Tolkien Studies

Volume III

Edited by

Douglas A. Anderson

Michael D. C. Drout

Verlyn Flieger

West Virginia University Press

Morgantown 2006

Contents

Editor’s Introduction

In Memoriam, Karen Wynn Fonstad and Dan Timmons

Conventions and Abbreviations

Fitting Sense to Sound: Linguistic Aesthetics and Phonosemantics in the Work of J.R.R. Tolkien

Ross Smith

The Text Tale of Frodo the Nine-fingered: Residual Oral Patterning in The Lord of the Rings

Maria Prozesky

Dream Visions in J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings

Amy M. Amendt-Raduege

The “Lost” Subject of Middle-earth: The Constitution of the Subject in the Figure of Gollum in The Lord of the Rings

Gergely Nagy

Three is Company: Novel, Fairy Tale, and Romance on the Journey through the Shire

Martin Simonson

Beowulf as Fairy-story: Enchanting the Elegiac in The Two Towers

Richard W. Fehrenbacher

Barbarians and Imperialism in Tacitus and The Lord of the Rings

James Obertino

Notes and Documents

Writing “TO” the Map

Karen Wynn Fonstad

R. W. Chambers and The Hobbit

Douglas A. Anderson

A Spliced Old English Quotation in “Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics”

Michael D. C. Drout

“The tree took me up from the ground and carried me off”: A Source for Tolkien’s Ents in Ludvig Holberg’s Journey of Niels Klim to the World Underground

James I. McNelis III

Book Reviews

Compiled by Douglas A. Anderson

The Year’s Work in Tolkien Studies

David Bratman

Bibliography for 2004

Marcel R. Bülles, Michael D. C. Drout and Rebecca Epstein

Addenda and Corrigenda to the 2003 Bibliography

Contributor Notes

Editors’ Introduction

This is the third volume of Tolkien Studies, a refereed journal dedicated to the scholarly study of the works of J. R. R. Tolkien. Tolkien Studies is the first academic journal solely devoted to Tolkien. As editors, our goal is to publish excellent scholarship on Tolkien as well as to gather useful research information, reviews, notes, documents, and bibliographical material.

All articles published have been subject to anonymous, external review. All articles require a positive judgment from the Editors before being sent to reviewers, and articles that the Editors agreed upon had to receive a least one positive evaluation from an external referee in order to be published. In the cases of articles by individuals associated with the journal in any way, each article had to receive at least two positive evaluations from two different outside reviewers. All identifying information was removed from the articles before they were sent to the reviewers, and all reviewer comments were likewise anonymously conveyed to the authors of the articles. The Editors agreed to be bound by the recommendations of the outside referees.

Douglas A. Anderson

Michael D.C. Drout

Verlyn Flieger

Notes on Submissions

Tolkien Studies seeks works of scholarly quality and depth. Substantial essays and shorter, “Notes and Documents” pieces are both welcome.

Submissions should be double-spaced throughout and use parenthetical citations in the (Author page) form. A Works Cited page should conform to the Chicago Manual of Style, 14th ed. All citations to Tolkien’s works should follow the “Conventions and Abbreviations” of Tolkien Studies.

Self-addressed, stamped envelopes should accompany all correspondence unless the author wishes to communicate via email and does not wish the hard-copy manuscript to be returned, in which case this requirement is waived.

Electronic submissions are preferred. These should be sent to Verlyn Flieger (verlyn@mythus.com) as attachments. Microsoft Word is the preferred word-processing program.

Hard-copy manuscripts should be sent to:

Tolkien Studies

c/o Prof. Verlyn Flieger

10221 Meredith Avenue

Silver Spring, MD 20910

Tolkien Studies encourages researchers to send us offprints of articles for inclusion in the yearly Bibliography and Year’s Work. These should be sent to:

Tolkien Studies

c/o Prof. Michael Drout

Wheaton College

26 East Main Street

Norton, MA 02766

Books for review should be sent to:

Tolkien Studies

c/o Douglas A. Anderson

P.O. Box 493

Marcellus, MI 49067

Acknowledgments

The Editors would like to thank Wheaton College, Norton, MA, Provost Susannne Woods, and Wheaton Research Partners for their support. The efforts of editorial assistants Vaughan Sherrill and Rebecca Epstein contributed a great deal to the success of the issue, as has the support of Katherine Conway, Marilyn Todesco, Marcel R. Bülles, Vaughn Howland and Raquel D’Oyen. It has continued to be a pleasure to work with West Virginia University Press; thanks to Patrick Conner and especially to Hilary Attfield for all her work in the production of the issue. We owe a special debt of gratitude to our anonymous, outside reviewers, who continue to exceed our expectations and with their collegial service contribute so much to Tolkien Studies.

In Memoriam

With sadness Tolkien Studies marks the passing in 2005 of two esteemed members of the Tolkien community, Karen Wynn Fonstad and Dan Timmons, both of whom made notable contributions to Tolkien scholarship and fandom.

Karen Wynn Fonstad graduated from The University of Oklahoma with an M.A. in Geography, specializing in cartography. A freelance cartographer, part-time lecturer at The University of Wisconsin at Oshkosh and speaker at many events, her specialty became the mapping of landscapes in fantasy fiction. Karen was the author and cartographic illustrator of The Atlas of Middle-earth (1981), with a revised edition published in 1991. She also wrote and illustrated other fantasy atlases, including The Atlas of Pern, The Atlas of the Land, The Atlas of the Dragonlance World and The Forgotten Realms Atlas. Karen died 11 March 2005, of complications from cancer. She is survived by her husband Todd Fonstad and their two children, Dr. Mark Fonstad and Kristina Stingle.

Dan Timmons received his Ph.D. from the University of Toronto with a dissertation exploring the critical history and authorial scholarship of the works of J.R.R. Tolkien. He published a number of articles and gave many conference papers on Tolkien. With George Clark, Dan co-edited J.R.R. Tolkien and His Literary Resonances: Views of Middle-earth (2000). He also wrote, directed and produced the video documentary, The Legacy of The Lord of the Rings (2003). Featuring scenes from Tolkien’s boyhood and Oxford years, as well as interviews with a number of Tolkien scholars, the film presents the literary impulses, artistic features, critical and creative response and cultural legacy of Tolkien’s masterpiece. The program has been broadcast in Canada on Bravo! and SPACE: The Imagination Station. Dan also contributed articles for the J.R.R. Tolkien Encyclopedia, forthcoming from Routledge. After a long battle with progressive motor neuron disease, Dan died on 18 December 2005. He is survived by his wife Sunny and a son, Marcos, born in September of 2004.

Both Karen and Dan are missed by all those who knew them and respected their work.

Conventions and Abbreviations

Because there are so many editions of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, citations will be by book and chapter as well as by page-number (referenced to the editions listed below). Thus a citation from The Fellowship of the Ring, book two, chapter four, page 318 is written (FR, II, iv, 318). The “Silmarillion” indicates the body of stories and poems developed over many years by Tolkien; The Silmarillion indicates the volume first published in 1977.

Abbreviations

B&C

Beowulf and the Critics. Michael D. C. Drout, ed. Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies 248. Tempe, AZ: Arizona Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies, 2002.

Bombadil

The Adventures of Tom Bombadil. London: George Allen & Unwin, 1962; Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1963.

FR

The Fellowship of the Ring. London: George Allen & Unwin, 1954; Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1954. Second edition, revised impression, Boston: Houghton Mifflin,1987.

H

The Hobbit. London: George Allen & Unwin, 1937. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1938. The Annotated Hobbit, ed. Douglas A. Anderson. Second edition, revised. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2002.

Jewels

The War of the Jewels. Christopher Tolkien, ed. London: HarperCollins; Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1994.

Lays

The Lays of Beleriand. Christopher Tolkien, ed. London: George Allen & Unwin; Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1985.

Letters

The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien. Humphrey Carpenter, ed. with the assistance of Christopher Tolkien. London: George Allen & Unwin; Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1981.

Lost Road

The Lost Road and Other Writings. Christopher Tolkien, ed. London: Unwin Hyman; Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1987.

Lost Tales I

The Book of Lost Tales, Part One. Christopher Tolkien, ed. London: George Allen & Unwin, 1983; Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1984.

Lost Tales II

The Book of Lost Tales, Part Two. Christopher Tolkien, ed. London: George Allen & Unwin; Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1984.

LotR

The Lord of the Rings, by J. R. R. Tolkien; the work itself irrespective of edition.

MC

The Monsters and the Critics and Other Essays. London: George Allen & Unwin, 1983; Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1984.

Morgoth

Morgoth’s Ring. Christopher Tolkien, ed. London: HarperCollins; Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1993.

PS

Poems and Stories. London: George Allen & Unwin, 1980; Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1994.

Peoples

The Peoples of Middle-earth. Christopher Tolkien, ed. London: HarperCollins; Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1996.

RK

The Return of the King. London: George Allen & Unwin 1955; Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1956. Second edition, revised impression, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1987.

S

The Silmarillion. Christopher Tolkien, ed. London: George Allen & Unwin, 1977. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1977. Second edition. London: HarperCollins, 1999; Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2001.

Sauron

Sauron Defeated. Christopher Tolkien, ed. London: HarperCollins; Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1992.

Shadow

The Return of the Shadow. Christopher Tolkien, ed. London: Unwin Hyman; Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1988.

Shaping

The Shaping of Middle-earth. Christopher Tolkien, ed. London: George Allen & Unwin; Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1986.

TL

Tree and Leaf. London: Unwin Books, 1964; Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1965. Expanded as Tree and Leaf, including the Poem Mythpoeia [and] The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth Beorhthelm’s Son. London: HarperCollins, 2001.

TT

The Two Towers. London: George Allen & Unwin, 1954; Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1955. Second edition, revised impression, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1987.

Treason

The Treason of Isengard. Christopher Tolkien, ed. London: Unwin Hyman; Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1989.

UT

Unfinished Tales of Númenor and Middle-Earth. Christopher Tolkien, ed. London: George Allen & Unwin; Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1980.

War

The War of the Ring. Christopher Tolkien, ed. London: Unwin Hyman; Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1990.

Fitting Sense to Sound:Linguistic Aesthetics and Phonosemantics in the Work of J.R.R. Tolkien

Ross Smith

I. Sound and Sense

“Linguistic aesthetics” is a term which Tolkien employed on a number of occasions to refer to the fickle relationship among the sounds of words, their meaning, and our emotional responses to them. He explored this complex issue by means of his invented languages, where the fundamental question of the relationship between sound and meaning (phonosemantics) came into play, and also addressed it directly in some academic papers. Such was his interest in this subject that on one occasion he described himself as “a professional philologist particularly interested in linguistic aesthetics” (S xi) while on another he declared that his largest published work (excluding posthumous publications), The Lord of the Rings, was “largely an essay in linguistic aesthetic” (Letters 219). In his lectures and letters he made some effort to communicate exactly what he meant by this term and why it was of such importance to him, but he seemed to find it difficult to convey his notions and explain his enthusiasm in terms that were understandable to a wider audience.

Indeed, Tolkien sometimes worried that his ideas on linguistic aesthetics and phonosemantics, which were intimately tied up with his passion for inventing languages, would not be taken seriously and might even cause derision. One of the most explicit sources of his views in this area is the posthumously published paper on his hobby of creating invented languages called A Secret Vice, in which he refers to his own essay as “this absurd paper” (MC 203), and among other pleas for understanding, entreats the reader to “be kindly” (MC 213). Elsewhere, in the vast letter delineating the main features of his fictitious universe that he sent to the publisher Milton Waldman, Tolkien mentions his desire to achieve cohesion and consistency in his invented languages but expresses his concern that “[n]ot all will feel this as important as I do, since I am cursed by an acute sensibility in such matters” (S xi). He found talking about these supposedly unconventional matters rather embarrassing. His love of the subject was so immense that he was prepared to risk ridicule in order to communicate his enthusiasm to others, but in general he preferred to transmit his passion for word-sounds through his fiction and his linguistic inventions.

The Phonosemantic Current

In fact, Tolkien was not alone in his misgivings about publicly voicing his opinions on phonetics and pleasure, and on sound and meaning. It is true that some other renowned thinkers also considered there to be a direct link between the sound of words, their significance, how we use them, and how we react to them. Yet, setting aside unassailable giants of linguistic theory and philosophy like Jespersen and Jakobson, the norm has been for linguists to share Tolkien’s fear of humiliation in this regard1 because their ideas openly contradict the ruling commandments of modern linguistic theory. These were cast in stone in the early twentieth century by Ferdinand de Saussure and reinforced in the latter half of the century by the Chomskyan school of generative grammar.

Saussure, as all students of theoretical linguistics will know, was adamant that the linguistic sign (i.e. word, utterance) was arbitrary and wholly unrelated to the referent (i.e. thing referred to). He regarded this rule as being so important that he referred to it, in his seminal work A Course in General Linguistics, as “the organising principle for the whole of linguistics.” Only by severing phonetic relations between spoken words and the notions or objects they referred to could he isolate the inert elements he needed to create a “scientific” system, or structure. This systematic, abstract approach was further refined by the Chomskyan school, with its enthusiasm for sophisticated models and mechanisms and scant interest in language as a dynamic phenomenon in the real world of human communication.

The influence of Saussure and Chomsky on twentieth-century linguistics has been immense, and few have had the confidence to contradict them. Even the great humanist, literary critic and polyglot George Steiner, who criticized Chomsky’s insistence on a universally structuralist approach in the face of the vast linguistic diversity to be found in the real world, glibly affirmed in his most important work that “languages are wholly arbitrary sets of signals and conventional counters”(Steiner 21). That someone as linguistically sensitive as Steiner accepted the Saussurean doctrine unquestioningly is indicative of how deeply that doctrine has become rooted in Western linguistic thinking.

In several illustrious exceptions to this rule, however, thinkers have had sufficient intellectual status to be able to swim against the tide without ridicule. The great Danish linguist Otto Jespersen had no doubts on the subject: “Is there really much more logic in the opposite extreme which denies any kind of sound symbolism (apart from the small class of evident echoisms and ‘onomatopoeia’) and sees in our words only a collection of accidental and irrational associations of sound and meaning? … There is no denying that there are words which we feel instinctively to be adequate to express the ideas they stand for” (Jespersen 397).

This opinion was shared by the nineteenth-century German humanist Wilhelm von Humboldt, who wrote extensively on the subject of what he referred to as “sound symbolism,” and by Jespersen’s contemporary, the linguist Edward Sapir, who went beyond theory and devised tests to obtain proof for the existence of a relationship between sound and sense.2 In the latter half of the twentieth century the phonosemantic cause was taken up by the linguist and philosopher Roman Jakobson, who firmly opposed both the Saussurean structuralists and the Chomskyan generativists and their insistence on the arbitrariness of word form. His work drew on the writing of American semiologist C. S. Peirce, who defined three levels of signs which provided a helpful framework for distinguishing the degree of closeness between phonemes and the notions to which they relate. These are, in the terms he used, the iconic level, in which sign (i.e., word or utterance) and referent are the same thing; the indexical level, in which the nature of the sign is indicative of some essence or quality in its referent; and the symbolic level, where the relationship is indeed arbitrary. For Peirce and Jakobson, most words fit into the first two levels and the third is the exception, not the rule.

These theoretical considerations reinforce what must be regarded as a common-sense view of sound and meaning. Evidently, pure onomatopoeia (moo, cuckoo) is a case apart, but what about such strings of terms as glisten, glimmer, glitter, glow, gleam, glint, glare, all of which refer to light, or lump, bump, rump, hump, stump, mumps, which all contain the ‘ump’ syllable and refer to some kind of protuberance? It seems that we unconsciously regard these phonemes as being apt for the phenomena they relate to. There are hundreds of such examples, some more iconic, some more indexical. Many occupy a middle ground between the two, such as the sequence splash, spatter, splatter, splosh, slosh (plus perhaps spurt, sprinkle, spout), which seem onomatopoeic until one considers the fact that the noise water makes when it hits a hard surface is never actually ‘splash’ or ‘splosh,’ or anything of the sort.

In recent years some detailed research has been carried out to find a reliable, scientific basis for our intuition, continuing the efforts of Sapir and others. Margaret Magnus, author of Gods of the Word, has devised and implemented numerous experiments and gathered a large volume of evidence to provide logical weaponry for confronting the Saussurean school.3 New evidence for a clear relationship between sound and meaning has also been furnished by the neuroscientist Vilayanur S. Ramachandran, who set out the findings of his experiments in sensory interaction in the prestigious BBC Reith Lectures for 2003.4

In the face of all this reasoning and carefully verified evidence, therefore, it seems almost foolhardy to continue insisting that the phonetic nature of words is entirely arbitrary.

Phonetic Ftness in Tolkien

Where would Tolkien fit into this counter-tradition? While he was not a theoretical linguist as such, he must have been aware of the main currents in conventional linguistic theory, which tended to disregard features of language not directly involved in communication. Being a poet and lover of languages as things of beauty, he could not agree with this trend:

The communication factor has been very powerful in directing the development of language; but the more individual and personal factor—pleasure in articulate sound, and in the symbolic use of it, independent of communication though constantly in fact entangled with it—must not be forgotten for a moment. (MC 208)

Here he echoes Jakobson, who commented that “the iconic and indexical constituents of verbal systems have too often remained underestimated” (i.e., communication between speakers is an essential feature of language but should not be allowed to eclipse all others, or treated in isolation from them). We do not know the extent to which Tolkien was familiar with the work of Jespersen and Jakobson but their efforts would doubtless have comforted him and made him feel less concerned about being considered eccentric.

That Tolkien believed firmly in the direct link between sound and sense is beyond doubt; it formed the basis of his linguistic investigations, as he readily acknowledged. In A Secret Vice he talks of “the fitting of notion to oral symbol” (MC 206), and sets out his position quite clearly in the context of what he calls “language construction”: “I am personally more interested perhaps in word-form in itself, and in word-form in relation to meaning (so-called phonetic fitness) than in any other department” (MC 211). Elsewhere in the same essay he refers to the fundamental link between what he calls “phonetic fitness” and pleasure in language: “Certainly, it is the contemplation of the relation between sound and notion which is the main source of pleasure” (MC 206). In other words, the pleasing emotion that can be provoked by language is largely caused by the fitness of its phonetics to its meaning. Tolkien’s interest in this matter was unusually deep because, as well as the “acute sensibility” he mentions, he had three separate areas in which to study and experiment: English, foreign languages both ancient and modern, and his own Elvish languages. With regard to the latter, he was evidently free to combine sounds with meanings in the manner he saw fit, though in practice (as Tolkien scholars know well) he imposed a certain discipline by modelling one form of Elvish on Finnish and another on Welsh, these being his favorite foreign languages in phonetic terms. In English, the enormous care he took over making names seem appropriate to characters and places—sometimes drawing on Anglo-Saxon and Nordic sources and sometimes just letting his imagination and inventive genius do the work—is well documented,

Indeed, many Tolkienian names could be used themselves as evidence in favor of phonosemantics. One merely has to think of how apposite the name “Withywindle” is to a slow, winding, magical river overhung by willows, or how well the name “Tom Bombadil” fits its jolly, rumbustious owner. Looking at the matter from the opposite angle, could the broad and majestic Anduin ever have been called the Withywindle? Or can we imagine the brooding Lord Denethor being named Lord Bombadil? The idea is so absurd as to be comical, but for no reason other than, in this case, severe phonetic unfitness.

