The Battle of the Eastern Field

Abstract

This is a poem of Tolkien’s entitled 'The Battle of the Eastern Field'. The poem is a romanticized through descriptions of a rugby game, using the imagery of a triumphant conflict. The framing of the narrative suggests that the manuscript of the peom was recovered from a waste bin in March 1911 and that the editor for the ‘King Edward School Chronicle’ restored this poem, adding his own lines. However, this is likely just a framing device that Tolkien adopted to make his poem, seem even more like the found medievla texts he was mimicing.