BY G. CONNOR SALTER

Dr. Joe Martyn Ricke (PhD, Rice University, 1982) has done many things. His profile in a recent issue of An Unexpected Journal described him as “a scholar, poet, actor, director, songwriter, and organizer.” His scholarship has included articles and book chapters on early drama, Shakespeare, the Inklings and their influences, academic freedom, and sarcasm.

He has edited several volumes of Inklings scholarship—including two collections of essays from the Frances White Ewbank Colloquium on C.S. Lewis & Friends (published in 2017 and 2019) and a collection of David Neuhouser’s work. Ricke’s essays have appeared in such publications as North Wind, Sehnsucht, The Lamp-Post, Medieavalia, andSixteenth Century Journal. He has contributed chapters to such books as Picturing Tolkien, Approaches to Teaching Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew, The Christian College Phenomenon, and (his favorite) Words that Tear the Flesh: Essays on Sarcasm in Medieval and Early Modern Literature and Cultures.

Sometimes, those many interests run together. For example, he contributed to essays published in North Wind on George MacDonald’s Shakespeare lectures (2018) and on MacDonald’s interleaved Shakespeare texts (2019).

His most recent work includes an essay on C.S. Lewis as a Shakespearean textual critic (in the most recent issue of Journal of Inkling Studies) and MacDonald as a Shakespeare scholar (forthcoming in VII: Journal of the Marion E. Wade Center).

Formerly a director of the Center for the Study of C.S. Lewis & Friends at Taylor University, he is now pursuing research, writing, and music full-time, along with being the founder and director of Inkling Folk Fellowship, a virtual community that shares fellowship and scholarship.

He was kind enough to answer a few questions.

INTERVIEW QUESTIONS

How did you discover the Inklings?

Well, I discovered the Inklings (if we use the word precisely) long after discovering Lewis and Tolkien. I suppose I read Hooper’s and Green’s biography of Lewis at some point when I was in university. And Carpenter’s book The Inklings. Earlier than that, I think I saw a book titled something like C.S. Lewis: Pictures of His World. Who were all these guys smoking pipes and going on long walks? I got interested in them eventually, but mostly Lewis, Tolkien, and the pre-Inkling, George MacDonald. Lewis first—I got a copy of The Screwtape Letters as part of a book club I was in (age 15 or so). I didn’t really count it as a “discovery” at the time.

But when I was 18, a professor suggested I read Narnia. I dreamed in technicolor for weeks afterwards. My Tolkien discovery was in the summer of age 17. Long hair, long-bottom leaf, Led Zeppelin, hiking in the Colorado mountains, and Lord of the Rings. At some point, I think my brother got a copy of Glen Sadler’s George MacDonald collection, and his fairy tales wowed us.

Do you find you lean more toward studying one Inkling than the other?

I write about and am interested in:

  1. Lewis
  2. Tolkien and MacDonald (a tie).

I’m also interested in, and doing work on, Nevill Coghill, Hugo Dyson, and John Wain. Dorothy L. Sayers, who wasn’t an Inkling of course, is also of great interest to me.

Who are some scholars who mentored or inspired you?

Well, first of all, if this isn’t cheating: Lewis and Tolkien. I chose to study Medieval and Renaissance Literature in part (maybe a big part), because that’s what they did. And they did it very well. Among others, Allegory of Love, Preface to Paradise Lost, “On Fairy Stories,” and Beowulf and the Critics were all groundbreaking. It was a great joy to keep bumping into my two favorite authors when doing critical study for grad school. If you know me, you know that I feel very comfortable being mentored by dead people. And I am perhaps unusual in that I am just as interested in their scholarship as I am in their so-called mythopoeic work.

I suppose you mean other scholars, though. Jane Chance, a great Tolkien scholar, was my advisor and mentor at Rice. We didn’t work on it together, however. Her focus on women in medieval literature (and Tolkien) was a big influence. I ended up doing a lot on “unruly women” or “shrews” in medieval and early modern literature, especially drama. I studied Chaucer with her. Years later, I “cast” her as Noah’s shrewish wife in a production of a medieval play at the International Congress on Medieval Studies. You can hear it somewhere on a CD or download it from The Chaucer Studio. I would also meet her by the DJ every year at the Congress dance, so we could dance together for half an hour or so. She’s not doing so well now, so I treasure the memories of our relationship. She also gave me the idea of doing a “medieval feast” for my medieval lit classes.

As I recall, I didn’t know any Lewis scholars for a long time. Early on, I read Charles Huttar, Peter Schakel (may he rest in peace), and others. I never took an Inklings class, but I sat in on one for a while to sit next to someone I liked. When I was teaching, I often took students to Oxford, and we sometimes gave a presentation at the Oxford C.S. Lewis Society. I also hired a guy named Michael Ward who would tutor my students who wanted to study C.S. Lewis. I’m happy to say that was his first teaching gig. The students came back with a crazed look in their eyes, babbling something about planets. This was way before the book Planet Narnia.

At Taylor, I would attend and present at the Colloquia that David L. Neuhouser organized, usually getting to know some of the speakers. I got to know Sorina Higgins and Brenton Dickieson that way. They have both done some excellent work since then. David was a mentor, for sure. He asked me in the spring of 2015 to take over the Lewis Center. Then he died on April Fool’s Day. So, instead of starting in August as planned, I started in April 2015. I had to plan the Colloquium for 2016 (believe me, it takes a year), and, at the same time, I decided we needed to have a book of David’s essays ready for the Colloquium. That was a busy year. But David was worth it. I wrote a longer tribute to him that appears as the introductory chapter in Exploring the Eternal Goodness: Selected Writings of David L. Neuhouser.