Tolkien’s beliefs on the subject of phonosemantics, therefore, formed part of a current which was regarded as marginal and undesirable by mainstream linguists, yet which was strongly supported by some of the greatest language philosophers of the last two centuries. His ideas, though at times tentatively expressed, coincided with those of thinkers such as Jespersen, Sapir, and Jakobson, who, like him, were interested not just in abstract notions of structures and systems, but in language as a vast and essential component of human existence, with all its poetic, philosophical, and social connotations. However, he differed from other scholars (as far as we are aware!) in that his thinking on this area, in addition to relating to real languages, was closely tied to his private, invented ones.

Such was the breadth of Tolkien’s knowledge that he was able to look at whole languages, not just individual words. When talking of his initial experience of Medieval Welsh in his lecture English and Welsh, he said:

It would not be of much use if I tried to illustrate by examples the pleasure that I got there. For, of course, the pleasure is not solely concerned with any word, any ‘sound-pattern + meaning,’ by itself, but with its fitness also to a whole style. Even single notes of a large music may please in their place, but one cannot illustrate this pleasure … by repeating them in isolation. (MC 192)

Later, in A Secret Vice, he talks of his creation, Quenya Elvish, as “a language that has … reached a highish level both of beauty in word-form considered abstractly, and of ingenuity in the relations of symbol and sense” (MC 210). The “phonetic fitness” and resulting beauty, therefore, are also to be found on a scale vastly larger than that of individual words, namely the level of an entire language. The foundations are again the same: “sound-pattern + meaning,” “symbol and sense.” For Tolkien, language without sound-symbolism would have been a lifeless thing.

One of the examples Tolkien gives in A Secret Vice to illustrate his invented language that has reached a “highish level of beauty” is a poem called “The Last Ark” (MC 213-14). Students of Tolkienian linguistics find this a particularly interesting text because it is relatively long and Tolkien produced three different versions of the poem, each in Quenya Elvish at a different stage of evolution. The existing literature on Tolkien’s Elvish languages is vast 5 and I have no intention of going into the matter in detail here, but it is enlightening to examine briefly the phonetics of this poem and deduce how Tolkien applied in practice the ideas discussed above. For our present purposes it is sufficient to reproduce the first two verses of the poem as it appears in A Secret Vice, with Tolkien’s translation into English:

Oilima Markirya

Man kiluva kirya ninqe

oilima ailinello lúte,

níve qímari ringa ambar

ve mainwin qaine?

man tiruva kirya ninqe

valkane wilwarindon

lúnelinqe vear

tinwelindon talalínen

vea falastane,

falma pustane,

rámali tíne,

kalma histane?

(The accents indicate long vowels.)

The Last Ark

Who shall see a white ship

Leave the last shore,

the pale phantoms

in her cold bosom

like gulls wailing?

Who shall heed a white ship,

vague as a butterfly,

in the flowing sea

on wings like stars,

the sea surging,

the foam blowing,

the wings shining,

the light fading?

Reading the Quenya text from a viewpoint of complete semantic ignorance one is forced to concentrate on the words’ shapes and sounds, and what is immediately noticeable is that the majority of them end in a vowel (the guidelines to pronunciation included in The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion indicate that final vowels are always pronounced). Additionally, in the rare cases that they end in a consonant, only /n/ and /r/ are used. The entire poem comprises ninety-six words, of which a mere seventeen end in a consonant.

There are none of the brusque consonant clusters so typical of English (e.g., ngths as in strengths, or sps as in crisps), nor are there any hard, guttural phonemes. The potentially harsh fricatives are restricted to the soft /f/ and /v/, together with non-sounded /s/. Among the vowel phonemes in the above sample there are seventy-six higher-sounding front vowels (such as /i/) and a mere seven lower-sounding back vowels (/o/, /u/). Long words in the style of German or Greek are excluded; the maximum word length in the poem is four syllables, and most have three or less. The overall effect, therefore, is a flowing language in which the words run smoothly together, with final vowels linking easily to initial consonants. The sound is light and melodious thanks to the predominance of front vowels and soft consonants, the absence of harsh phonemes, and the even spacing of consonant-vowel syllables.

Tolkien pointed out that his Elvish languages were largely modeled on Finnish and Welsh, but it is worth noting that the linguistic characteristics described above are also applicable, to a considerable extent, to Italian and Spanish. Tolkien liked Spanish (in his own words, it gave him “strong pleasure”) (MC 191) and it is relevant to consider that these two Mediterranean tongues are popularly held—by English-speakers at least—to be among the most beautiful of European languages.

On the level of individual words, rather than whole languages, there is no better account of Tolkien’s approach to lexical creation than that given in The Lost Road by his son Christopher:

He did not … “invent” new words and names arbitrarily: in principle, he devised from within the historical structure, proceeding from the “bases” or primitive stems, adding suffix or prefix or forming compounds, deciding (or, as he would have said, “finding out”) when the word came into the language, following it through the regular changes in form that it would thus have undergone, and observing the possibilities of formal or semantic influence from other words in the course of its history. (Lost Road 342).

This creative process can be illustrated by looking at the second verse of the version of Oilima Markirya included above (as already mentioned there are three versions of this poem, the last of which is helpfully accompanied by a glossarial commentary) which contains the line valkane wilwarindon, translated by Tolkien as “vague as a butterfly.” In the later version of the poem, probably written during the last decade of the author’s life, this line changes to wilwarin wilwa, but the translation remains the same. Tolkien informs us in his glossary that wilwa means “fluttering to and fro” and that wilwarin means butterfly. The stem, therefore, is wilwa, which describes an action, and the suffix rin is added to create a noun to denote a creature that habitually moves in such a manner, just as in English we add er to a verb to make the corresponding noun (run-runner, fish-fisher, etc.). In the earlier version of the poem a further, adverbial suffix don is added, which means “like, in the way of,” to give the final compound word wilwarindon. In fact, we can see that what Tolkien translates as “vague as a butterfly” is literally “fluttering like a butterfly” in the earlier version and “[a] fluttering butterfly” (it should be noted that Quenya has no indefinite article) in the later version.

From a phonosemantic viewpoint, the phonemes in wilwa and wilwarin have evidently been chosen with care. On an entirely subjective level, I can say that to me the name wilwarin sounds well suited to the insect which in English we call a butterfly. From an objective viewpoint, we can observe that the source verb wilwa, as Tolkien tells us, indicates a “fluttering to and fro” action (i.e., a repetitive up-and-down or side-to-side action). The two phonetically similar syllables (wi and wa) are therefore used deliberately to reflect the repetitive nature of the action: in English, we find similar repetition, for instance, in the phrase “to-and-fro” and the verbs “zigzag” and ‘crisscross,” which also denote a repetitive side-to-side movement or form. It should be noted that this device is also used in the name “Withywindle” mentioned earlier, to reflect the winding, side-to-side course of that river. Tolkien’s choice of phonemes, therefore, met a double purpose. On the one hand, he “found” a beautiful name for a beautiful creature; on the other, he used phonetic resources that can be readily recognized by the language processing centres in our minds to convey the kind of movement which that creature makes.

Tolkien’s use of a poem to illustrate his creative process is no coincidence, since poetry and song were perhaps his favorite media for expressing linguistic beauty. He had a strong predilection for the spoken word, and even when he had no choice but to communicate in writing, as in the case of The Lord of the Rings, he included a detailed appendix on the pronunciation of his invented languages to assure that readers could come as close as possible to “hearing” them as they should be pronounced. In fact, many of Tolkien’s most important works of non-fiction were not initially written as essays but as speeches, and the two papers most quoted in this article, namely English and Welsh and A Secret Vice, were both originally lectures. He also enjoyed reading his fiction aloud and recorded himself on tape reading passages from his work, a practice usually confined to poets and songwriters. He thought his works, and his languages, were beautiful, and he was keen to communicate this.

II. Sound and Beauty

In a frequently cited passage from his paper English and Welsh, Tolkien made a brief stab at explaining his notions of linguistic aesthetics by means of—we must imagine—a few very carefully chosen examples. To illustrate his own predilection for the sounds of Welsh, he cited the words “cellar door” as an instance of what he considered to be undeniable phonetic beauty: “Most English-speaking people … will admit that cellar door is beautiful, especially if dissociated from its sense (and from its spelling). More beautiful than say, sky, and far more beautiful than beautiful ” (MC 190).

Wary of providing fuel to linguists apposed to phonosemantics, Tolkien has left relatively little material on his aesthetic theories. Commentators have, therefore, focused on the brief paragraph cited above. However, the passage is not very helpful for understanding his beliefs in this area as Tolkien himself was doubtless aware. As is evident from the wealth of quotations from his work cited herein, the aesthetics of phonology was of great interest to Tolkien, yet when he approached the subject directly the material he chose was questionable.

One may ask, for instance, in what regional accent cellar door should be pronounced to achieve such beauty. The answer, one imagines, is Tolkien’s own accent, standard southern UK English, rather than, say, a rural American or Australian accent. Would these two words pronounced in another accent have given Tolkien such pleasure? This seems unlikely, since the aesthetic pleasure is closely linked to the vowel sounds, which are bound to change if another regional accent is used. In addition, in standard Scottish, Irish and American English the r at the end of both words would be pronounced, unlike in Tolkien’s standard received pronunciation, changing the auditory impact considerably.

Such considerations make generalizations of this kind appear unreliable. Tolkien’s claim that “most English-speaking people” will find “cellar door” particularly pleasing is also dubious. There is no way to substantiate such a statement, and in fact it is reasonable to think that many people might disagree with his view and consider sky to be more attractive, or even beautiful itself, for no reason other than fickle personal preference.

Another problem arises when Tolkien remarks that the beauty of the phrase becomes obvious “especially if dissociated from its sense (and from its spelling).” In fact, it is impossible to dissociate the sound from the sense, and the sense from the spelling. An average English speaker just cannot hear the words “cellar door” without thinking of a door (probably old, wooden and mildewed) leading into an underground storage room habitually called a cellar. Our minds simply do not allow us to isolate the sound from the meaning: readers are invited to try themselves. Tolkien’s comment concerning dissociation from spelling is equally questionable. What if he had written “seller daw”? Both these words exist in English and according to the Oxford English Dictionary they share the same pronunciation as cellar door, yet when we see them on the page they do not evoke anything special, or beautiful, precisely because we do not associate them with a romantic old door to a cellar. The evocative power of the words cellar door is inextricably tied to their habitual meaning in English, not just the phonemes involved: we cannot block out the empirically learned concept that cellars are often interesting places, dank, dark, and with a touch of mystery. The doors to them are the key to whatever they may have to hide. Simply by saying cellar door to ourselves, we can observe that we are unable to ignore these associations and focus only on the sound. The relation between sound, meaning and spelling is therefore more complex here than Tolkien imagined.6

This brief and rather unsuccessful venture into the treacherous discipline of aesthetics does not detract from Tolkien’s belief that sound and meaning are linked on the profoundest of levels. As mentioned above, this notion is shared by some of history’s greatest philosophers of language, and is supported by experimental evidence. However, Tolkien took the further step of stating that this link is an essential component of phonological beauty, and it is here that a complex subject becomes even more difficult to examine in anything but subjective terms. As Tolkien saw, there is little more we can do than say “most people think …,” because whatever evidence there is derives simply from majority opinion, and even then, as indicated above, the term “most” has to be used carefully. Unless affirmations about what people think are backed by objective research data, they are of little help. Drawing an analogy with music, one may feel inclined to say that Mozart expressed some universal essence of beauty because most people think his music is agreeable, but in reality most people would be at a loss to identify correctly a single Mozart symphony. Even if the majority of the public were adequately acquainted with his work, they would be influenced by social and historical factors often beyond their own awareness (the popular media tend to treat Mozart in a positive manner, perhaps under the pervasive influence of Hollywood; compare this with the often negative perception of, say, Beethoven and Wagner). In such cases, objective elements are difficult to isolate and therefore argumentation tends to be circular (“most people like Mozart because he is popular”).

On the basis of the above considerations, therefore, it would appear that we can use experimental evidence and a certain common-sense reasoning to argue in favor of a solid link between phonology and semantics, but establishing a similarly “scientific” basis for the relationship between phonology and pleasure is more difficult. Being an acutely intelligent philologist, Tolkien was evidently aware of such snags. For example, shortly after his “cellar door” exposition he states: “The nature of this pleasure is difficult, perhaps impossible, to analyse. It cannot, of course, be discovered by structural analysis” (MC 191). Therefore it can only be examined through practical examples and presuppositions about taste, an approach which is subject to the limitations discussed above. We can see from the examples of the invented names “Withywindle” and “Bombadil” that Tolkien knew how to provoke certain reactions in readers’ minds through the use and combination of specific phonemes. Similarly, composers of music know how to arouse certain emotions through the use of specific keys. For instance, both Beethoven (in his Ninth Symphony) and Mozart (in Don Giovanni, the Requiem and other works) knew that they could arouse feelings of unquiet and fear in listeners by using the key of D minor. The means, therefore, can be identified, but what nobody knows is why this happens. As Tolkien said, ascertaining the “why” in linguistic aesthetics is probably impossible using traditional analytical methods. Certainly, no-one has succeeded to date in defining satisfactorily the causal relation between sound and pleasure or other emotions by means of philosophical or logical analysis.

The answer may be eventually found, however, in a different discipline, namely neuroscience. A parallel may be drawn with the considerations on sound and meaning discussed earlier. The observable phenomenon called sound-symbolism has been studied in depth and is backed by plenty of practical evidence, but until very recently no convincing explanation had been found as to why (in Jespersen’s words) certain sounds seem so adequate to express the ideas they stand for. However, thanks to neurobiological work of the kind cited by Vilayanur Ramachandran, we now have a plausible explanation of why our minds link sound to sense. If neuroscience can start to explain phonosemantics by studying instances of synesthaesia, it may be plausible that our aesthetic judgements can also come to be explainable, to some extent, through similar research on mental processes. Anyone who feels skeptical about this should beware: Ramachandran has already started work on this novel discipline, which he calls “Neuro-aesthetics,” with interesting results (Reith Lectures 2003, lecture 3).

III. Language and the environment

As we have already seen, Tolkien saw language as being much more than a mere vehicle for communication between atomised members of the human community. He felt that language was at the root of our consciousness, inextricably bound up with our condition as human beings. In his own words, “[l]anguage—and more so as expression than as communication—is a natural product of our humanity” (MC 190). He considered the meaning of words to be tied to their etymology, sound, shape, resonances, practically every conceivable factor in their existence. Although he never explicitly expressed any theory in this regard, Tolkien apparently liked the idea that some kind of Platonic, meta-linguistic level could exist on which words can be comprehended to some extent even if one is entirely ignorant of the language to which they belong. This explains why he included, without any translation, songs and poems in his Elvish languages within the body of the English narrative of The Lord of the Rings: he reckoned that even though virtually no-one would understand the text, by shaping the sounds aloud or in our minds we would somehow capture their essence and beauty.

In this respect, Tolkien reflects some of the ideas of his contemporary and fellow Inkling, the linguist and philosopher Owen Barfield. As Tolkien scholars are well aware, the intriguing matter of Barfield’s relation to and influence on Tolkien’s work is studied in depth by Verlyn Flieger in her book Splintered Light: Logos and Language in Tolkien’s World. For our present purposes, it is interesting to consider Barfield’s view that humans have progressed—necessarily in order to become free, independent creatures—from being a part of the world, existing inside nature, to being separate from the world, extraneous to and detached from our natural environment. He considered this gradual detachment to be reflected in our use of language. The further we distance ourselves from nature, the more fragmented language becomes. In its origin language was at one with the world (i.e., sound and meaning were united) but over time it has become more and more subjective and symbolic. However, in Barfield’s view the words we use never completely lose their original character, and a trace always remains of their ancient oneness with natural phenomena. As he himself puts it in one of his later works, when we study the roots of words we can still find “vestiges of those forces which brought into being the external structure of nature, including the body of man” (xviii). It is on this primeval level that language, as Tolkien seems to think, is able to function without a specific knowledge of a particular tongue.

In line with this meta-linguistic ideal, Tolkien also seemed to regard language as being rooted in, and inseparable from, the environment in which it develops. In this he may be said to be following a current that began with the American linguists Benjamin Whorf and Edward Sapir, which in recent times has been swelled by the work of linguistic anthropologists living with indigenous communities in various parts of the world. Their efforts, in turn, have been drawn on by contemporary linguists and philosophers of language who have taken a close look at the Saussurean assumptions on which modern linguistic theory is based, and have decided that Saussure’s model is severely lacking. Foremost among these is the anthropologist and philosopher David Abram, who offers an exposition of his ideas about the intimate relationship between language and the natural world in his widely acclaimed book The Spell of the Sensuous (Vintage Books 1996).

Much of what Abram has to say provides an eloquent reflection of Tolkien’s cherished beliefs about the fundamental connections among word, consciousness and reality. In his book Abram studies the negative repercussions of mankind’s current isolation from his natural surroundings, mainly on the basis, in addition to his own insights, of the pioneering work of the phenomenological philosophers Edmund Husserl and Maurice Merleau-Ponty, and the data gathered more recently by linguistic anthropologists in the Americas and Australia. He puts forward a number of powerful arguments against the traditional Western dichotomy between mind and body, and its logical continuation in the separation between language and the “real world,” arguing that classical Greek and subsequent Cartesian philosophy has led to a severe dissociation between Western society and nature which has not occurred in other societies with different ontological views, or different approaches to the essence of language.

The invention of writing is also examined from an unusually negative perspective. For Abram, a key point in the process of man turning his back on nature was the invention of alphabetic script and its subsequent refinement in ancient Greece. Briefly, it may be said that the wonder, or magic, of writing gradually replaced the wonder, or magic, of the natural world. In literate societies, this led to an increasing emphasis on the importance of knowledge transmitted through literature, to the detriment of knowledge gleaned from the landscape. In pre-alphabetic societies, however, this central role of nature has never been displaced.

Part of Abram’s discourse runs parallel to that of Owen Barfield, though there is a certain difference in focus: while Barfield saw man’s separation from nature as being an inexorable and essential factor in our humanness and not necessarily negative (at least for a time), Abram regards it as damaging both to ourselves and to the environment, and considers corrective action to be necessary. As mentioned above, an essential part of Barfield’s philosophy derives from the notion of the fragmentation of human consciousness and language from an initial, primitive state of semantic unity to the current situation of complexity and dichotomy. He believed that mankind can overcome this segmentation (which is an unavoidable product of the development of our awareness of the world) through imagination and poetry, and return to a state of unity with the world. In this his ideas reflect those of Tolkien, whose Elvish languages, as envisaged in the Silmarillion, follow a course of disintegration (in the literal sense) which mirrors Barfield’s concept of linguistic fragmentation, developing and becoming more complex but never losing their primitive roots. As mentioned above, they both seem to have felt that perhaps in those roots there resides a semantic sediment that we can understand regardless of the language in which it appears.

