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1953) (although credited to E. V. Gordon, Ida worked substantially on this after his death as well as seeing the work through the press)
* ''The Seafarer'', ed. by I. L. Gordon, Methuen's Old English Library (New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1960)
* ''The Double Sorrow of Troilus: A Study of Ambiguities in 'Troilus and Criseyde' '' (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1970)
Articles
* 'The Murder of Thorgrímr in ''Gíslasaga Súrssonar''’, ''Medium Ævum'', 3.2 (June 1934), 79-94
* 'The Origins of ''Gíslasaga''’, ''Saga-Book'', 13.3 (1949–50), 183-205
* 'Traditional Themes in ''The Wanderer'' and ''The Seafarer''’, ''Review of English Studies'', n. s. 5 (1954), 225-35
* 'Oral Tradition and the Sagas of Poets', in ''Studia centenalia in honorem memoriae Benedikt S. Thorarinson'', ed. by B. S. Benedikz (Reykjavík: Typis Isafoldianis, 1961), 69-76
* 'The Narrative Function of Irony in Chaucer's ''Troilus and Criseyde''’, in ''Medieval Miscellany Presented to Eugène Vinaver'', ed. by F. Whitehead, A. H. Diverres, and F. E. Sutcliffe (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1965), 146-56
* trans., ''The Dream of the Rood'' (Rosemarkie: Groam House Museum, 1993)
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gordon, Ida
1907 births
2002 deaths
Alumni of the University of Leeds
English philologists
Old Norse studies scholars
Academics of the Victoria University of Manchester