Exeter
In 1911, at the age of 19, J.R.R. Tolkien began his studies at Exeter College, Oxford after receiving an Open Classical Exhibition scholarship on his second attempt; he failed his first try at the scholarship exam due to its difficulty and his distress over having just been forbidden to continue a romance with Edith Bratt.
Though he was a Catholic from a lower-class background and the majority of Ronald's fellow students were Protestant and upper-class, he was a fast friend and threw himself with gusto into life at Exeter. He joined several clubs and teams, including the rugby team, Essay Club, Dialectical Society, Stapledon debating society, and Officer Training Corps, and formed the Apolaustiks, a literary discussion club inspired by the “T.C.B.S.” group he had been a part of at King Edward’s School.
By the end of his second year at Exeter, Tolkien had almost completely abandoned his Classics syllabus, turning instead to personal interests such as the Finnish language and The Kalevala, a book of Finnish mythology. He performed accordingly on his exams, or Honour Moderations, and was saved only by an excellent philology paper. At this point, it was suggested to the undergraduate that he change his course of study, and he did, to English with a focus on medieval English, Germanic, and Old Norse language and literature. Tolkien’s interest in philology would play into and inform his creation of the elvish languages, which would in turn, inform many of Tolkien’s major works.
Exeter, a Response
In my own experience, going to Oxford for the first stage of the Single Leaf Project clarified a great deal of the academia present on the subject of Tolkien at Exeter. For instance, travelling to Oxford clarified the nebulous idea that both Exeter college and Oxford as a whole are an insular environment, microcosmic of the macrocosm of Britain at large.
Indeed, Exeter and its sister colleges shared a fortress-like nature and the architecture of their doorways references a time at which students conflicted violently with townsfolk. Oxford’s doorways might indeed actually be referred to as portcullises. The doors, having held one open, were definitely heavy enough to withstand a riot.
Exeter college was no different than the rest in this regard, and it must have been a sheltering environment for Tolkien. But as per the reports of John Garth in his book, Tolkien at Exeter, it was also no impediment to his social life or imagination. Garth relates tales of Tolkien sneaking along pipes at the high windows of the school housing to get to parties in other rooms around the insular campus.
One of the effects of that close quartered spacing manifests in the suicide of Sydney Cohen. Cohen had been Tolkien’s neighbor for a time, and he moved in two staircases down from the young writer at the time of his death. Cohen, after showing signs of long depression, used a pistol to take his own life in the presence of his friend and Tolkien’s other long-time neighbor, Rex Allpass. Tolkien, should he have been in his rooms, and likely the entire Exeter quad, could not have avoided hearing the shot.
Whether he did or not, Tolkien could not have failed to notice Cohen’s conspicuous absence as he passed by his room. One can imagine that for Tolkien, who had lost most of his family early in life, and had close ties to his fellows at Exeter, Cohen’s suicide could have made a marked stamp in the life of Tolkien and his contemporaries. And his room’s proximity to the Cohen’s, as well as Tolkien’s personal relationship to the man, would have most certainly led him to some serious reflection on the manner of Cohen’s death.