For his part, Abram regards the gulf between our consciousness and the natural world to be pernicious, an inevitable consequence of technological progress perhaps, but undesirable nonetheless. In the eyes of Abram, Merleau-Ponty, and people living in pre-industrial societies, nature is not something that is distant from and external to us—rather, it is something that interacts with us all the time. Abram says: “To the sensing body, no thing presents itself as utterly passive or inert. Only by affirming the animateness of perceived things do we allow our words to emerge directly from the depths of our ongoing reciprocity with the world” (Abram 56; his emphasis). He goes on to assert that the most powerful agent of this interaction, the “ongoing reciprocity with the world,” is language:

Communicative meaning is always, in its depths, affective; it remains rooted in the sensual dimension of experience, born of the body’s native capacity to resonate with other bodies and with the landscape as a whole. Linguistic meaning is not some ideal and bodiless essence that we arbitrarily assign to a physical sound or word and then toss out into the “external” world. Rather, meaning sprouts in the very depths of the sensory world, in the heat of meeting, encounter, participation. (Abram 75)

The animate landscape

The parallels between Tolkien’s view of language and nature, mainly expressed via his fiction, and the notions explained by Abram himself and by the indigenous people he quotes, are intriguingly clear. The above reference to the notion that linguistic meaning is not arbitrary but is born of sensual perception agrees with Tolkien’s ideas about semantics and phonology, while the idea of meaning sprouting “from the very depths of the sensory world” perfectly encapsulates the essence of Tolkien’s thinking on this matter.

This similarity in approach can be well illustrated by looking at the following two passages. The first is from The Lord of the Rings, when Legolas the elf responds to a song sung by Aragorn in the language of Rohan, of which Legolas is ignorant: “That, I guess, is the language of the Rohirrim … for it is like to this land itself; rich and rolling in part, and else hard and stern as the mountains. But I cannot guess what it means, save that it is laden with the sadness of Mortal Men” (TT, III, vi, 136).

The second passage is from The Spell of the Sensuous: “If we listen, first, to the sounds of an oral language—to the rhythms, tones, and inflections that play through the speech of an oral culture—we will likely find that these elements are attuned, in multiple and subtle ways, to the contour and scale of the local landscape, to the depth of its valleys or the open stretch of its distances, to the visual rhythms of the local topography” (Abram 140).

They are saying the same thing: in a pre-alphabetic, pre-industrial culture, language is in tune with the landscape. “Our own speaking does not set us outside of the animate landscape” says Abram, “but—whether or not we are aware of it—inscribes us more fully in its chattering, whispering, soundful depths” (Abram 80). Abram here mirrors Tolkien’s views, in the sense that the landscape can be an animated place, interacting with our senses and our feelings. This is particularly true in his fiction of woods and forests: Mirkwood, Fangorn, Lothlorien, and the Old Forest next to the Shire.

We can observe this interaction in The Lord of the Rings when the company of hobbits comprising Frodo, Sam, Merry and Pippin commence their journey. Having ventured into the sinister gloom of the Old Forest, they sense that they are being watched, and judged: “For the moment there was no whispering or movement among the branches; but they all got an uncomfortable feeling that they were being watched with disapproval, deepening to dislike and even enmity” (FR, I, vi, 155). This feeling grows as they wander deeper and deeper into the Forest, until they lose their way.

By the middle of the chapter, when they finally arrive at the Forest’s magical heart, on the banks of the wonderfully named river Withywindle, the usual order of things has been inverted: the animate beings (i.e., the hobbits), are at the mercy of the supposedly inanimate world. Everything is personified and active, from the trees to the air itself: “A golden afternoon of late sunshine lay warm and drowsy upon the hidden land between. In the midst of it there wound lazily a dark river of brown water, bordered with ancient willows.”

The tiredness of Frodo and his companions comes not from their own aching muscles and bones but from the air and the land itself: “Sleepiness seemed to be creeping out of the ground and up their legs, and falling softly out of the air open their heads and eyes” (FR, I, vi, 160, 161). The travellers are almost consumed by this overwhelming, devouring landscape, but are rescued in time by someone capable of speaking directly to and commanding the land and the trees, namely Tom Bombadil.

Tolkien’s love of trees is well documented7 and his spokesman on this subject in The Lord of the Rings is usually Legolas, who expresses his admiration for the woods of Lothlorien and Ithilien, and the mysterious glades of Fangorn Forest. It is in Fangorn that this notion of animate nature reaches its ultimate manifestation, of course, in the form of the Ents. And the Ents bring us back again to language and the landscape: their language is tremendously ponderous and long-winded, like the slow growth of roots through the soil, and full of enormous words, like the great trees themselves. As Treebeard himself says: “My name is growing all the time.… Real names tell you the story of the things they belong to in my language” (TT, III, iv, 80).

Knowingly or otherwise, Tolkien again echoes the ideas of Owen Barfield, who would have agreed with Treebeard’s comment, albeit with reference to words in any language, not just Entish. Barfield studied the way in which the etymology of languages mirrors the historical development not just of the meaning of the words themselves but also of the societies that speak them, and noted that a large part of our lexis can be traced back, in the ultimate instance, to natural phenomena involving either objects or movements (in Poetic Diction he gives a number of examples, including such different terms as “elasticity” and “abstract,” which are traceable, respectively, to verbs that express the elemental concepts of “draw” and “drag”) (1928, iii). The idea that words “tell the story of the things they belong to” would therefore have been entirely familiar to him.

In The Lord of the Rings, Gimli the dwarf prefers rocks to trees, as he never fails to make clear. He is, therefore, the obvious choice to voice another case of the landscape being treating as a living thing, specifically the mountain Caradhras, which refuses to allow the Fellowship over its high pass into the lands beyond, thus condemning them to seek the alternative route through the perilous Mines of Moria, with dramatic consequences. When the companions finally decide to give up their attempt, after yet another heavy fall of snow, Gimli addresses the mountain directly: “‘Enough, enough!’ cried Gimli. ‘We are departing as quickly as we may!’ And indeed with that last stroke the malice of the mountain seemed to be expended, as if Caradhras was satisfied that the invaders had been beaten off and would not dare to return. The threat of snow lifted; the clouds began to break and the light grew broader” (FR, II, iii, 383).

This perception of nature is quite logical in the overall context of Tolkien’s Middle-earth fiction. As we know from linguistic studies of ancient texts and the work of modern anthropologists and linguists, the members of pre-alphabetic communities are much closer to nature than those of industrial, literate societies.8 They treat their natural surroundings as something immediate and dynamic, with influence flowing in both directions. Knowledge is seen to reside in the woods and hills, the sun and the stars, rather than on pages of alphabetic script. Gimli, Legolas, and the other characters in Tolkien’s fiction live in an essentially non-literate society. We know that there are libraries in Rivendell, Orthanc, and Minas Tirith and are told or assume that most of the characters can read and write. However, the written word plays a decidedly secondary role in Middle-earth. The characters themselves use tale-telling and song both to enjoy themselves and to relate the history of their communities. The only occasion on which written records play a significant role is during Gandalf’s research into the history of the One Ring at the library in Minas Tirith, prior to Frodo’s departure from Hobbiton, and even here the reader is informed of the results of his investigations through a direct, spoken report from Gandalf himself, rather than by the impersonal narrator. Otherwise, speech and song are the preferred media for conveying knowledge, whether this be the ancient history of the elves, an item of Hobbit lore, or a private message from Arwen to Aragorn.

IV. Conclusion

As can be seen from this study of Tolkien’s notions of sound-symbolism and linguistic aesthetics, he was both a man of his time, although he seemed not to know it, and a man before his time. His belief that sound and sense could fit together was not heretical, but in fact was part of a counter-tradition which, though followed by a minority, had the support of such significant linguists as Humboldt, Jespersen, and Sapir, all well known in Tolkien’s day. He was before his time in seeing language as a part of man’s participation in nature, something both internal and external, flowing in both directions, a notion that has become relatively popular only in the last few years when we have started to ask why we have turned our backs on the natural world with such devastating consequences. Tolkien would doubtless have been glad to know that these ideas are being taken up with increasing force by those who are concerned, as he was, with restoring the empathy between ourselves and our natural surroundings.

Notes

1 Margaret Magnus, a modern specialist in phonosemantics, has remarked the following: “I am aware of several works in phonosemantics whose authors suppressed even their informal dissemination for fear that this would have a negative effect on their professional life” (Magnus, “What’s in a Word?” 2001).

2 One of the most amenable of these consisted of eliciting responses from a wide sample of people of all ages to questions such as: “The world mal and the world mil both mean “table” in some language. Which type of table is bigger: mal or mil?” According to Sapir’s results, around 90% of respondants consistently found “i” to be smaller and “a” to be bigger, suggesting a strong and direct link between these phonemes and the notions of “little” and “large.” Sapir carried out numerous experiments of this kind, with similar findings.

3 The address of Margaret Magnus’s site is: http://www.conknet.com/~mmagnus/

4 In his discussion of the ways in which messages from the different sensory organs interact in the brain, particularly with regard to the condition known as “synesthaesia,” Dr. Ramachandran cited an experiment he and his team had conducted in which people were asked to relate two words in an imaginary “Martian” language—kiki and booba—with two different shapes, one a bulbous amoeboid form with lots of undulating curves and the other jagged, like a piece of shattered glass with jagged edges. According to his results, 98% of people say the jagged, shattered glass shape is kiki, and the bulbous amoeboid shape is booba. Dr. Ramachandran explains this from a neurological viewpoint in terms of the shape and sound having a shared property—a sharp sudden inflection, or jaggedness, in the case of kiki—which the brain identifies as being common to them both. He has conducted many other experiments of this kind with similar results. The importance of this research for phonosemantics is clear, as it proves that a given object can be identified purely on the basis of the sound of the word used to signal it. The full content of the Reith Lectures can be found at the BBC website: http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/reith2003.

5 The Internet is a vast storehouse of useful material on elven linguistics, with some excellent sites that include the home page of the Elven Linguistic Fellowship (www.elvish.org) and the site run by Helge K. Fauskanger called Ardalambion (http://www.uib.no/People/hnohf/).

6 A curious polemic has arisen in recent years over the actual source of the words cellar door as a paradigm of aesthetic beauty in the English language. The controversy may have begun with Richard Lederer’s popular book Crazy English, where he cites a survey of American writers conducted around 1940 in which they were asked which English words they considered “most beautiful.” In the course of this survey the writer H.L. Mencken is said to have mentioned the case of an English student of his acquaintance, apparently of Chinese nationality, who reckoned that “cellar door” sounded particularly beautiful. The phrase came back into the public eye in the 2001 Hollywood film, Donnie Darko, in which a teacher of literature (played by the American actress Drew Barrymore) states that a “famous linguist” once said “cellar door” was the most beautiful combination of phonemes possible in the English language. When asked about the origin of the remark , the director of the film mistakenly attributed it to Edgar Allen Poe. It appears that the “cellar door” case has also been misattributed to Dorothy Parker and Robert Frost.

In fact, there is no record of Poe, Parker or Frost ever having said anything about “cellar door” in such a context, nor is there any first-hand evidence of Mencken’s supposed remark about the Chinese student of English. This is hardly surprising, since upon the briefest of examinations it becomes clear that such an attribution is nonsensical. Speakers of Chinese languages have enormous problems distinguishing between the phonemes /l/ and /r/, and correctly identifying /d/, all of which are present in “cellar door.” Unless he had a truly exceptional ear for language, therefore, Mencken's Chinese student would have heard a confused combination of phonemes that only remotely reflected the correct English pronunciation of this phrase. It may be due to this evident incongruity that in another version of the story, the nationality of the student is changed from Chinese to Italian.

The issue therefore seems to be purely anecdotal, with no real academic or literary substance, and has been blown out of all sensible proportion by the ease with which inaccurate information can be disseminated over the Internet. It seems clear that the idea of using cellar door as an example of phonetic beauty was Tolkien's alone, and the rest is mere speculation. It also seems very unlikely that Tolkien would have used an example taken from another author without citing his source, had that been the case.

7 Tolkien’s love of trees and woods is described in particular detail by Patrick Curry in Defending Middle Earth: Tolkien, Myth and Modernity.

8 A well-known example of this is Homer’s Illiad, in which the forces of nature interact continually with the activities of the human characters.

Works Cited

Abram, David. The Spell of the Sensuous. New York: Vintage Books, 1996.

Barfield, Owen. Poetic Diction: A Study in Meaning. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1984 [originally published 1928].

———. Saving the Appearances: A Study in Idolatry. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1988 [originally published 1957].

Curry, Patrick. Defending Middle Earth: Tolkien, Myth and Modernity. Rev. ed. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2004.

Flieger, Verlyn. Splintered Light: Logos and Language in Tolkien’s World. Revised edition. Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 2002.

Jespersen, Otto. Language: Its Nature, Development and Origin. London: G. Allen and Unwin, 1950 [originally published 1922].

Magnus, Margaret. Gods of the Word: Archetypes in the Consonants. Kirksville, MO: Thomas Jefferson University Press, 1999.

———. “What’s in a Word? Studies in Phonosemantics.” Doctoral thesis. Norwegian University of Science and Technology, 2001. Available at http://www.trismegistos.com/Dissertation/.

Saussure, Ferdinand de. Course in General Linguistics. Trans. R. Harris, London: Gerald Duckworth & Co. Ltd., 1983 [originally published 1915].

Steiner, George. After Babel. Rev. ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992.

The Text Tale of Frodo Nine-fingered: Residual Oral Patterning in The Lord of the Rings

Maria Prozesky

The world of Middle-earth first opened to public view in 1937 when The Hobbit appeared, with its famous first line, echoing its title: “In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.…” This line brings readers immediately into the presence of a member of one of the most famous invented races in all of English literature, who is about to be swept into a vast and fantastic adventure, carrying readers with him. This particular hobbit, Bilbo, is characterized as a rather quaint, bookish Edwardian Englishman of retiring habits who is fond of good food and good tobacco, of beer and comfortable slippers. He also has literary tendencies; in The Hobbit he is said to be fond of “runes and letters and cunning handwriting, through when he [writes] himself it [is] a bit thin and spidery” (H, III, 95), and by the end of The Lord of the Rings he has developed into a historian and scholar, responsible for large sections of the Red Book of Westmarch (FR, Prologue, 23-24). In this he is like the other inhabitants of the Shire, who are described as inveterate letter-writers (FR, Prologue, 19). Yet the wider world Bilbo is hurried into (without a pocket-handkerchief) is peopled by cultures much more oral in their traditions. Though many references are made to written records, and many characters, including Gandalf, Aragorn and Faramir are undoubtedly scholars of these records, most of the lore and literature mentioned in the story is presented in oral form, as tales or songs. If the hobbits are like country-loving Edwardian Englishmen, then the Rohirrim and the men of Gondor have more about them reminiscent of the Achaean civilization of Homeric Greece, or the Germanic hoards described by Tacitus. This familiar comparison suggests a slightly unusual avenue of enquiry into The Lord of the Rings: tracing in Tolkien’s text linguistic and stylistic patterns characteristic of the ancient tales he drew on in creating Middle-earth, tales like the Iliad and the Elder Edda, produced by ancient heavily oral cultures like those of Homeric Greece or Viking Scandinavia. Just as the epic genre gives his story scope and grandeur, the echo of oral patterns from these ancient tales, this essay will suggest, contributes to the tale’s mythic power.

The text, story and characters of The Lord of the Rings reflect respect for oral tradition, and references to living traditions within the world of Middle-earth are common. Sméagol’s grandmother, for example, is described as a matriarch learned in the lore of her people (FR, I, ii, 62). Aragorn declares his faith in the minstrel’s song that the Deep has never been taken if men defend it (TT, III, vii, 142). Treebeard runs over a series of gnomic verses (just like the Anglo-Saxon mnemonic Maxims) (TT, III, iv, 67; Shippey “Creation from Philology” 295). Tolkien repeatedly shows the myth-making process in action, for example Sam and Frodo being turned into myth while they listen on the field of Cormallen (RK, VI, iv, 232; Flieger 136), and Boromir’s final voyage to the sea entering the legend of Gondor (TT, III, i, 19). The Lord of the Rings itself can be seen as a written version of the Song of Nine-Fingered Frodo sung by the bard at Cormallen. Tolkien also weights oral tradition with approval through his use of admired or despised characters. As mentioned above, Gandalf, Aragorn and Elrond, among the most heroic figures in the tale, are shown repeatedly recalling old tales and songs to guide their decisions. Conversely, in the Shire Ted Sandyman, who later allies with Saruman, discounts the value of old stories (FR, I, ii, 53-54), and in Minas Tirith the herbmaster who mocks what he calls “old wives’ tales” is rebuked by Aragorn (Shippey, “Creation from Philology” 316).

Overall, then, the old stories and lore of shared tradition, which are in harmony with nature and society, are shown as trustworthy (Scheps 47) in the world of The Lord of the Rings. This is in a certain sense paradoxical, since these old stories and the world that contains their lore are fictions, encountered in textual form as a novel by vastly varying readers from many different cultures who have no shared tradition. Yet this paradoxical position is one readers share with Bilbo, Frodo and the other hobbits, who also enter the legend-laced worlds of these oral traditions from a more literate background. One of the ways the hobbit characters function is to ease our entry into what Tolkien calls the “secondary world” of the text, the alternate reality that is Middle-earth. They are like enough to humans to be non-threatening, and their experience of the strange places and people outside the Shire mediates these to us as readers.

To at once explain the nature of an oral tradition of literature1 and highlight its differences from our modern literate tradition, I preface my discussion of Tolkien’s work with a rapid survey of what can be called noetic theory, which explores these differences. My discussion here draws primarily on the work of Alfred B. Lord and Walter J. Ong.

Every culture has particular methods of structuring and storing the knowledge gained in the course of life experience. These methods can be termed the culture’s noetic processes. One of the major forces shaping these noetic processes is alphabetic writing, invented only once in the entire history of the human race (Ong, Orality 89). A profound difference exists between the thinking of cultures that cannot write, which are termed oral cultures, and cultures that use writing, which are called literate cultures. “Oral” and “literate” are very broad terms, and within the two groups of cultures they describe, various subtypes can be distinguished. Primary orality describes a culture totally untouched by any knowledge of writing or print. Chirographic and typographic cultures are cultures that have to some extent internalized writing and printing respectively. At various stages in the histories of cultures, the development or adoption of writing has forced traditional noetic processes to shift dramatically from oral to literate patterns, sometimes over the span of a few hundred years, as in ancient Greek culture, or in a single generation, as in many former colonies in the twentieth century. In the early years after adopting writing, cultures which are in fact literate often retain traces of oral noetic patterns, “habits of thought and expression tracing back to preliterate situations or practice, or deriving from the dominance of the oral as a medium in a given culture, or indicating a reluctance or inability to dissociate the written medium from the spoken” (Ong, Reader 314). These lingering habits are termed oral residue.

Such oral residue prompted the first speculations about the effects of literacy on human thinking in the 1920’s on the part of Milman Parry, and after him Albert B. Lord. Postulating that the epics of Homer were recorded by a literate society only just removed from the oral, and comparing them with epic songs from pre-literate Yugoslavia, Parry and Lord proposed what is known as the oral-formulaic theory. According to this theory, rather than composing each line anew and approaching each story as an individual entity, the oral poet or story-teller instead builds a line, a scene, a tale, and eventually every individual performance out of a stock of formulaic devices, which he/she already knows and has used before. These devices can be repeated words or phrases (called formulae), or metrical units like lines and sets of lines, or various scenes and units of narrative (called type-scenes or themes). Oral composers of literature, Lord suggests, learn this stock of formulaic devices through a long training consisting of listening to other singers from childhood. These formulaic devices are employed because they are useful; they stand ready at the composer’s hand, so to speak, to express certain often-occurring concepts. They are repeated in various performances of that culture’s oral tradition, passed on in time and space, varying slightly with the vagaries of fallible human memory but retaining a core meaning, a potential function allied not specifically only to the plot of the story being told, but to psychological archetypes and the mythology and social structures of the society as a whole. This core meaning remains unchanged as long as that function and that cultural structure do not change.