Right now, I’m inspired by the new generation of Inklings scholars showing us how much we didn’t know. Like some young guy who keeps reminding us to consider William Lindsay Gresham and doing interviews. And Sarah O’Dell’s work on Dr. Havard. And Sarah Waters’ work in the archives with Lewis’s Shakespeare scholarship (forthcoming in VII) and previously unknown Lewis/Barfield poems (recently published in Journal of Inklings Studies).

It’s clear you have many interests. You’ve acted, recorded music, written essays, and published poems. Do you find that doing many creative things helps you stay inspired?

I don’t know. It’s who I am. I sometimes complain about how little I’m getting done (in one area or another). If someone who knows me is nearby, he or she might say something like, “Well, then you will have to cut out X.” I usually whimper and say something like, “Yeah . . . no.” It probably started in high school when I was at a small all-boys Catholic boarding school. It wasn’t that weird to be on the debate team, act, play the guitar, and be starting on the basketball team. I had to specialize more in college (on basketball), but the other interests never died. When I finished my Ph.D. in English, I still thought I might go into full-time ministry, since I had been involved in ministry ever since my years in the Jesus movement. It’s too late for someone to tell me I have to specialize now. It’s hurt some aspects of my career, probably, but it worked great, I think, for teaching at small church-related colleges.

Given your many interests, it’s clear you’re not still writing about Lewis and Tolkien for the sake of routine. What are some things that keep you interested in Inkling studies?

I am fascinated by Lewis and the World War II period. So, many of my projects right now somehow relate to the years 1938-1945. That might be from a childhood fascination with that war, owing to my father’s participation in it. He received two Purple Hearts for being wounded in action, but he never talked about it. It was mysterious side of that giant man’s life. Being intrigued by what I don’t yet know and inspired to find out motivates me, I guess. I really love doing research in libraries and archives (and sometimes via cheap and not-so-cheap books on eBay), so I like to find and follow little hints that there might be something worth looking at in previously unthought-of places. I have a trove of stuff right now I need to write up. If I had to say, what really keeps me interested is these very interesting, very thoughtful, very creative, and, in most cases, very good people. Obviously, the broader topic of Lewis (and the Inklings) and Shakespeare is very interesting to me right now as well.

Given how much scholarly work is solitary, it would be easy for you not to interact much with other scholars. Instead, you’ve embraced the community element—hanging out with them at conferences, casting them in productions, creating spaces like the Inkling Folk Fellowship where scholars can have fellowship. Why is that fellowship and community element important to you?

It may be just who I am, the son of my father and mother. Who liked, in a very different way I suppose, to create opportunities for people to come together and do interesting things. Also the mentors I admire have done that sort of thing. When you are involved in putting on dramatic productions, that just becomes part of the territory as well. Most of all, though, I’d credit David L. Neuhouser. Unlike me, he was a quiet man. But he was big-hearted and he built something that brought together people for learning and celebration and joyous community.

How did the Inkling Folk Fellowship start?

When I was at Taylor, I started something we called “Lewis Teas” for short. You know, you were there. We met every Friday at 4 p.m. on campus, usually in the library. Sometimes, we had a special speaker that required a larger room. Sometimes, we read from the works. Sometimes, we had a guest speaker. Sometimes, we had one or more student speakers. We had special events near Christmas or anniversaries of major works. When COVID hit, we flipped it to online via Zoom. When I left Taylor in the fall of 2020, it took about three weeks to decide to just keep doing it under another name. In fact, many of the folks attending via Zoom were already from far-off places like Japan, England, California, and Kentucky.

Some of your recent work has included collaborating with Dr. Sarah Waters on the Inklings and Shakespeare. What excites you about exploring those subjects together?

I was always interested in Lewis and Coghill and Shakespeare. I was too busy to write about it, although I did quite a bit on MacDonald and Shakespeare while still at Taylor. I heard about Sarah’s work when she sent an abstract proposal for Taylor’s 2020 C.S. Lewis Colloquium—which was canceled due to COVID. She was excited by someone being excited about it. After getting more familiar with her work, I asked her if she would co-edit the Shakespeare and Cultural Apologetics volume for An Unexpected Journal. We also had both (at different times) done almost identical research on a mostly untold story involving Lewis and Shakespeare. So, we planned to co-author that yet-unfinished piece. Lewis was so great on medieval allegory, Spenser, and Milton that folks have tended not to consider his work on Shakespeare. In fact, Lewis is greatly to blame because he left a lot of it in the margins of his books and in discussions with other scholars that have never been reprinted. It’s exciting to get some of that out for people to see.

Are there any upcoming projects you can share with us?

I’m deep into The Allegory of Love right now. I am writing the chapter on it for the forthcoming Routledge Companion to C.S. Lewis. I’m working on Hamlet, under Lewis’s influence, but not precisely about him. I just presented my paper on Hamlet in the Graveyard at a Renaissance conference last week. I have a big essay on MacDonald and Shakespeare forthcoming in VII. And I am finishing up another one for North Wind. And there are a few other things I can’t mention because I would have to assassinate you if I did. Also, I’m working as part of the planning team for the big Lewis conference in September at George Fox University.

Joe Ricke’s music can be found on his website. More information about Inkling Folk Fellowship meetings can be found on its website.