Marjorie Burns is a scholar of English literature, best known for her
studies of J. R. R. Tolkien.
Biography
Marjorie Jean Burns was born in 1940. She gained her PhD at the University of California, Berkeley.
She is an emeritus professor of English at
Portland State University
Portland State University (PSU) is a public research university in Portland, Oregon. It was founded in 1946 as a post-secondary educational institution for World War II veterans. It evolved into a four-year college over the following two decades ...
, having worked on the faculty there for over thirty years. She lectured on English literature and Tolkien, writing many papers on these topics.
She married the geologist Scott Burns, also at Portland State University, and Don S. Wilner. She has four children.
She co-edited the ''
J. R. R. Tolkien Encyclopedia
The ''J. R. R. Tolkien Encyclopedia: Scholarship and Critical Assessment'', edited by Michael D. C. Drout, was published by Routledge in 2006. A team of 127 Tolkien scholars on 720 pages cover topics of Tolkien's fiction, his academic works, hi ...
'', and contributed four articles to it on topics including
Old Norse literature
Old Norse literature refers to the vernacular literature of the Scandinavian peoples up to c. 1350. It chiefly consists of Icelandic writings.
In Britain
From the 8th to the 15th centuries, Vikings and Norse settlers and their descendants colon ...
and the giant spider
Shelob.
Reception
C. W. Sullivan III, reviewing her 2005 book ''Perilous Realms'' for the ''
Journal of Folklore Research'', found it both praiseworthy and problematic. He liked Burns's discussion of the English prejudice against the Celts, and of
Tolkien's dislike of frivolous post-Shakespeare fairies. He noted that many of the chapters were published as separate papers, so there was some repetition, and she had failed to note the Celtic origin of ''
Sir Gawain
Gawain (), also known in many other forms and spellings, is a character in Arthurian legend, in which he is King Arthur's nephew and a Knight of the Round Table. The prototype of Gawain is mentioned under the name Gwalchmei in the earliest ...
''. But she had written a "valuable window into Tolkien's sources" and the way he blended "Celtic enchantment and Norse vitality", and the book was accessible to scholars and the public alike.
Kathryn Stelmach, reviewing the book for ''Comitatus'', found her exploration of Norse "more compelling" than her "overly simplified" approach to the "Celtic" identity and the use of unreliable sources.
Books
* 2005 ''Perilous Realms: Celtic and Norse in Tolkien’s Middle-earth'' (ed.),
University of Toronto Press
The University of Toronto Press is a Canadian university press founded in 1901. Although it was founded in 1901, the press did not actually publish any books until 1911.
The press originally printed only examination books and the university cale ...
.
* 2007 ''On Tolkien: Interviews, Reminiscences, and Other Essays'' (ed., with
Douglas A. Anderson
Douglas Allen Anderson (born December 30, 1959) is an American writer and editor on the subjects of fantasy and medieval literature, specializing in textual analysis of the works of J. R. R. Tolkien. He is a winner of the Mythopoeic Award for sch ...
),
Houghton Mifflin
The asterisk ( ), from Late Latin , from Ancient Greek , ''asteriskos'', "little star", is a typographical symbol. It is so called because it resembles a conventional image of a heraldic star.
Computer scientists and mathematicians often vo ...
.
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Burns, Marjorie
Tolkien studies
1940 births
Portland State University faculty
University of California, Berkeley alumni
Living people