This stock of formulaic devices is part of the primary oral culture’s heritage. Individual composers and performers of oral literature draw on it, adapting it to suit the needs of the particular poem or tale in a particular performance to a particular audience. Thus a primary oral story or song, rather than being the work of an individual author, is in a sense rather a bringing to actuality of a shared potential. In Saussurean terms, it is not an individual poem existing in one performance, a parole, but “an especially rich cultural competence,” a langue (Kellogg 99). The oral composer of literature is one born with a greater grasp of the langue, a greater ability to make expressible in language the advancing tide of human experience, and develops this ability by practice.

From this concept of authorship stems the unique place originality holds in an oral society. Lord stresses the usefulness of a formulaic device as its vital characteristic. For an oral composer this usefulness must be two-fold: firstly, a formulaic device has to be useful in the rapid extemporary composition of extensive songs or tales, and secondly, the people listening to and participating in the performance have to recognize the formulaic texture of the utterance, the texture that separates spoken literature from all other types of spoken utterance in a primary oral culture. In this situation, originality plays a vital but limited role; a performer has to adapt material to the particular circumstances of that performance for that audience, expanding or contracting themes and substituting particular formulae for others. The final limitation on these changes is the audience and their expectations, which are not very flexible, since the conditions of oral reception of a poem or tale limits the number of hermeneutic processes a listening audience can manage during the performance.

Oral-formulaic theory thus questions our conceptions of authorship, suggesting that we may be biased by our literate preconceptions of the nature of literature. Our understanding of the place and function of literature and the poet/story-teller too may prove unsuited to the noetics of primary orality. Theorists, beginning with Eric A. Havelock in his A Preface to Plato (1963), have explored the role of oral literature in primary oral cultures.

Without writing, the only real store-place for knowledge is the human memory, since mnemonic devices, extensively used in oral societies, only stimulate and aid memory and cannot actually store information themselves. In such a culture, knowledge is incredibly fragile and valuable. Human memory has to preserve not only the secrets of local habitat and survival skills, without which the people will die of want and disease, but also the details of history, myth and the moral and ethical codes of the culture, without which human society cannot exist or maintain itself. Human memory is thus in a certain sense the only bulwark against extinction. In such a society vast amounts of energy, and all available techniques, are used to protect and add to the communally remembered store of knowledge.

Poetic utterance, which is fundamental to human society, is utilized in this quest to remember. In poems and stories are contained historical, geographical and technological facts, details of human interactions such as trade techniques, and ethical, moral and religious mores, all of which have to be repeated over and over in a primary oral society so as not to be forgotten. These are built into the formulaic devices of the tradition, and so are retained and transmitted to future generations. Thus the material appearing in oral literature is standardized and limited to the concerns of the life-world of the primary oral society. This material is also only presented in a relatively limited number of forms. While all conceptual thinking is to some extent abstract, oral cultures minimize abstractions, which are more difficult to remember than concrete facts, by using them in situational, operational frames of reference close to the human life-world. For example, oral subjects identify geometrical shapes by giving them the names of objects: a circle is a plate or a moon, a square a mirror or a door, and so on. Also, oral noetics function with the plural and its consequences, rather than abstract categories, for example the individual instance of an unjust action by a particular person, not with the abstract, universal concept of justice. Similarly, time cannot be conceived of as an abstract universal present; rather, actions are time-bound, presented in paratactically-linked episodes. Also, oral discourse tends to additive rather than analytical thought, since processing heard facts in a simple sequence is easier than trying to keep track of complex relationships.

Many other characteristics of oral literature can be explained by the postulated mnemonic function of oral literature. Such literature for example is often metrical, chanted or sung, or accompanied by clapping or dancing, because rhythm is a way to bring the body’s somatic and kinetic resources to bear on memorization. The ceremonial nature of this style, where form is preserved for its own sake, aids memorizing of the content contained in the form.

Episodic plots are also encouraged by mnemonic needs, since narrative units clustered around a central event or character are easier to remember. Characterization of these central figures tends to be ceremonial and simplified, since type figures and “heavy” characters, larger-than-life heroes whose deeds are monumental and public, are more memorable. Where stereotypical nature or sheer magnitude of character is not enough, the element of the bizarre is often introduced; Cerberus for example is easy to remember because he has three heads. Though many factors, including deep psychological forces, are involved in producing these formulary devices, their mnemonic function ensures their survival in an oral culture.

In a primary oral society, where everything is kept integral to human life and experience, the act of knowing is empathetic and participatory rather than objectively distanced. Writing separates the knower and the known, as Havelock first pointed out, and without it, analytical objectivity is impossible. Thus the socio-economic, political, religious and psychological codes and belief systems which support and maintain the primary oral society cannot be verbalized as abstract codes of law, but have to be embodied in story, in the plots involving the heavy characters described above. For example, abstract cause and effect slip easily from the memory and so become instead the actions of gods with motives and attributes that are human and so easy to remember.

The lack of objectivity and the overriding concern with memory and tradition characteristic of orality produce a hero we have lost forever in our late typographic world. This hero is utterly committed to the tradition, which is the paradigm of his oral society; he cannot question it, since questioning would divert energy from the vital task of remembering, so endangering not only the individual but society as a whole. The primary oral man is not intelligently self-conscious, but imaginatively conscious. The harnessing of kinetic and musical abilities to the performance of oral literature, mentioned above, which produces an almost hypnotic state of pleasurable absorption in poet and audience alike, together with this external and communal slant of the oral person’s consciousness, makes the experience of oral literature very different from a reader’s experience of written literature. The oral poet and audience identify as fully as possible with the characters of the tale, in a very real sense experiencing what they experience. This all-encompassing experience, which Havelock surmises is what Plato means by the term mimesis, largely explains the didactic and mnemonic power of oral literature. With the separation of the knower and the known brought by writing can begin in the inward turn of literature, where the interior lives and motives of the characters become much more important than in the brute external world of the Iliad.

The mnemonic impulse that favors “heavy” characters, together with additive thought patterns, also contributes to another characteristic of oral literature, namely a tendency to epithetic identification. Elements of thought and discourse are remembered more easily if they occur in clusters, and particularly in parallel clusters, such as noun-epithet aggregations: a brave soldier, a beautiful princess, a sturdy oak. This is apparent in the famous Homeric epithets: Odysseus is always wily, Nestor wise, and so on.

A similarly aggregative impulse guides primary orality’s approach to history, which tends to be formulary and ceremonial. Since knowledge is hard to come by, and in a primary oral culture difficult to preserve, a highly traditionalist or conservative mindset is characteristic of such cultures. Memories that are no longer useful are dangerous to preserve since they use energy needed for more vital remembering. Oral communities therefore tend to be homeostatic, living in a perpetual present and sloughing off memories no longer applicable to everyday life. Thus, history also is kept relevant; the poet tailors genealogies and events so that they are meaningful and acceptable to the particular audience and situation. Since the original facts have no other record, this evolving history is the only history that exists in an oral culture. This explains how heroes cross cultural boundaries, so that Attila for example appears in songs all over Europe (De Vries 196-97).

We, a typographic society, live with words that are things, objects that can be caught in the physical space of a page and looked up later. In an oral culture, however, words are events, and speaking, sounding words, is a mode of action rather than a countersign of thought. This mode of action is considered powerful, as is seen in the commonly held belief among primary oral peoples in the magical potency of words. Also, actions and attitudes depend much more on the effective use of words, and so on human interaction, and much less on non-verbal, mostly visual input from the world of objects, than our thoroughly literate world does today. In such cultures, rhetoric is accorded a much more important place in everyday life. In an oral society where all verbal communication occurs by word of mouth, in the give and take of argument, both speech and thought become agonistically toned. Sharply polarized opposites are also easier to remember. Similarly, repetition even to redundancy is a necessary consequence of the oral need to keep what is being discussed securely in view, since backtracking to check up on previous points is difficult. What Ong calls copiousness is thus characteristic of oral literature.

This concentrated repetition highlights the importance of the role of literature, of poetic utterance, in a primary oral culture. Tradition “always requires embodiment in some verbal archetype … some kind of linguistic statement, a performative utterance” (Havelock 41-42). Oral literature, as the depository of the knowledge of the people, has magisterial as well as educational status. Placed thus outside the individual, the tradition forms the common background against which individual actions and decisions are measured, and where the society as a whole can grow and change. Havelock suggests that individual experiences, joyful and sorrowful occasions in the lives of ordinary people in primary oral cultures, are celebrated in shorter ephemeral lyrics, while other genres, whether epic and heroic tales, ritual prayers or praise songs, depending on the individual culture, form the more fixed core of transmitted tradition. Only those concepts and linguistic features appearing in these transmitted utterances will affect the culture as a whole. In a sense, the word hoard of the langue determines what can be verbalized in a primary oral culture and in effect then what can be thought.

Literacy, which fixes the spoken word on a page with a permanency impossible in primary orality, brings great changes. Facts can be recorded and looked up and verified later. Thus syntax can rise above simple parataxis, abstract concepts can be formed, and analytical thought becomes easier. With the rigors of mnemonic necessity abated, conservatism and homeostasis can be allowed to lapse. The power of the shared langue diminishes, as social systems are codified in legal, scientific and religious texts. The communal decreases in importance, while awareness of the individual grows. In literature, formulaic devices are gradually discarded in favor of originality; Pope still valued “what oft was thought but ne’er so well expressed,” while the Romantics demanded spontaneous individual inspiration. With the liberation from mnemonic shackles brought by writing, type characters can develop into the rounded, introspective characters of the modern novel, and the hero into the anti-hero. The novel, with its controlled plot, detailed creation of setting and chronology, and complex characters, is a highly literate form. Once an individual or a culture has come into contact with writing, has internalized its noetic effects even slightly, its thoughts are forever altered. The noetic patterns may still carry a large amount of oral residue, but can never again show the same characteristics as pristine primary orality.

In our highly literate world of print and television, we may think we have left primary orality, the world of Homer’s Greece, far behind. In fact, primary orality still influences modern society, for example through the oral residue in the written literature from cultures in the early stages of literacy. Also, the education system of Britain and its colonies, based on learned Latin, artificially perpetuated oral noetic patterns; though this system was highly literate in the sense that it centered on texts, these texts were heavy with oral residue, and oral pedagogic techniques, such as rote learning, oral testing and the composition of orations using tags and commonplaces, were retained into the twentieth century (Ong Rhetoric 140). Other features of the public school system, namely the separation of the boys from their homes, a single-sex environment, physical violence such as flogging, and concentration on knowledge associated with the adult world (in this case, learned Latin), recall primordial oral initiation and puberty rites, and, Ong suggests, satisfied the same psychological needs as these rites, which is why the system endured until general education led to the noetics of print being internalised by the culture as a whole (Rhetoric 140). Alongside these residues, orality is also reappearing in our culture; modern westernized society is currently undergoing a noetic shift, from late typographic literacy to what can be called secondary orality. This is a new orality where written communication is once again losing ground to oral communication, oral communication “sustained by telephone, radio, television, and other electronic devices that depend for their existence and functioning on writing and print” (Ong, Orality 11). It is too early to tell what the characteristics of secondary orality will be, though we can predict a mixture of primary oral and literate patterns.

From this rapid survey of noetic theory, we can now turn to Tolkien, and situate him in his noetic context, which is interestingly hybrid. As a schoolboy and university student in the first two decades of the twentieth century, he was immersed in an intellectual environment heavy with oral noetic residue. The continued study of often heavily oral medieval texts, which was his passion and his livelihood, and which pervasively influenced the creation of Middle-earth, maintained this exposure to orality. So The Lord of the Rings bears the imprint of this training, which taught Tolkien to appreciate and utilize the beauties and poetic possibilities of many of the characteristics of oral discourse.

Tolkien reputedly wished to construct a mythology he could dedicate “to England” (Letters 144), an ambition which is not unlike the role of the oral poet or story-teller, who brought to birth and nurtured the people’s langue, and thus their identity. Unlike the oral poet or story-teller, however, Tolkien had no united primary oral community with a shared, all-embracing communal langue of oral tradition to which to appeal. So in order to address his audience he had to create a separate recombinant mythology from which to do so (Greene 52). In his essay “On Fairy-stories,” Tolkien explicitly rejects dream or time-machine bridges between the life-world of the audience (which he called the primary world) and the secondary world created in the text (TL 16-17),2 but instead links the two in ways that bear striking resemblance to oral poetic techniques.

The first link is Tolkien’s use of archetypes, which has been extensively studied (cf. Auden, Brewer, Dowie and Huttar). In primary oral poetic discourse, archetypes are enclosed in so much that is unconscious and traditional, from the driving rhythms through to the resounding formulae, that they are not as noticeable as in modern mythopoetic literature. The separation of the themes of such mythopoetic literature from the actual practicalities of modern life helps to make the archetypes in this literature more overt. Tolkien borrows these archetypes and the formulaic narrative units (which Lord calls themes) that encompass them from a wide range of traditions, some of which are interdependent in terms of genesis and influence. A full exploration of these is beyond the scope of this paper, but a few examples can be given. The most important traditions are those of north-western Europe. Formulaic themes from this tradition include the ship burial (TT, III, i, 18-20) and the beasts of battle (TT, III, viii, 156). In the Arthurian tradition, the sheath Galadriel gives to Aragorn recalls Excalibur (FR, II, viii, 391). The description of how when Glorfindel “searched the wound on Frodo’s shoulder with his fingers” the pain grows less (FR, I, xii, 223) echoes Launcelot’s healing of Sir Urry in Malory’s Morte Darthur (Malory 158). Later English traditions are suggested in the men of Ithilien, who are rather like Robin Hood (TT, IV, iv, 265). Further afield, the “dryad loveliness” of Ithilien (TT, IV, iv, 258) is a momentary, somewhat jarring, appeal to classical tradition. Tolkien’s use of these mythologies anchors his work “firmly in the Western European imaginative tradition” (Minervini 18).

These texts are not close enough to justify calling them sources (Schlobin 72); rather they provide the seeds that flourish in the mythopoetic soil of Tolkien’s story. This loose relationship of influence, where themes and motifs bring with them the power of their original connotations, is particularly oral. In Tolkien’s text these formulaic elements function to aid secondary belief, either because their inclusion satisfies a sense of decorum in readers familiar with his sources or because their archetypal power resonates even with readers less well-read, as are the majority of his younger, more secondarily oral audience. The point is, the relationship between the reader and the text is meant to be particularly easy, with these resonances almost unconsciously evoking deep emotional responses because they connect with aesthetic patterns already present in the psyche of the audience. Although a much looser relationship, this recalls the bond between a primary-oral audience and poet, who share the same subconscious langue of poetic tradition, which the individual performance brings to consciousness.

Also reminiscent of primary oral literature is the sense the text creates of only being part of a wider tradition of story. For example, after being wounded Shelob crawls into her hole, and her eventual fate is placed outside the text, which reads: “… whether she lay long in her lair … this tale does not tell” (TT, IV, x, 339). Implied is a fuller body of tales, known to the audience, like the tradition of a primary oral society. Tolkien’s Beowulf essay shows that he sees old stories and legends as very important; he praises the “impression of depth” allusions to these legends give to the Anglo-Saxon poem (MC 27). This is the effect he hopes to create in The Lord of the Rings by allusions to his own “old” tales. He creates his own tradition within the secondary world, a tradition which is meant to add to the authority of his tale as the all-encompassing tradition guarantees a primary oral poem or tale. Jonathan Evans has pointed out a technique used in The Hobbit, where allusions, both vague and specific, are made to a popular belief among the personal beings in Middle-earth in dragons. This belief creates a sense of a body of folklore concerning dragons that everyone can be counted on to know and, when necessary, to use. “The device is effective since the reader, it seems, is supposed to share in what is presented as proverbial, gnomic, and thus universally held wisdom concerning dragons in Middle-earth” and thus the reader is drawn imperceptibly deeper into the secondary world (Evans 30). A passing example of the same technique is found in the early chapters of The Lord of the Rings, where the narrative reads, “A Barrow-wight had taken him, and he was probably already under the dreadful spells of the Barrow-wights about which whispered tales spoke” (FR, I, viii, 151). The tales are used as a guarantee for the wight, an invented being, and the authority of a folklore tradition evoked without such a tradition having to exist in the real life-world of the reader. This is an interesting oral remnant, with the power of tradition remaining after individual traditions have died. In the case of the modern reader, the success of this technique will depend on the readers’ imaginative acceptance of and commitment to Tolkien’s created tradition.

The presentation of history in The Lord of the Rings bears a strong resemblance to primary oral patterns, in that both are synchronic and agonistic. The time span covered by the book is immense, (3000 years from the finding of the ring to its destruction) yet the text implies that customs and ethical values, the structuring systems of society in fact, have not changed in all this time, though Middle-earth is a literate world able to record cultural changes. The immortal elves, for example, bear the same characters through ages of the life of the world. This petrified time is impossible in a western literate conception of history, and is more like the eternal existential present we humans actually experience, and the oral experience of history. However, The Lord of the Rings also shows the opposite of primary oral history. Primary oral poetic discourse maintains and advances an existing order, but Tolkien’s nostalgic novel celebrates a past world, the pastoral Edwardian England of his childhood, in order to criticize the present. In criticizing advancing technology Tolkien shows the influence of literate Romanticism, yet, again like the oral poets, he remains primarily concerned with life in the real world. For example, he does not offer unqualified support to the pastoral, since the Elves are the most nostalgic people in the book and are shown to be weakened by their willful remoteness from the present world (Curry 54). The book’s ending (Sam back home) directs us firmly into our own world, with its problems, not out from the Grey Havens with Frodo (Curry 58).3

As an oral story teller has to keep the audience engaged, a writer of fantasy, like Tolkien, also has to keep his readers interested. One method both use is keeping the secondary world linked to the real life-world. In the presentation of time this link is maintained by balancing realism and myth; time in The Lord of the Rings is exact, planned and realistic, but still, like time in oral poetic discourse, symbolic and archetypal. In regeneration rituals, any installation of a chief or claiming of new territory re-enacts the creation of the world (Eliade 80), not so much purifying the land as annihilating past time and reinstating sacred time (Eliade 54). Aragorn does this for Minas Tirith and for Middle-earth, a renewal symbolized by the bounteous summer, reminiscent of a golden age, that the world experiences after his crowning. However, the time-bound structure of sin and redemption in Middle-earth precludes any totality of an eternal return; Aragorn is renewed, but Frodo has to leave; the Shire is marred by evil and has to be scoured. Even the elvenhomes, temporary islands of relative timelessness, in the end pass away. Thus time in Middle-earth is a literate experience of unavoidable human mutability, compounded of noble resignation and sorrow, yet it draws much of its narrative power from a traditional archetypal presentation of time.

