Dark
1914 poem by J.R.R. Tolkien
Dark, or Þéostru, is a lyric poem that was written by J.R.R. Tolkien in December of 1914.
Dark describes the night sky and Earth's cosmological place in it. The two alternate titles refer to Ptolemy, the ancient mathematician who proposed the geocentric model of the solar system which remained popular for centuries, and Nicolaus Copernicus, who first proposed the heliocentric model, and the tensions that arose between adherants to the two models afterwards, especially the Catholic Church. Tolkien apparently found some interest in this matter.
Poem excerpt
Background
On 21 December of 1914, Tolkien wrote the first version of a poem which he entitled Dark.
Possibly on 8 March of 1915, Tolkien rewrote the poem and renamed it to Copernicus v. Ptolemy before rewriting it again and changing the name to Copernicus and Ptolemy. In this version, Tolkien gave the poem the Old English name Þéostru ("Darkness"). Tolkien eventually revised this version, before sending this version along with Wood-sunshine and As Two Fair Trees to his friends Christopher Wiseman and Geoffrey Bache Smith.
On 25 March, Smith sent a letter to Tolkien, noting his approval of the poem. In the afternoon of 25 April, Wiseman discussed Tolkien’s poems with Robert Quilter Gilson, before sending a letter to Tolkien with comments on the poem, referring to it as Copernicus & Ptolemy.
Wiseman later sent Tolkien more comments on the poem.
At some date between 1917 and 1924, Tolkien made a final revision of the poem, changing the name to Dark.
In 2024, the full poem was published for the first time in September as entry 20 in The Collected Poems of J.R.R. Tolkien.
Referencias
1. Esta ficha se ha importado inicialmente de TolkienGateway.net el día 25/05/2026.