Such a delicate balance between oral and literate is also maintained in the presentation of space in The Lord of the Rings. The accurate maps that accompany the text, and the detailed noting of distance and direction are signs of literate noetics. However, Tolkien also makes subtle use of oral formulae still alive in English idiom; in the prologue, for example, the fictional world of the tale is superimposed on material geography when the land of the Hobbits is said to be “the North-West of the Old World, east of the Sea” (FR, Prologue, 11). By using simple fairy-tale formulae such as “east of the Sea” rather than accurate localization on a modern map, yet also employing known places such as “the Old World,” Tolkien welds his mythological, fantastical tale to our world and aids secondary belief. He also draws on another oral characteristic, the tendency to polarize meaning into sharply agonistic opposites, involved in an economy of praise and blame. Middle-earth is depicted as alive, more than just metaphorically, from active personal agents like Treebeard and Carahdras down to personification of landscape. Minas Tirith, for example, is said to be set on the mountain’s “out-thrust knee,” carven of “the bones of the earth” (RK, V, i, 23). Such a view of nature reaches back to an oral agonistic conception of the world, in which even inanimate objects cannot be conceived of as morally neutral or innocent if they are to be included in the economy of oral noetics.

Tolkien believed that the contrast resulting from agonistic toning is vital for literature. As he says in a letter: “... without the high and noble the simple and vulgar is utterly mean; and without the simple and ordinary the noble and heroic is meaningless” (Letters 160). The Lord of the Rings is agonistic on many levels. The deepest structures of the plot, for example, are agonistic, with Gandalf the White as the Enemy of Sauron the Dark Lord for example. On the level of themes is the agonistic conflict between hope and despair, centring on and symbolised by Aragorn, who is called Estel, “Hope.” Théoden’s struggle is not with Wormtongue or Saruman’s magic, but with despair, and Denethor is defeated in a similar struggle. This is a literate battle with the self, with the enemy within, a battle impossible for an oral hero like Achilles.

On the moral level, too, the story shows agonism. W.H. Auden in an early essay on The Lord of the Rings says that Tolkien creates a world which is imaginary, therefore avoiding the moral ambiguity of the real world, yet which is detailed and consistent enough with our moral sensibilities to remain relevant and connected with our social, historical and moral reality. Schlobin argues for an immanent morality in the world of Middle-earth, where “nothing is without meaning, [and] higher goals and powers must be served” (79), by natural forces as well as characters. The timeless immanence of good and evil are plainly stated when Aragorn says, “Good and ill have not changed since yesteryear; nor are they one thing among Elves and Dwarves and another among Men. It is a man’s part to discern them, as much in the Golden Wood as in his own house” (TT, III, ii, 41).4 Some critics have complained that this immanent morality of Tolkien’s world is “radically different” from that of our world, calling it a fairy-tale morality of moral absolutes and childish fantasies (Scheps 44, 53-54). It could be argued that this last view fails to recognize the immanent, rather black-and-white morality of the book as agonistic toning, further evidence of oral residue. Auden makes a valid point mentioning the tale’s abiding relevance to our social and historical reality, since our late typographic/early secondary oral culture grew out of primary orality, and these agonistic echoes still ring true. Also, the agonistic realities of joy and suffering, of good and evil, of cowardice and self-sacrifice are experienced in every life, though mostly only on a small and everyday level. However, the literacy of The Lord of the Rings balances this oral trait in that, as suggested above, the authority of the text as secondary oral literature is not as absolute as that of primary oral epic, which is almost all-encompassing in its formation of human behavior in society on a moral as well as practical level. In a literate mind, all that myth, and mythopoetic literature, can do is appeal to the imagination; the will and understanding will still have to fit its message into already existing frameworks of noetics and beliefs (Lewis quoted by Urang 108).

Agonism also shades imagery in The Lord of the Rings, which tends to follow traditional archetypal polarities; the most common image is shadow, used over 200 times, usually to signify evil. Overall, such massive use of a single image could be called stereotyped by many accustomed to realist fiction. It is not oral, of course, in the same sense as a primary oral poet or storyteller’s use of imagery is oral, for Tolkien is a literate author whose noetic processes are no longer those of primary orality. His use of imagery must therefore be purposeful to some degree, or perhaps it just seems right to one so accustomed to reading oral literature.5

Another oral characteristic still found in The Lord of the Rings is the use of epithets to disambiguate individuals. In Tolkien’s epithets, the unfamiliar is introduced carefully softened in cliché. “Mr. Bilbo Baggins of Bag End” is an example, for it follows the formula “Mr. X of Y,” which we still use today. This is an example of the “recovery” of the ordinary Tolkien speaks of in “On Fairy-stories” (TL 53), when the fiction text functions to “estrange us from our habit-ridden mental routines and self-indulgent unresponsiveness so that we might recover our sense of wonder, our spiritual—and physical—mindfulness of the world” (Talbot 95). In this example, the strange names make the formula noticeable again, revealing its oral roots in epithetic naming dependent on ties to family and land. This example of epithetic naming thus simultaneously links the text to the readers’ life-world and reveals our idiomatic formula as an item of oral residue still operating in our life-world. From these reassuringly familiar foundations, Tolkien’s naming builds outward, following traditional patterns structured according to oral mnemonic needs. His names focus on kinship and clan, for example “Gil-galad, Elven-king and Isildur Elendil’s son” (FR, I, ii, 61). Characteristics also become epithets, as in “Elwing the White” (FR, I, xi, 206). Tolkien is wise enough to know that these patterns of epithets are still strongly conventional enough to recall the high style, immediately adding to the authority of his text. There are also a few names which reflect primary orality’s belief in the effective power of sounded words, as when regions of Mordor, so evil their influence must be totally shunned, have no names but are the Nameless Pass (TT, IV, viii, 319) and the Nameless Land (TT, IV, viii, 320), or when characters refuse to speak the name of Mordor or of Sauron (e.g. FR, I, x, 181; FR, II, iv, 258). Good names also have power, and for this reason have to be guarded, as Aragorn guards his true name by going under a descriptive epithetic nickname, Strider (Flieger 34). Tolkien also uses other oral mnemonic devices in his names: onomatopoeia, as in Bruinin; alliteration, as in Aragorn and Arwen who are Elfstone and Evenstar (RK, VI, vi, 253); the bizarre, for example, Frodo of the Nine Fingers, as he is called in his oral praise poem (RK, VI, ii, 232); and agonistic toning, which shades the names outside the Shire, such as Mount Doom or the Dead Marshes. A strong fairytale tradition of the oral belief in the power of names lies behind one of Tolkien’s most consistent narrative devices, a tendency to increased formality of naming in situations of danger or importance. Characters use this, as when Aragorn calls Boromir “the heir of Denethor, Lord of the Tower of Guard” when preparing him for burial (TT, III, i, 16). The narrator also uses it: Aragorn arriving at Pelennor is “Aragorn son of Arathorn, Elessar, Isildur’s heir” (RK, V, vi, 123). This either succeeds as high style, involving readers, or it fails as “cardboard grandiloquence,” repelling them. Without the safety of a primary oral tradition, the author has to take his chance.

All through the book, descriptions of scene and action, and particularly of emotions or judgement, are presented using similes or personification, or through the eyes of a character using a formulaic “seemed.” Sometimes this expands into the presentation of an episode as a story told by a character. In other words, rather than describe anything directly, Tolkien tends to either employ his reader’s imagination or to hide behind the consciousness of one of his characters. For example, Elrond is first described through the eyes of Frodo:

Frodo looked at them in wonder, for he had never before seen Elrond, of whom so many tales spoke…His hair was dark as the shadows of twilight, and upon it was set a circlet of silver; his eyes were grey as a clear evening, and in them was a light like the light of stars. Venerable he seemed as a king crowned with many winters, and yet hale as a tried warrior in the fullness of his strength. (FR, II, i, 238-39)

This technique is paradoxically highly literate, despite its encouragement of mimetic identification with the story. It is actually a framing device, since point-of-view is the opposite of oral mimesis. This shows through the fabric of the text at the climactic moment where Tolkien is betrayed into a moment of narrative insecurity; though narrated through the eyes of Sam, the Ring is described as shining “as if verily it was wrought of living fire” (RK, VI, iii, 224). The “verily” is an assurance a thoroughly engaged audience would not need. Tolkien’s mode of description feels towards participation of reader, character and scene, but always has to use the sense perceptions of a character’s consciousness, so that the reader is at two removes from the experience. In this he reflects secondary orality, which shows the effect of “the individualised introversion of the age of writing, print, and rationalism which intervened between it and primary orality and which remains as part of us” (Ong, Rhetoric 285).

As discussed in the introduction to this paper, oral individuals are emotionally conscious rather than intellectually self-conscious. The poet identifies totally with the characters of the tale, as does the audience. The characters themselves tend to be flat and heavy, heroes of fantastic strength, kings of untold power, because unchangingly massive and socially prominent characters are more memorable. It is in his characters that Tolkien is perhaps most far from his oral sources. The Lord of the Rings is a modern novel, in which the characters show literate intellectual self-consciousness and the narrator separates himself from them, as his jovial but condescending remarks about the Hobbits in the first chapter show (cf. FR, I, i, 35). However, some of the characters are types, echoing the stereotypical figures of traditional heroic literature. Boromir suggests “the archetypal naysayer,” like Unferth in Beowulf (Schlobin 76). Aragorn is a traditional epic hero (Flieger 12-13). He is of immortal ancestry (since he comes from the line of men who long ago married with the Elves), is fostered as a child, visits hell, claims kingdom and lady, and brings peace and prosperity to his land, which is the archetypal life story of a hero. However, he is intellectually self-conscious, able to judge that his strength against Sauron is enough to use the palantír (RK, V, ii, 53). Like the oral poet or storyteller, Tolkien has to keep his audience engaged; he cannot risk alienating them by addressing these traditional types directly to his audience, who are situated for the most part outside the literary traditions with which the characters resonate, so, as mentioned before, he restores these forms by putting the hobbit in the midst of them. Frodo is a familiar figure in the centre of the action, like enough to us to be non-threatening. This is the reverse of orality’s heavy figures, who have to stand out among ordinary mortals in order to be memorable. Frodo is in direct contrast to this. In the nature of his quest and its effects, as Flieger points out, he echoes many traditional figures such as the dying Arthur or the Fisher-King of Indo-European myth, and also recalls the common man hero of fairy tales, the younger son who stumbles into accomplishing astounding feats. These echoes recall the heavy heroic figures of oral poetic discourse. However, Frodo is blatantly and avowedly unheroic, at least in the traditional oral sense. His small physical size represents his unsuitedness for the traditional role. His battle is mostly an internal battle of the will against the temptations of greed and power. Symbolizing this, he becomes physically more and more inert as the quest continues, until in the end Sam has to carry him up the mountain. This kind of internal struggle is the matter of the modern novel, and the antithesis of primary oral heroic combat, a physical battle between foes (which Aragorn, Éowyn and the other more oral heroes enact in the tale). Frodo in his individual struggle also reflects modern literate ontology, which sees people as primarily individual, rather than social, for though he saves society he does not achieve reintegration into it, unlike the primary oral hero who has no identity outside of the community.

Frodo can be an epic hero because Tolkien sets him in the frame of a new understanding of heroism, firmly rooted in traditional epic but “revisionist in a way that reflects both Christianity and contemporary sensibilities” (Huttar 92). His adaptations of heroism to include Christian qualities such as pity and hope have been explored by many critics (e.g. Huttar; Lewis). But it is not often noted how Tolkien adapts traditional heroism to include literate values. Through his human characters, Tolkien develops a three-tier hierarchy of nobility in the Rings. Faramir lists the three types:

For so we reckon Men in our lore, calling them the High, or Men of the West, which were Númenoreans; and the Middle Peoples, Men of the Twilight, such as are the Rohirrim and their kin that dwell still far in the North; and the Wild, the Men of Darkness. (TT, IV, v, 287)

Wild man is represented in the book by Ghân-buri-Ghân and his people, who are stone-age hunter-gatherers. Middle man is represented by the Rohirrim, whom Tolkien closely based on the Anglo-Saxons; this is where Beowulf and Sigurd would be placed in the hierarchy, implying that traditional heroism is superseded by a nobler creed. High man is described by Beregond as “a captain wise and learned in the scrolls of lore and song … and yet a man of hardihood and swift judgement in the field” (RK, V, i, 39). The complete hero combines leadership, martial skill and what Havelock describes in the oral man as “a direct and unfettered capacity for action” (199) with learning, which is a fusion of the qualities of the primary oral hero and his function in primary oral discourse. These adaptations make possible Frodo’s inclusion in the category of hero, for he combines wisdom and a brave capacity for suffering with wide learning, which is shown from his first meeting with the elves in the Shire (FR, I, iii, 90).

This may seem to contradict the opening thoughts of this paper, where it is suggested that the men of Gondor are more oral than the literate Hobbits. This seeming paradox, however, is in fact a result of the particular hybrid noetics of Tolkien’s art. He loves and draws on the high noble orality of his ancient sources, but is himself part of a late typographic literate culture, and the thoughts he can think and the way he sees the world are fundamentally of an irreducibly literate cast. Thus when he creates his heroes, embodiments of the essence of human nobility, including the fullness of learning and wisdom, he associates these with books, the literate world’s repositories of a culture’s lore. Yet in their reliance on songs and tales, in their vital roles as keepers and transmitters of the lore they contain, and, perhaps most clearly, in the direct and simple way they express emotion by extemporising songs and verses, Aragorn, Gandalf, Theoden and the rest show oral colouring. The oral traditions of the cultures they meet are one of the things the Hobbits bring back to the Shire, Merry and Pippin “singing songs of far away” (RK, VI, ix, 305), and Bilbo and Sam making extensive transcriptions and translations of elvish songs and tales.

The themes of oral poetic discourse, as mentioned in the introduction, are restricted to the life-world of its creators. The deepest themes of Tolkien’s work are also restricted in focus, and this focus is still bound to the human life-world, but on a more symbolic level. In place of conventionality, Tolkien’s fantasy, as mentioned before, aims at “recovery.” Put simply, primary oral poetical discourse aims to create habits of thought, and modern mythopoetic literature in a secondary oral context to disrupt them, though both finally function to reinforce human structuring systems, social and psychological. Primary oral poetic discourse succeeds in reinforcing societal structures because it is the performance of pervasive noetic tradition, which The Lord of the Rings as modern literature in a late typographic/early secondary oral culture lacks. The authority that Tolkien’s text has must therefore have a different base, and this base, which not all modern fantasy has, stems from the text’s mythopoetic matter, drawn from and resonating with canonical myth of many traditions (Urang 100-1). In our contemporary age, the age of information, literature is no longer needed as a social encyclopaedia (the function of primary oral discourse) but is instead drawn into satisfying the psychological needs we have already mentioned, created by the disappearance of initiation and puberty rites (Ong, Rhetoric 300). Though highly literate itself The Lord of the Rings appeals to the modern western, increasingly secondary oral audience precisely because it is mythopoetic, and so by a kind of circular reasoning, acquires its authority from the need it fulfils.

Fantasy sidesteps one’s prejudices and rational inattention and disbelief (Kilby 76), and so in an age relentlessly cynical, particularly about heroism, Tolkien can quietly “remythologize” many of the images and tales that would otherwise be lost to academia, and in the process remythologize the life-world of his readers. This is in one way unlike traditional epic, which always demythologizes, however quietly (Shapiro 19), yet in another way like traditional epic, which is serious, without irony or carnival. Tolkien’s use of fantasy allows him to still be serious. One of the main things the text says is that the life of men is of that mythical and heroic quality found in fantasy (Lewis 15). A repeated motif of the Riders section of The Lord of the Rings is that story has come alive and walks beneath the sun (e.g. TT, III, viii, 155). This motif centers on the figure of Aragorn, as the leader long foretold in legend. As Éomer says, “These are indeed strange days.… Dreams and legends spring to life out of the grass” (TT, III, ii, 36). Éomer experiences what Tolkien says mankind desires at a very profound level, namely the “realization … of imagined wonder” (TL 18). When Aragorn comes to his kingdom and rebuilds Minas Tirith, the whole of Middle-earth experiences this achievement of the wonder of legend, for the city preserves the glory and the memory of the years that are gone (RK, V, v, 246). City and poem are one, and the fulfillment is part of the eucatastrophe of the tale’s climax. Tolkien’s narrative draws on all the power of myth and primary oral discourse, incorporating archetypes, poetry, songs and oral techniques. The Lord of the Rings is to become the reader’s tradition, with all the authority tradition is shown to have in the text, and awaken in the reader a profound desire for a mythical mode of living.

This is precisely what Frodo and the other hobbits experience as their travels bring them into contact with other, more oral peoples of Middle-earth. Their encounter with the struggle between good and evil, on a mythic scale, leaves none of them unchanged, and yet they bring home their new-found gifts and experiences to make the Shire richer and more beautiful than it was before. This is what the oral patterning of The Lord of the Rings contributes to the reader’s experience also, contributing to the tale’s mythical and archetypal resonances.6 The text no longer functions as oral literature does, as a storehouse of fact and a legal authority—in “On Fairy-stories” Tolkien explicitly states the separation of fantasy from the reader’s life-world and consciousness: “uncorrupted,” he says, fantasy “does not seek delusion, nor bewitchment and domination; it seeks shared enrichment, partners in making and delight, not slaves” (TL 50). But it does not leave us unchanged. In the prologue Tolkien states his “prime motive” for writing The Lord of the Rings, as “the desire of a tale-teller to try his hand at a really long story that would hold the attention of readers, amuse them, delight them, and at times maybe excite them or deeply move them” (FR, Foreword, 6). He adds that, “as a guide I had only my own feelings for what is appealing or moving, and for many the guide was inevitably often at fault.” I would suggest that the aesthetic of the oral noetic economy was among the things that so appealed to and moved Tolkien, and the generations of readers (and now viewers) who have loved his tale.7 As Tolkien realised, “the incarnate mind, the tongue and the tale are in our world coeval” (TL 24), and so this aesthetic reaches back to the roots of literature, which are the roots of language and of conscious humanity itself. Readers who respond to it turn from the text tale of Frodo Nine-fingered back to the primary world, as the hobbits return to the Shire, and find their experience of life deepened, their imaginations lit by heroes larger than life but essentially human because of this, their courage braced by a vision of human life as committed and participatory in a polarised world, and their ears still ringing with the sonorous power of words sounded as action and authority. Gandalf could say of such a reader, as he says quizzically to Bilbo at the end of his long return journey, “You are not the hobbit that you were!” (H, XIX, 360).

Notes

1 Terminology is problematic, since the word ‘literature’ implies writing, deriving as it does from the Latin litera meaning letter of the alphabet. Thus to speak of oral literature is something of an oxymoron. However, as I have as yet come across no convincing alternative, I will use the term oral literature to refer to utterances in a primary oral society with the heightened style and concentrated significance normally associated with poetic discourse.

2 In The Lost Road and The Notion Club Papers Tolkien tried such bridges, but abandoned them.

3 In Appendix B of The Lord of the Rings a suggestion is made that Sam at the end of his life does take a ship out of the Grey Havens. However, he only takes this step once his children are grown up and settled, his responsibilities as mayor have ended and his wife has died; he is in no sense refusing the problematic fullness of life, which he has already enjoyed.

4 In this literate epic, good and evil, courage and cowardice are spoken about in the novel as timeless universals, rather than just experienced as such, as they are in oral epic.

6 The agonism of this style is characteristic of modern fantasy (Jasper ix-x), hinting at the oral roots of this genre of fiction. This is an interesting avenue for further discussion, but beyond the scope of this paper.

7 It could be postulated that the increasing secondary orality of modern readers contributes to their appreciation of the text, its oral patterns striking cords with oral noetic structures reforming anew.

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Dream Visions in J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings

Amy M. Amendt-Raduege

J.R.R. Tolkien once remarked that reading a medieval text made him want to write one himself.1 The Lord of the Rings is widely regarded as the culmination of this desire. Although his works are necessarily modern, no one doubts that Tolkien incorporated many of the medieval themes and ideas that occupied his professional life into his creative writing. One medieval preoccupation that found expression in The Lord of the Rings is the medieval dream vision, though the influence of such literature on Tolkien has not been widely acknowledged. Although seldom recognized today, the dream vision was one of the most important motifs of medieval literature. While the dream framework is undoubtedly little more than a literary convention taken over through “sheer intertia” on the poet’s part in some cases (Spearing 4), many serious and religious works were cast in this form. Chaucer wrote dream visions; so did the Venerable Bede. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, The Romance of the Rose, and the Chanson de Roland all contain elements of dream visions. Boethius cast his influential philosophical treatise, The Consolation of Philosophy, as a dream vision. Even Dante’s Divine Comedy is usually regarded as a dream poem even though the narrator did not represent himself as falling asleep.

Common to all medieval dream visions is the emphasis on the visual experience of the dreamer. As Constance Hieatt points out, “the imagery and description of the poem are richly visual, and the poem is to a very large extent an account of what the poet sees rather than of what he hears or thinks” (18). Landscapes are highly developed and often have symbolic significance, usually representing an incorruptible space that the dreamer may inhabit only temporarily. In keeping with this tradition, dream visions in The Lord of the Rings also provide rich visual detail. The graphic nature of these dreams are so fully developed that a number of artists have created depictions of events viewed only in dreams and visions—events not otherwise represented in the text.

Beyond their intense visual quality, the conventions and characteristics of the medieval dream vision are almost as diffuse as its applications, and nearly every artist cheerfully adapted the form to suit his or her own purpose. But, of course, the conventions were not completely abandoned, or we should be unable to identify the form at all. Most notably, the dream vision functions as a means by which the dreamer attains knowledge which he or she would otherwise lack. Often, the dreamer falls asleep wrestling with some problem or vexation, only to awaken in “an ideal or often symbolic landscape, in which the dreamer encounters an authoritative figure” (Spearing 4). In The Consolation of Philosophy, for instance, the figure is Lady Philosophy herself; in Dante’s Inferno, the first book of his Divine Comedy, Virgil occupies his role. The figure and the dreamer engage in debate, although sometimes the dreamer watches a debate between dream figures, as in The Parliament of Three Ages. The debate thus guides the dreamer toward some concealed truth. But sometimes there is no debate at all: the dreamer simply experiences a transcendent moment which lends sympathy or insight, as in The Dream of the Rood. This kind of dream vision is simply prophetic, and the dreamer is “given access to a higher moral or eschatological realm” from which he or she “awakens enlightened” (Kruger 124).

Many of the dreams and visions experienced in The Lord of the Rings follow the same conventions. All the hallmarks of the medieval genre are there: the intense visual quality of the vision, the ideal or symbolic landscape, the authority figure at the center, and even the five aspects of dreaming that informed medieval psychology. But while the inclusion of such conventions may be unconscious, his thinking about those conventions was clearly deliberate. As he says in the preface to his edition of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Tolkien appreciated the dream framework because it “allowed marvels to be placed within the real world” (11). He distinctly disliked, however, the tendency of authors to undermine the power of their visions by proclaiming them mere dreams.

In dreams strange powers of the mind may be unlocked. .. But if a waking writer tells you that his tale is only a thing imagined in sleep, he cheats deliberately the primal desire at the heart of Faërie: the realization, independent of the conceiving mind, of imagined wonder. ...behind the fantasy real wills and powers exist, independent of the minds and purposes of men. (“On Fairy-Stories” MC 116)

Tolkien wanted to unlock these strange powers of the mind without “the rude return to waking reality that calls the dream into question,” as Verlyn Flieger notes. “He wanted something subtler, a dream that would call reality into question” (40). To accomplish that goal, Tolkien created a world where the lines between sleeping and waking blur. The dreams and visions Tolkien created therefore connect dream and reality in surprising and profound ways. There is much that remains to be said about dreams and dreaming in The Lord of the Rings, but the dreams surrounding Frodo and Sam seem worthy of particular attention, for Tolkien consistently uses the dreams to mark the hobbits’ spiritual struggle.

Such a practice is, of course, consistent with medieval dream theory. Medieval thinkers generally classified dreams into three general categories: the somnium animale, the somnium naturale, and the somnium coeleste, the type of dream which, as A.C. Spearing points out, “comes from outside the mind, being produced … by God or by angels or devils” (56). Macrobius, whose gloss upon Cicero’s Scipio had great authority in the Middle Ages, defined five types of dream: the insomnium, a nightmare or troubled dream; the visium, an apparation or hallucination; the somnium, or ordinary dream; the oraculum or prophetic dream; and the visio or prophetic vision. Of these, he determined that the first two were “not worth interpreting since they have no prophetic significance” (Macrobius 88). But the somnium, the oraculum, and the visio can all have a deeper significance. Moreover, Hieatt has remarked that medieval people believed that “‘true’ dreams were sent by God and ‘false’ dreams by the devil” (24) and thus they naturally tie into the somnium coeleste. Tolkien thus allows both forces to influence his characters’ dreams, either for the dreamer’s benefit or harm, according to their relative power at the moment.

In his article “The Dream System in The Lord of the Rings,” Sean Lindsay lists forty-six distinct references to dreams (10-14). When the search is expanded to include “visions,” I count nearly one hundred. As Karl Schorr points out, each dream has its significance, and each takes one of three generals forms: “it may deal with past events, even if the events depicted are yet unknown to the dreamer; a dream might also mirror the present, and transport a character to witness something hundreds of miles away; finally, a dream may reveal mysterious signs of the future” (21). These three types of dream inevitably recall Macrobius’s classifications, most notably the visio and the oraculum. While several characters dream during the course of The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien pays significant attention to the dreams of Frodo and, later, of Sam. In keeping with the medieval forms, the dream visions of The Lord of the Rings repeatedly show us that Frodo’s spiritual struggle takes place in realities not normally available to the waking world.

Frodo’s visionary abilities develop throughout the book. Originally, while he travels in the lands of Elves and Men, the veracity of his dreams suggests divine origins, but as he nears Mordor his dreams become increasingly deceptive and dangerous. His inauguration into the world of dream visions begins shortly after he takes possession of the Ring. Soon after Bilbo’s departure, Frodo finds himself troubled by momentary flashes of clairvoyance, when “strange visions of mountains that he had never seen came into his dreams” (FR, I, ii, 71). What is not clear is the source of these dreams: is it just a normal dream, brought on by missing Bilbo (somnium)? Is it the Ring, trying to entice Frodo to leave the Shire so it can get back to Sauron (oraculum)? Or is it a higher power, trying to prepare Frodo for what lies ahead (visio)? Tolkien does not tell us. But what is clear is that these dreams are prescient, and they are the first indication that Frodo’s dreams are moving beyond the ordinary.

Even before he leaves the Shire, Frodo’s dreams are beginning to move beyond the somnium and into the visio, as is evidenced by the dream experienced in the house at Crickhollow. Lying on the borders of the Old Forest, Frodo primarily hears things: the sound of creatures snuffling, and the roar of the sea. Though it is shadowy and half-focused, this dream already has prophetic qualities.2 Sensitive readers will recall that later, Gollum is twice described as “snuffling” and that an orc of Mordor is once called a “snuffler.” Frodo will eventually reach the sea and hear the waves crash with his own ears. But Frodo is still in the Shire, the familiar, everyday world. Once he leaves the borders of his homeland, enters the uncanny Old Forest, and meets Tom Bombadil, the ability comes into sharper focus.

Although Bombadil’s house sometimes feels more like it belongs in a children’s fairy-tale than grown-up fantasy, the dream vision elements are nevertheless present: the Old Forest on the one side and the Barrow-downs on the other give the landscape a surreal quality, and Bombadil himself is placed at the center. Despite his antics and his comic appearance, Bombadil functions as the authority figure who oversees Frodo’s development as a dreamer.3 Bombadil is repeatedly called “the master,” and he has authority over both the quasi-natural world of the Old Forest and the supernatural one of the barrow. In his house, Frodo experiences his first full-fledged dream vision (visio) in which he witnesses, in vivid detail, Gandalf’s escape from Orthanc:

It seemed to Frodo that he was lifted up, and passing over he saw that the rock-wall was a circle of hills, and that within it was a plain, and in the midst of the plain stood a pinnacle of stone, like a vast tower not made by hands. On its top stood the figure of a man. The moon as it rose seemed to hang for a moment above his head and glistened in his white hair as the wind stirred it. Up from the dark plain below came the crying of fell voices, and the howling of many wolves. Suddenly a shadow, like the shape of great wings, passed across the moon. The figure lifted his arms and a light flashed down from the staff that he wielded. A mighty eagle swept down and bore him away. The voices wailed and the wolves yammered. There was a noise like a strong wind blowing, and on it was borne the sound of hoofs, galloping, ... from the East. (FR, I, vii, 177)

Now, it should be noted that Merry and Pippin also experience dreams which are at least partially prophetic, although Sam apparently (and significantly) slept like a log. Their dreams underscore the ability of Bombadil’s house to prompt visionary dreaming. But both Merry and Pippin dream of events in their own lives; only Frodo’s dream concerns somebody besides himself. Though Gandalf will later tell Frodo that his vision was “late in coming,” it is the only glimpse of Gandalf’s escape that we as readers will ever see—and, significantly, what he sees is truth, not deception. Nevertheless, Frodo has seen what has been, not what will be. But after spending more time in the company of Bombadil, Frodo makes the leap from prophetic dreams into true vision. The next night,

... they heard no noises. But either in his dreams or out of them, he could not tell, Frodo heard a sweet singing running in his mind: a song that seemed to come like a pale light behind a grey rain-curtain, and growing stronger to turn the veil all to glass and silver, until at last it was rolled back, and a far green country opened before him under a swift sunrise. (FR, I, viii, 187)

“In being ‘enchanted’ by Tom’s singing,” says Gordon Slethaug, “Frodo has seen a prophetic vision which not only sustains him during his journey but comes true at the end. He has glimpsed ultimate reality” (348).

Not all the dream visions in The Lord of the Rings occur when the dreamer is actually asleep. The dream experienced by Faramir and Boromir, while obviously another dream vision, is experienced by the Council while everybody is awake. Quite frequently, characters act in a realm somewhere between waking and sleeping; for instance, Frodo falls under the snare of Old Man Willow “half in a dream” (FR, I, vi, 165), and when he wakes up in Rivendell, he first thinks the adventure so far has been “a long unpleasant dream” (FR, II, i, 289 ). While crossing Moria, there are several times when Frodo confuses dreams and waking reality, most notably when he sees Gollum and cannot tell if he is dreaming or not. But the most striking instance of waking dreams takes place in another Elvish realm: Lothlórien.

Lothlórien is unique in The Lord of the Rings in that it alone bears striking similarities to a single medieval dream poem: the fourteenth-century masterpiece Pearl. Considering that Tolkien was working with the text while writing The Lord of the Rings, perhaps it should be no surprise to find aspects of the medieval poem in the modern story. In tone, setting, and even in characterization, Lothlórien bears a distinct likeness to Pearl.4 Both texts occur in a dreamlike setting—‘Lórien’ in fact means ‘dream’ —and both landscapes evoke similar moods from those that walk within them. As the dream-poet and the Company of the Ring penetrate deeper into their respective mystical environments, their care and grief fall away. “In wonder at those fells so fair / My soul all grief forgot” says the Pearl-poet (8.1-2). Similarly Legolas tells Celeborn that “we almost forgot our grief for a time, as we walked in gladness on the paths of Lórien” (FR, II, vii, 460). Both encounters take place within a forest strongly associated with silver, gold, white, and blue—celestial colors which enhance its otherworldly quality. Both realms can only be reached by crossing a river; neither realm is meant for mortals, and mortals who enter Lórien face a certain amount of peril. And, finally, both realms contain at their heart a female figure who holds in keeping answers which the travelers seek.

More than any other character in The Lord of the Rings, Galadriel is aware of the double-edged sword of vision. “Seeing is both good and perilous,” she tells Frodo (FR, II, vii, 470). For she knows, perhaps even better than Gandalf, that if benevolent forces can use dreams to guide an individual, the Enemy is equally capable of using visions to deceive. Visions can wound as well as heal, confound as well as guide. Accordingly, “Tolkien gives his evil characters the power to create false images ... or to cause men to perceive true images in a false structure” (Greene 49). And it is this ambiguity of seeing which marks the pivot-point of Frodo’s dreamlife.

The Mirror shows him many things past, present, and future. He sees a vision of Gandalf—or is it Saruman?—and a part of the “great history in which he had become involved” (FR, II, vii, 471). Most significantly, though, he sees the Enemy himself, an Eye rimmed with fire. Here Tolkien combines and contrasts the two poles of the somnium coeleste, the angelic and the demonic—a structure that “represent ideal boundaries of genre dream visions” (Kruger 128). Galadriel, in whom there is “no evil,” stands beside Frodo, watching over him, seeing and experiencing what he sees and experiences. Yet Frodo’s vision is of the Enemy himself, the Eye who would undo both of them. Galadriel’s presence makes the experience safe if not calming; she is able to break the Enemy’s hold on Frodo with only a few words—“Do not touch the water!” (FR, II, vii, 472). The vision gives Frodo the insight he needs to complete his quest: the ability to look inside another’s heart and read its temptations, just as Galadriel tested the hearts of the company upon meeting them. Now that he has seen the Eye, which Galadriel calls “that which is hidden,” she tells Frodo, “Your sight is growing keener. You have perceived my thought more clearly than many that are accounted wise” (FR, II, vii, 474). Having gained this ability, Frodo is able to use his insight to determine the motives of others; for instance, he reads Boromir’s intention better than Boromir himself, and he sees the faint echo of humanity that still beats in Gollum’s heart.5

Simultaneously, the scene marks Sam’s initiation into the realm of dreams and visions, though its implications for the humbler hobbit will not be obvious for some time yet. Until now, Sam had not loomed large on the cosmic scale; he is, after all, Frodo’s servant, and most powerful figures pay little attention to him. Yet Galadriel recognizes Sam’s importance to the completion of Frodo’s mission, and, as such, she grants him a vision also. Sam sees both the present and the future: the deforestation of his homeland, the Shire, which is already underway, and Frodo “lying fast asleep against a great dark cliff” (FR, II, vii, 469). Both will prove true. The vision initially fills him with rage and anger, but it ultimately proves to Sam’s benefit: though such foreknowledge in no way mitigates his sorrow, it does prepare him for what lies ahead and prevents him from being incapacitated by grief. When the vision is realized, he can still take action. Believing Frodo dead, he takes the burden of the Ring upon himself, thus saving it from the clutches of the Enemy. And, knowing of the devastation of the Shire before he returns to it, Sam is able to put aside his grief for the lost trees and concentrate on planting new ones.

Their time in Lothlórien is a turning point in many ways. Sam’s role and Frodo’s begin to reverse: Sam is becoming the hero, Frodo the dependent. As the pair draw slowly nearer to Mordor, Frodo’s oracular and prophetic dreams become increasingly vague—not, one senses, because Frodo has ceased to have them, but because the growing power of the Ring obscures his memory of them. During the passage of the Marshes, for instance, Frodo has a dream in which “the dark shadow had passed, and a fair vision had visited him.... Nothing remained of it in his memory, yet because of it he felt glad and lighter of heart. His burden was less heavy on him” (TT, IV, ii, 306). By the time they reach Ithilien, its description has diminished to “another gentle, unrecoverable dream of peace” (TT, IV, iv, 333).

While Frodo’s dreams drift away from visio and oraculum, Sam’s dreams take on their characteristics. Logically enough, he first dreams of home, or what seems to be home:

He thought he was back in the Bag End garden looking for something; but he had a heavy pack on his back, which made him stoop. It all seemed very weedy and rank somehow, and thorns and bracken were invading the beds down near the bottom of the hedge.

“A job of work for me, I can see; but I’m so tired,” he kept on saying. Presently he remembered what he was looking for. “My pipe!” he said, and with that he woke up. (TT, IV, vii, 391)

At first glance, Sam’s dream seems nothing more than the careworn trepidations of an overtired gardener. But events prove his dream has prophetic qualities: when he returns to the Shire, he does find it demolished and destroyed, and what was once a garden has become a slagheap. There are even weeds in Bag End itself: Saruman and his tag-along, Gríma Wormtongue, who have “set up shop” in the Shire. More subtly, the hobbits also find that there is no more pipe-weed available to the ordinary Shirefolk whom Sam represents; it has all been hoarded away by Saruman and his lackeys.

As with Frodo’s development, Sam’s first dream has prophetic qualities. The second has all the qualities of the visio. In the dim dark caverns of Torech Ungol, the only “unguarded” pass into Mordor, where death and evil press so heavily against the hobbits that sight and sense are numbed, Sam experiences a recollective vision:

Then, as he stood, darkness about him and a blackness of despair and anger in his heart, it seemed to him that he saw a light; a light in his mind almost unbearably bright at first, as a sun-ray to the eyes of one long hidden in a windowless pit. Then the light became color: green, gold, silver, white. Far off, as in a little picture drawn by elven-fingers, he saw the Lady Galadriel standing on the grass in Lórien, and gifts were in her hands. And for you, Ring-bearer, he heard her say, remote but clear, for you I have prepared this. (TT, IV, ix, 417-18)

Sam quickly reminds his master of the Lady’s gift, a phial which contains the light of the stars set amid the waters of her well. Wielding the light, the hobbits almost win through to safety: only when it is hidden does their peril descend upon them.

As they penetrate further into the shadow, the power of light wanes. The Ring, imbued with the greater part of its maker’s power, grows stronger and stronger. Part of that power, naturally, includes the ability to manipulate dreams and visions to drive its enemies away from the forces of good. Sam, temporarily bearing the Ring, is tempted by “wild fantasies” in which he becomes “Samwise the Strong, Hero of the Age, striding with a flaming sword across the darkened land, and armies flocking to his call as he marched to the overthrow of Barad-dûr” (RK, VI, i, 316). Frodo’s visions are more subtle and insidious. The Ring first casts Sam as an orc (RK, VI, i, 230), then haunts Frodo with an unrelenting vision of its presence. “I begin to see [the Ring] in my mind all the time,” he tells Sam, “like a great wheel of fire” (RK, VI, ii, 240). Gradually, the weight of the Ring obscures all else:

No taste of food, no feel of water, no sound of wind, no memory of tree or grass or flower, no image of moon or star are left to me. I am naked in the dark, Sam, and there is no veil between me and the wheel of fire. I begin to see it even with my waking eyes, and all else fades. (RK, VI, iii, 264)

Here, Tolkien conflates the somnium naturale, the somnium animale, and the somnium coeleste; Frodo’s physical suffering, his psychological exhaustion, and the active malevolence of the Ring all play a role. Macrobius also acknowledged that such visions could be caused “by mental or physical distress, or anxiety about the future” (28). Frodo endures all three in addition to the torment of the Ring, until he has passed his breaking point, until even the memory of the hobbit he had been slips away. He must rely then on Sam’s strength, Sam’s memories, Sam’s vision of the future, in which stories will be told of their great deeds and their names will be held in honor. And that vision is, of course, exactly what happens.

But Frodo can never be completely healed while he remains in Middle-earth. A blur of dreams and memories continue to haunt him, especially on the anniversary of his various wounds. On the first anniversary of the Ring’s destruction, for instance, Farmer Cotton finds him “half in a dream” in which Frodo tells him, “It is gone forever ... and now all is dark and empty” (RK, VI, ix, 376). His simple statement that returning home “feels more like falling asleep again” (RK, VI, vii, 341) subtly reminds us that he has experienced another level of reality, making his connection with Middle-earth tenuous at best. He no longer belongs there. Thus, he takes ship with the Elves and Gandalf, and at last experiences his dream as a waking reality:

On a night of rain Frodo smelled a sweet fragrance on the air and heard the sound of singing that came over the water. And then it seemed to him that as in his dream in the house of Bombadil, the grey rain-curtain turned all to silver glass and was rolled back, and he beheld white shores and beyond them a far green country under a swift sunrise. (RK, VI, ix, 384)

In this way, Tolkien weaves together dream and reality, and there is no need to wake up. In true medieval style, the dreams and visions experienced by Frodo and Sam have shown them an eternal reality above and beyond the realm of mortals. It is this realization, in addition to their accomplishment and sacrifice, that earns Frodo and Sam their final reward: the right to cross the Sea to Elvenhome, the ultimate reality of Middle-earth.

Notes

1 Tolkien’s remark originally appeared in Richard C. West’s “The Interlace and Professor Tolkien,” published in Orcrist 1.31: 22, and subsequently in “The Interlace Structure of The Lord of the Rings,” in A Tolkien Compass, ed. Jared Lobdell (80).

2 In fact, drafts show that in early versions this dream was even more prophetic: Frodo witnesses the Ringwraiths attacking Gandalf on the borders of the Shire in real time, and sees Gandalf atop Orthanc while still in the Woody End (Treason 32-37).

3 Some critics, in fact, interpret Bombadil and Goldberry as nature spirits, or possibly even as Maiar, which further enhances their status as spiritual authority figures.

4 Tom Shippey makes a similar observation in J.R.R. Tolkien: Author of the Century (196-200). He focuses primarily upon the parallel diction of the Pearl-poet and Tolkien, but it is interesting that he too notes that the influence of Pearl seems pronounced in these chapters especially.

5 This scene also establishes a subtle parallel between Galadriel and Frodo: nearly the first thing Galadriel speaks of after Frodo is her mental battle with Sauron, in which she can use her insight into his mind to resist him, but he cannot see clearly into hers. The ability to understand–but not emulate or embrace–the motives of their enemies thus becomes a kind of protection in itself.

Works Cited

[Anon]. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Pearl, and Sir Orfeo. Trans. J.R.R. Tolkien. New York: Ballantine Books, 1992.

Flieger, Verlyn. “Tolkien’s Experiment with Time: The Lost Road, “The Notion Club Papers” and J.W. Dunne.” In Proceedings of the J.R.R. Tolkien Centenary Conference 1992: Proceedings of the Conference Held at Keble College, Oxford, England, 17th-24th August 1992 to Celebrate the Centenary of the Birth of Professor J.R.R. Tolkien, Incorporating the 23rd Mythopoeic Conference (Mythcon XXIII) and Oxenmoot 1992, edited by Patricia Reynolds and Glen H. Goodknight. Mythlore 33, no. 2 (1996): 39-44.

Greene, Deidre. “Higher Argument: Tolkien and the Tradition of Vision, Epic and Prophecy.” Mythlore 21, no. 33 (1996): 45-52.

Hieatt, Constance B. The Realism of Dream Visions: The Poetic Exploitation of the Dream-Experience in Chaucer and His Contemporaries. Paris: Mouton & Co., 1967.

Kruger, Steven F. Dreaming in the Middle Ages. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992.

Lindsay, Sean. “The Dream System in The Lord of the Rings.” Mythlore 13, no 3 (1987): 7-14.

Macrobius, Ambrosius Aurelius Theodosius. Commentary on The Dream of Scipio. Trans. William Harris Stahl. New York: Columbia University Press, 1952.

Slethaug, Gordon. “Tolkien, Tom Bombadil, and the Creative Imagination.” English Studies in Canada 4 (1978): 341-350.

Schorr, Karl. “The Nature of Dreams in The Lord of the Rings.” Mythlore 10, no.2 (1983): 21-30.

Shippey, Tom. J.R.R. Tolkien: Author of the Century. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2000.

Spearing, A. C. Medieval Dream-Poetry. London: Cambridge University Press, 1976.

The “Lost” Subject of Middle-earth: The Constitution of the Subject in the Figure of Gollum in The Lord of the Rings

Gergely Nagy

One of the greatest things about The Lord of the Rings is that it takes language seriously,1 and it does so in more than one sense. The text contains a variety of linguistic and stylistic registers in elaborately wrought rhetorical structures which often “cluster” around characters or points of the narration, frameworks which characterize one figure or one situation, charging these textual foci with a great depth of poetic reserve. It also takes poetic and stylistic convention seriously: Tolkien’s use of different literary traditions, styles, and modes of writing has often been noted.2 But in this remarkable awareness of the centrality of language, The Lord of the Rings also places emphasis on the source of the linguistic utterance, the forces that produce language—the speaking subject on the one hand, and the frameworks inside which that subject is situated on the other.3

The speaking subject of Middle-earth is somewhat different from that of the “real world”—as is only fitting in a fiction which is itself radically different from “consensus reality.” For one thing, Tolkien’s medieval(ist) point of view is constantly visible in the background suppositions of meaning-production in Middle-earth: the subject in this world is part of a basically theological hierarchy (as in a medieval world model),4 where knowledge and meaning are available in “levels.” The further one is from the “theological core” (which does not even appear in The Lord of the Rings in an explicit form, and only once implicitly5), the more mediators his/her knowledge will have passed through: the more opaque the surface, the more obscure the meaning. But meaning is always there: there is a theological guarantee which is existent (for it is a fact in Middle-earth), though it might be removed and unavailable directly. The fact that we ourselves do not subscribe to this world model, however, does not mean that the fiction of the subject The Lord of the Rings presents is irrelevant: it is exactly the inaccessibility of this guarantee which the novel problematizes. Where, how, in what processes does meaning emerge in such a world—and how can Tolkien use the speaking subject to thematize not only the individual’s acts of meaning-production, but also the ways in which these individual acts again cluster into (communal/traditional) representations, and evolve their own meanings?

The Lord of the Rings is about the role of language, more precisely, the role of storytelling, in a world where meaning is guaranteed—but this guarantee is forever invisible, there and not there at the same time. For those who know it is of little help: indeed much of the book is about how the hopes placed in this focus of meaning dwindle and seem to disappear. No doubt Tolkien himself saw this as a basically religious model of the world.6 Certainty is knowledge; but knowledge, in its turn, is only transmitted in language, spoken or written, which might possess different degrees of authority (and come from different frameworks of communication) but cannot demonstrate it palpably. Models of meaning production (defining the ways individual meanings are conceived of as “knowledge,” and the sources and commonly accepted authorities that authenticate these systems), therefore, depend on the subject,7 and its relation to traditions of knowledge and representation; and this effectively puts the question of the subject, the user of language and tradition, the mediator of knowledge, into the foreground.

One of the most revealing of Tolkien’s characters as far as subjectivity, language, and their relation are concerned, is certainly Gollum. This degenerate hobbit, whom the reader, along with Frodo, hates and pities, clearly pinpoints stages and elements of the constitution of the subject and provides as concepts for the examination of the process of this constitution (and deconstitution) language, body, and desire. These three terms are supplemented by the aspect of power when Gollum is placed (and looked at) in the web of social and moral relationships; his relations to the Ring and to Frodo thematize the discourses and technologies of power working on the subject, the system which provides a framework inside which the subject can be interpreted (where the subject as a position in a system becomes possible). In this paper, my aim is to study the conceptions about the constitution and working of the subject and its production of language (thus, ultimately meaning) which appear in this most peculiar character. The themes, concepts, processes the text brings into play in forming this figure, and the styles of subjectification and “solidification” that support and exploit it in the text’s own working and production of meaning are what concern me most closely here, not how the constitution of the subject works in Middle-earth. I do not aim at describing the signifying system of Tolkien’s world, but at showing how this radically fictitious signifying system works to produce meaning as a text, a literary work.

The focus The Lord of the Rings places on the subject as the producer and mediator of meaning crystallizes in types of figures, forming a continuum of which Gollum is only one end. The other endpoint would definitely be Gandalf and Sauron, characters of mythological stature and history, totally different from all other characters in their theological status. But Gandalf does not directly revert to this status, does not have recourse to his reserves of signification (this is one part of his mission); and Sauron does not produce linguistic utterances (with the possible exception of the case when he is communicating with Pippin through the palantír 8), and his signifying activity is entirely carried out in his operating an immense discourse of power which is primarily represented in visual (and corporeal) terms, by his all-discerning Eye. Between these (utterly fixed and theologically founded subjects) and the “lost” subject of Gollum are other characters who employ a variety of modes of signification, or are able to comprehend them and mediate between them. The first is a “practical” activity, typified by Aragorn (witness his language use and the difference of styles and registers essentially always in action), giving the figure of the hero; the second is a basically linguistic and even textual activity, exemplified by Bilbo, whose part it is to write the events: this is the figure of the author.9 Gollum thus appears to be marginal, not in a discursive position of power. This is exactly why he is important: he demonstrates what happens to the subject when it cannot exert any control over the forces and processes that determine it, when it cannot partake in interpretation.10

The aspects of language, body, and desire are not unknown in critical approaches to Gollum’s figure. He is often termed a “schizophrenic” character,11 meaning that his language and behavior (at least in the mostly dramatic terms of a film adaptation) are sensed to be divided and shifting. Tom Shippey’s interpretation of Gollum in terms (both physical and psychological) of addiction (Road 139-40) has proved to be a lasting and insightful one, and in another book-length study generally relying on a more theoretical vocabulary, Jane Chance makes much use of details of identity and self, situating Gollum, and the other hobbits, in the focus of the discourse of power through their relationship to the Ring.12 Brian Rosebury also uses these concepts to comment on the operations of the Ring in relation to its users (Rosebury 40, 45-46). In my analysis I will show that these elements indeed have a bearing on Gollum’s functional role inside The Lord of the Rings’ general drive to take language seriously: to thematize elements, functions, and processes of the subject which define it as one point in the continuum of signifying roles.

The most remarkable thing about Gollum is definitely his language.13 He speaks with a general phonetic and syntactic simplicity, which Chance calls “baby talk” (59), referring to himself in the plural (“we,” “us”), with much repetition. His talk (usually with a strong sibilant character) is often interrupted by the gulping sound (transcribed as “gollum”). Repetitiousness, the automatism of language, reflects Gollum’s deterioration into a state of control by corporeal drives and conditioned reflexes, while the sibilance of his phonology derives from a sort of physical conditioning: the lack of articulation (because his language for a long time did not function as communication, being only monologue for which no clear articulation is necessary) and the need for whispered and concealed speech. These and other body-determined sounds dominate his speech: he even gets his name after one, the gulp (Chance 82, 84). Yet in all this, there is one element which opens up a strikingly complex system: and this is the place of the word “precious” in Gollum’s discourse.

The word “precious” acts as a central signifier in Gollum’s language. It comes up functionally integrated into sentences, but also as a sort of interjection, something which does not have any further meaning than being used in certain positions and situations in speech. In fact, “precious” is the addressee of Gollum’s language: it is both himself and something else which at least superficially seems to be the Ring (after all, this is what Gollum would call the referent of “my precious”14), but in fact broadens into a whole independent discourse into which Gollum speaks without ever being heard or heeded. A change comes over him after his “taming” by Frodo: being addressed as Sméagol and not Gollum, he again starts to use “I” as referring to himself and employs more complex structures, his talk again “reflect[ing] rational patterns of thought” (Chance 88). Even after this turning point, however, “precious” continues to be used. It seems that no matter how and in what terms Gollum conceives of himself, his discourse is addressed to whatever “precious” represents.

This role of the central signifier in Gollum’s discourse is linked in an intriguing way philologically with his name. Douglas Anderson, in a note to The Annotated Hobbit, says that as “gull” (spelt “goll” in the oldest manuscripts) is an Old Norse word for “gold,” “gollum” would be an oblique case meaning “gold, treasure, something precious”—but even more appropriately, it can also mean “ring.”15 The Hebrew word “golem,” which originally meant “embryo” but later “monster” and “automaton, robot,” can also be brought into play.16 This elaborate philological network of meanings and motifs is eminently meaningful in constructing Gollum. Considering that in his fiction of translation Tolkien used Old Norse forms to represent languages and dialects in the north-east of Middle-earth, about the place where Gollum originally lived, “precious” becomes a signifier that manifests itself in the very body-sounds Gollum uncontrollably utters, and is seen infiltrating the most basic strata of his discourse, defining him by supplying a new name (Gollum instead of the original Sméagol). Yet even his own name is just a variant for this central signifier, which at the same time (through another meaning) suggests both rebirth and monstrosity.

The essentially double application of “precious” as a key signifier in Gollum’s discourse foregrounds language as the focus where the subject appears. Inside that language, the individual’s idiolectical discourse, there is a further focus, which in this case by its double reference functions as a signifier both for the subject himself, and for the point where the larger discourses that envelop it enter, and through which they transform and subject. This point is seen as a physical object of desire, named in language in terms of that desire (initially, the Ring doubtless received the appellation “precious” because Gollum “liked it”17); but as the forces that enter through it transform the subject, it is extended to cover the whole of the speaker’s self, a signifier which signifies, as it were, both sides of desire.

The physical object which thus becomes an entry point into the subject obviously has further meanings, as does Gollum’s “precious.” Not only does it identify with both sides of desire: as the means of this identification, it functions as the desire itself, which is constitutive of the subject—and which then empties the subject so that it can be referred to and conceived of only in those terms.18 Desire is sensed to be independent of its physical object, but is of course deceived by the extraordinary nature of this object. The second meaning of this key signifier is a new subject, one based solely on desire, focused in the object. This is emphatically sensed as a bodily desire (as the body-sounds and especially the connection of “gollum” with “precious” suggest), and consequently transforms both language and the body itself.

The Ring in general, though, is a signifier that signifies the whole discourse whose entry point is provided by the desire for the physical object: and this is a strong and crude discourse of power. It is (as we know) generated and operated by Sauron, Lord of the Rings, and is focused exactly in the Ring (in fact the physical container of the essence of Sauron’s power 19). Through this focus point, an overpowering degeneration comes to the subject. By the domination of this one discourse (sensed and described as very clearly bodily: see below),20 Gollum is drawn out of the normal symbolic system, unable to produce meanings of his own (this is seen in the incoherence and deterioration of his language). He is nearly completely dissolved in another system where power is a bodily concept, where language and name are corporeal actions (rather than something significant, symbolic). Language can be dominated; desire can be dominated; and through these, the subject is determined. Discourses of power define the ways the subject imagines and understands its bodily desires and the generation of its language, meanings, and its own production of meaning. Power is an interpretive discourse which assigns meaning arbitrarily and tendentiously and robs its subjects of their own interpretive actions.

If the subject situates itself solely in relation to such a discourse of power (or by desire is situated thus), the effects are these; but apparently they can be countered, at least in the signifying system of The Lord of the Rings. Significance in language seems to return to Gollum when Frodo “enhances” the “other self” of the schizophrenic division. With a meaningful social relationship (immediate hierarchical placing, in a concrete situation, in relation to an actually present person), Gollum is at once drawn back into the “normal,” multi-discourse, significant symbolic system (Chance 88). His language accordingly becomes clearer: he starts to use “I” again as referring to himself (though still retains the third person in speaking of “Sméagol”). This finds its counterpart in Frodo’s language to him: stern and commanding, but not dismissing or detesting, suggesting fair treatment and offering opportunity to prove himself. This social relationship is first significant to Gollum only in terms of the single monolithic power discourse (as a means to get at the Ring), but works to modify it: the relation to the Master enhances his resistance to domination and leads to a differentiation of desire with a strong emphasis again on desire of the object for oneself, and a relatively clear view of the contrariness of wills: Sauron will “eat us all, if He gets it, eat all the world” (TT, IV, iii, 245)—Gollum sees through the intention of the dominating discourse.

Clearly “precious” here acquires further meaning as contrary to Sauron’s usual discourse (one of domination, of subjection), and the Ring becomes the key signifier in another power relationship. This is, again, one where Gollum is a subject, but of a new type: power is here non-monolithic (as Frodo is not the “universal Master”), more distributed and disseminated (Frodo is only one in the many loci of this power discourse), where a more intricate, multi-level set of differences is articulated. Frodo as a different master offers Gollum a different system and a meaning of his own: the only meaningful difference is not the one between Sauron and his subject(s), but a lot of traditional, theological, and ad hoc differences have the potential to become meaningful. In this system a king has power because his position traditionally is a power position; Gandalf and Sauron would have power because their positions are theologically by definition power positions; Frodo, who is neither traditionally or theologically in such a position, becomes a master through the situation—as the “master of the Precious” (TT, IV, i, 225).21 But Frodo is still able to use this position, and the discourse he operates from there is a different one, overriding for the moment the Ring’s. It is, however, not Frodo’s own strength or power that enables him to do this; being the “master” is a position Frodo suddenly and inexplicably falls into, as far as Gollum is concerned. Tolkien in a letter writes about Frodo’s “gradual education to the nobility of service to the unlovable and the perception of damaged good in the corrupt” (Letters 329); and the “master of the Precious” means something different to him than to Gollum. For Gollum, even though he senses that Frodo is a “different” sort of master, “precious” in the appellation still functions as a signifier that brings into operation the same sort of compulsive force; Frodo is conscious of the true working of the Ring (and even warns Gollum about it), and aware of using only the signifier to assert control, not the discourse that it opens. His discourse is one of subjectification rather than one of subjection: it works not only to situate the subject in a binary opposition, but to provide a context for it which is mobile and can function in multiple relationships, based on multiple differences. Frodo (perhaps not entirely knowingly) aims at reconstructing the “lost” subject, the “damaged good in the corrupt”; and once again, “precious” as a central signifier ensnares Gollum, but for once, it does so for his own good.

The Ring as key signifier is thus used (even by Gollum) to subvert its own discourse. The constitution of Gollum’s subject at least slips from its total control, since the Sméagol-subject begins to be reconstituted,22 reconstructed.23 It returns to the symbolic, and into signification which is independent of the discourse of subjection (exactly the negation of signification); Gollum is now again able to produce meaningful language, meaning (in fact, it is because of this that he himself acquires meaning in the whole of the story, and in Frodo’s account of the events too), freed from the interpretive domination of Sauron.

We have seen how Gollum’s language and the processes that work in it foreground the role of the body in the (de)constitution of the subject, and the place of the body as the focus of the forces that press this (de)constitution. Language and the body as elements of subjectivity are thus most poignantly emphasized in this character.

The body, for one thing, functions as both material base and articulation of the subject. His history puts Gollum into a relation with hobbits,24 and although he has become “thin and tough” and is “old, terribly old” (FR, I, ii, 62, 66), the connection to hobbits can still be seen in him (in addition to the shared culture), even “on” the body: “an old weary hobbit, shrunken by the years that had carried him far beyond his time, beyond friends and kin, and the fields and streams of youth, an old starved pitiable thing” he seems (TT, IV, viii, 324). Only in an exceptional moment, however: much more often is Gollum notably different, so much so that Chance even calls him “difference personified” (81).25 His difference, his “abnormal,” different subjectivity is marked on the body: Gollum is a corporeal illustration of how Sauron’s binary system conceives of the material existence of his subjects, and this very difference shows how this system is not a symbolic one but a crude totality where only Sauron has meaning and all other subjects are erased in their subjection. Homogeneity, “aggrandisement of self and negation of not-self” (metaphorized, as noted above, in the image of eating up) is how Rosebury explains Tolkien’s representation of evil (45).

The body, however, can also be said to function as source (an extension of the conception of it as an articulation of the subject). First, it is sensed as the source of desire: the bodily, physical desire that Gollum feels for the Ring, which becomes the entry point of Sauron’s discourse of subjection.26 But this desire is actually neither this simple nor of the self entirely (I will discuss its differentiations later) though it is certainly physical in the way that Sauron’s conception of power is (at least as he communicates it) essentially corporeal, bodily. Power for him means physical power over subjects: no differences are tolerated, only inferiority in power. This discourse shatters subjects and constrains them to be reconstituted in terms of only this one difference: Sauron is making everyone else into his own Other, thus robbing subjects not only of their contents but of their meaning too.27 Mordor, indeed, is not only the reflection of “the desolation of Gollum’s soul ... [a] symbolic landscape of a degenerate and blasted existence” (Chance 86)28 —it is what subjection means to Sauron. Secondly, the body can be seen as a source of language and its processes: the source of meaning, in which (as in Gollum’s case) the body is transformed into a linguistic utterance. The only meaning a subject can produce in Sauron’s discourse is bodily obedience, inferiority; no words make any sense any more.

Sauron’s discourse has distinct effects on the body as well as on subjectivity. As mentioned above, the transformations of the subject are marked on the body, and body-centred language is one of the indicators and media of Sméagol’s change into Gollum. As bodily desire is the entry point for Sauron, the body is accordingly distorted by the physical effects of the Ring, one of which is the conferral (or illusion) of bodily power, “according to his stature” (FR, I, ii, 63). “Perhaps we grow strong, very strong, stronger than Wraiths. Lord Sméagol? Gollum the Great? The Gollum? Eat fish every day, three times a day, fresh from the sea. Most Precious Gollum!” (TT, IV, ii, 241).29 This last tautology shows the substitution of Gollum himself for the “precious” (which is already done in his language in referring to himself with this signifier), this time explicitly in the power position he does not occupy but which he illusorily assigns to himself. The desire generated by the Ring (and consequently the power supposedly given by it) uses motifs from the subject’s own symbolic system, codified objects of desire, to enter this system and subvert it together with the subject.

The bodily effects and nature of Sauron’s discourse are articulated in many ways. This effect is conveyed very characteristically in physical terms: not only does Gollum feel “the pressure of the Eye” (TT, IV, ii, 238) but Frodo also experiences it: “its potency beat upon his brow” (TT, IV, ii, 238). Gollum, for one (and Frodo increasingly) always conceives of this as being seen: the Ring is a mirror, again an entry point, of Sauron’s gaze. This is emphasized from the earliest point on: Bilbo says he had “felt it was like an eye looking at me” (FR, I, i, 43).30 and the image of the eye is one which is indeed central in the representation of Sauron (it even becomes one of his many epithets). The subject is thus constructed as equivalent with the body, a physical object of Sauron’s discerning eye. It does not matter that the “invisible world” is there to duplicate the real one; its sights are articulated in physical terms as well and in terms of physical perceptions.31 This world is just as physically coded (and described) as the other; it is simply that it opens up this physicality/visibility for persons in privileged positions of power.32 In a further stage Gollum’s “visibility complex” is linked with “psychological penetration” (“He sees, he knows!” (TT, IV, ii, 241) says Gollum) and knowledge, and is in its turn dissociated from the body: the Nazgûl, subjects to the Nine Rings of Men, are totally under Sauron’s control but have no physical bodies any more (whereby the last trait of their former subjectivity is erased).33 On the one hand, this highlights some aspects of mythological representation which went into Sauron’s figure,34 but on the other it is also connected to more recent models of power technologies like Foucault’s (which Chance indeed cites, though she does not employ them extensively 35). Sauron’s gaze is a non-linguistic system which articulates power relationships in physical terms, supporting the overall physical nature of his discourse: the Ring is thus also a sign for Sauron himself, Sauron as constructing his subjects as his Other(s) (in terms of the single difference he knows)—he is a discourse impressing content and meaning, turning subjects into signs for himself (like the Nazgûl), an aggressive, monolithic signifying mechanism which (de)constitutes its subjects. The system where these subjects “mean” Sauron is, however, not his own but the properly symbolic one of Middle-earth, and its representation in the fictionally textualized account of it in a fictional narrator’s text (not only for people in Middle-earth, but also for us, readers). Even though Sauron, as is clear from Gollum’s case, presses his subjection through the body, paradoxically he cannot accomplish total subjection while that body lasts.

Desire is apparently another central element of the constitution of the subject that Gollum’s figure brings up. We have seen how his language grows out of physical desire and his body is seen as not only an articulation and medium of the subject but also as a source of those bodily desires that subvert it. Desire, however, is seen to differentiate in the conflicting subject constitution processes that Gollum is entangled in: one of deconstitution (operated by Sauron’s discourse of subjection) and one of reconstitution (controlled by the discourse of subjectification, as I termed the “normal” signifying process which Frodo’s activity brings back to Gollum, thereby bringing back Sméagol). In these diverging processes, Tolkien subtly differentiates between his thematization of the elements and motifs of subject constitution, and follows his conclusively separated presentation of Sauron’s discourse from the “normal” signifying practices of Middle-earth.

As seen in Gollum’s case, the normal desires of the subject’s functioning are turned inside out, as it were, by the Ring. Desire, as we have known since Plato’s Symposium, is essentially a lack: it is a tension resulting in an action, aimed at something the subject does not possess, but which is sensed as needed, either physically (like food or sleep) or sublimated into symbolic actions towards symbolic objects. These objects are signs that stand in for suppressed objects of desire, objects which for some reason cannot be desired consciously by the subject without too much tension. It is exactly in the restructuring of lacks and thus of desires that the Ring’s operation is seen: “the very desire of it corrupts the heart,” says Elrond (FR, II, ii, 281). It works a transformation in the desiring machinery: it is the mechanism through which Sauron achieves his dominating (de)constitution effect. It is not only a lack in the subject which desire works to supply for: in the end, the entire subject is metamorphosed into lack.

It all starts as physical desire, as we have seen. Gollum clearly takes his desire for the Ring as working to satisfy an elementary corporeal need, a source of energy even though it is not satisfied, something to drive him on and determine him. It is really a bodily desire on par in its importance with food and sleep, indeed sensed as very nearly the sole desire, the strongest constituent force of the self, which instantly starts to embed itself into the automatism of the basic bodily functions. This overwhelmingly physical nature of Gollum’s desire for the Ring is well brought out by Shippey’s interpretation of him as an addict (Road, 139-40)36 and again marks his being influenced and (de)constituted in a violently physical discourse of power.

Interestingly enough, a trace is found even in here of the subject’s partial integrity and independence of the power discourse (which, as I remarked, apparently persists in some way while the body lasts). Gollum’s desire is the desire for the Ring for himself: the desire not to let Sauron have it. Does this result from the nature of desire itself (the greed of the subject that what he senses as lack and desires as a symbolic object should not belong to anyone else), or from other considerations too? Reliving his interview with (presumably) Sauron, Gollum says “I can’t find it.... I, we can’t find it, gollum, gollum, no, nowhere.... We won’t! ... Not for you.” (TT, IV, i, 222) He is apparently well aware of what would happen if Sauron had the Ring: “Don’t take the Precious to Him! He’ll eat us all, if He gets it, eat all the world” (TT, IV, iii, 245), he says to Frodo in genuine terror. In this, Gollum is perhaps not the ultimate “lost” subject, though he certainly functions at least partly as an “alter ego” for Bilbo and Frodo, who resist the Ring’s effect more.37 But Frodo’s rapid slide lower and lower into inaction and automatism in Mordor already signals how the Ring is at work again, while in Bilbo’s case the same effect is conjured up by his using Gollum’s language: “It is mine, I tell you. My own. My precious. Yes, my precious” (FR, I, i, 42).38

But the desire to possess the Ring is not the only element working here: there is also a desire to use it. This is an “effective” function: the possessor will desire to use the Ring in terms of his own will—to work his will. In Gollum’s case this is to catch fish and hide from everyone; or to become strong, “stronger than Wraiths ... The Gollum? ... Most Precious Gollum!” (TT, IV, ii, 241). This conferral of (mostly illusory) power by the Ring tempts Sam to become the Gardener of Mordor (RK, VI, i, 177). and makes Bilbo use invisibility to avoid nuisances (FR, I, v, 114-15). “The Ring appeals to the desires of the self ... as a means of mastering that individual” (Chance 28)—and in the very process breaks and transforms it, as Sam, when tempted by the Ring, feels “robed in a huge distorted shadow of himself” (RK, VI, i, 177). Himself but still not himself since distorted: Sam is turned out of himself for a moment,39 a glimpse of what to expect (and it is exactly the same meaningful, symbolic relationship of service to Frodo, “the love of his master” (RK, VI, i, 177) which saves him). The Ring generates desire for itself by amplifying desire for other things: it catalyzes desires and offers an (illusory) power for their achievement if used. It works “effectively” by constructing a power hierarchy in which it situates its possessor, a position which would be a gateway to gratifying the most burning desires of the self.

Clearly taking the subject out of the visible and into the invisible world is one part of this: in this “Other” reality, as we have seen, by very simple presence, a position of power is opened, but exactly this is what leads to a reversal and a certain differentiation of desire. As soon as one does use the Ring, he is placed in a power hierarchy—but not in the position he expected. In the other world, the subject is in a position of power; but the subject also finds instantly that there is another position to which it is subordinated, and which is absolutely overpowering. Sauron’s penetration into the subject through the Ring is seen at this turn: the will to use the Ring is already Sauron’s will, not a desire of the self but an external command. “The very [read physical] desire of it corrupts the heart,” says Elrond: this corruption is always figured in the text as a betrayal, a going over to Sauron’s side (as in Saruman’s case)—“a desire to submit to the authority of Sauron,” as Chance writes (23; my emphasis). The desire of the self subverts itself, its own base, and becomes an empty desire of an empty shell of a subject.

The subject is thus really turned inside out: the self-gratifying, inward direction of his desire is forced to be directed outward, to respond to Sauron’s will. “When the Ring masters its wearer, it totally erases the identity of the wearer, and he becomes without a self” (Chance 28).40 The desire to use the Ring is not the subject’s but Sauron’s, the desire for power, by which “he judges all hearts” (FR, II, ii, 282)—the desires and subjectivities of Sauron’s subjects are merely the “Others,” the empty complements, of that totality of Sauron. This is, again, conceived of in decidedly physical terms, as a power of “wordlessness” (Chance 51), which communicates what little meaning is left to communicate through physical pressure. Power is not linguistically (that is, symbolically) but physically articulated (which means on the next level of representation, Tolkien’s text, an insertion of a pictorial, visual representation of Sauron into the symbolic system, which nevertheless by this insertion remains symbolic)—resistance to it physically wears out the body and empties the subject.

As we have already seen in Gollum’s speech, the signifier for the Ring (“precious”) becomes a signifier of the subject who desires it in its physical form as well as that of the object itself. Signification runs counter to itself and desire subverts its own objects. The Ring, in fact, also becomes a symbol of desire41: desire as the weak point of the subject, the point of entry, as means of submission; desire as inverted and subverted, turning the subject inside out, erasing it, losing it in the labyrinth of desires partly from inside but more and more predominantly externally received. In this, the Ring comes close to being a language (as we indeed see literalized in Gollum’s speech): a medium in which Sauron’s discourse, itself not linguistic or symbolic, is communicated to beings inside the symbolic system.

The Ring is not only a medium linking Sauron’s binary will to the standard signifying system of Middle-earth; it is also integrated into that system and becomes symbolic. Meaning is a function of the power position in relation to which the subject defines itself: in terms of Sauron’s operation the subject does not hold meaning, since it is erased in relation to Sauron, who is also a referent of the Ring as sign. Gollum serves the “master of the precious” (Frodo) and can call the Ring to witness an oath;42 thus, he turns it into a meaningful sign authenticating a promise, and is able to return for some extent to symbolic relations, recognize meaning, and acquire meaning himself. He certainly becomes meaningful in the story through his relationship to Frodo, not to Sauron.

Desire is also present (or at least wakened) in Gollum for the symbolic system itself, for meanings and meaningful functions. The effect of service on Gollum’s subjectivity is one of reconstitution: it offers subject positions in a network, not a single binary pair where one is the negation of the other.43 Frodo, as remarked above, makes an attempt at reconstructing Sméagol in taking Gollum into his service; he can do this because there are some cultural determinations working in Gollum which Sauron’s discourse apparently cannot overcome. The Ring stands as a demarcation line between his old identity and the impoverished, erased, lost subjectivity; it is not really Sméagol who is destroyed (we see he is not) but the very foundation of that identity in subjectivity.44 As soon as the physical entry point of Sauron’s discourse, the catalyser, is not present, the subject on the one hand is driven by the physical desire to recover it (which fits well with Shippey’s addiction interpretation), but on the other hand cannot be wholly subject-ed any more: he remains to some extent free to make his own decisions and meanings (to invest, for example, Frodo with a completely new meaning, and see him as master instead of the “filthy little thief”).

Desire is, as it seems, truly differentiated in Gollum’s figure and his interactions. Thematizing alternatives to subject constitution (submission vs. service, subjection vs. integrity), this concept is thus highly useful in our inquiry into the elements of language and meaning production as seen in Gollum. Together with the concepts of language and the body, desire is a part of a conceptual system in which Tolkien brings up his themes, and points attention to the fact that power is never merely political, nor even theological. It is also a power over language, demanding a lack of meaning, erasure, not service but subjection. Even though Tolkien may not be unambiguously affirming that evil itself is lack—as would happen in what Shippey terms the “Boethian” model of evil (Road, 140-46)—he is certainly suggesting that its effect is. Rosebury’s remark that “only an evil being would subordinate all other wills to his own … the act of subordinating other wills makes a being evil” (Rosebury 40), might be circular, but it also points out that desire and will connect, and the theological granting of free will by Ilúvatar is counterpointed by one of the effects of this, free will exercised to erase the very subjectivity of others. In this, Sauron himself becomes a parallel to Gollum, insofar as lack appears to permeate his figure too—the lack of the physical appearance that he cannot assume any more,45 and the lack of the Ring without which he is vulnerable. It is this system of lacks that result from evil.

This system of lacks is nowhere more graphically and palpably present than in Gollum: he is the ultimate Lacanian subject whose existence (as it appears) is entirely determined by loss and lack.46 He is outside the normal symbolic system of Middle-earth, and thus outside normal signification. His language is the projection of his bodily processes and the articulation of an overwhelming physical desire, doubly physical, in fact, since his own individual bodily desire for the Ring is supplemented and overwritten by Sauron’s discourse. His meanings are not his but Sauron’s: it is Sauron who is controlling and deconstituting meanings along with Gollum’s subject.

Gollum senses this discourse of subjection directly, which says much both about him and Sauron. The technology of power Sauron operates is not manifested or constituted in language but through a physical object. Not being properly symbolic, this discourse also cannot be properly ideological, only as far as it itself participates in the symbolic system; which to some extent it does, since it is comprehensible for subjects outside its sway and itself produces meanings inside the symbolic. The borderline, both theoretically and pictorially, seems to be the Ring: and indeed Gollum can have mixed love and hate towards it—“He hated it and loved it, as he hated and loved himself,” says Gandalf (FR, I, ii, 64)—because it represents the border of the subject, the perfect example of Kristeva’s abject (1-15). The forces that determine the subject, its signifying functions and its production of meaning are all brought together in this figure. It also says something about the signifying system, then, that there is a possibility to bring him back: Frodo’s drawing him back inside the symbolic system where power relations are much more differentiated (thus meaningful) and where meaning is not only present but guaranteed reflects upon the ultimately theologically conceived battle of meaning and “wordlessness.”

Gollum as lack, the subject as conceived of as lack, something which is missing and needs to be reconstructed, is perfectly in line with Tolkien’s general concern with reconstruction and rewriting. The very world, the signifying system of Middle-earth is “(re)constructed” thus in the story of The Lord of the Rings: we never get a description, a history, a legendary, but merely a story which involves all of these, from which (in the interpretation) much of the past is reconstructed. As the text is already fictionalized as a text in Middle-earth (in fact, the text of Frodo and a variety of other author figures), we have the appended data in the Appendices: but those are not the story, and point towards other texts where context is given. In the fiction of texts, the Appendices are supplements by other authors, not organically integrated with the main text. Gollum’s subject, in addition to being reconstructed in the story, is also built up and reconstituted textually by the text (as everything else in Middle-earth). Gollum is seen as the locus of writing: his subject is overwritten, erased, and then rewritten again. Even Sauron’s discourse (which inside the fiction is a corporeal, bodily one, appropriately represented in physical and visual terms) is integrated into language, while desire and the body are already invested with linguistic dimensions. Gollum’s subject is “lost” because it has gone the way of all flesh in writing and linguistic circumscription: the subject position he represents (one end of the continuum I sketched in my introduction) is fundamentally determined by lack, a missing grasp which the sliding of language (indeed, the lack of language in Sauron’s subjecting discourse) brings about.

Both endpoints of this continuum, Sauron and Gollum, are represented in terms of the signifying system of Middle-earth, the properly symbolic system which enables the fictitious author to produce a meaningful (fictitious) text about them; and both are signified, paradoxically, by that sign of totality which functions as a central signifier for both: the Ring. While we saw that the Ring, through the name that desire gives it (“precious”) and through the bodily functions that its effect produces, becomes a signifier for Gollum, it is also a signifier of (and for, effectively equal to) Sauron: Sauron’s whole existence, the content of the entire subject position that he occupies is concentrated in the Ring (not to mention that it is also a focus of the various layers and conventions of representation which converge in Sauron’s figure). The Ring, therefore, has more than one aspect and meaning, as it stands in more than one system: Sauron’s, the standard symbolic one of Middle-earth, the explicitly linguistic and textual system of the fictitious textuality of The Lord of the Rings (the text as Frodo’s and others’ text), and another textual and linguistic system, that of the reader. But since these last two do not match (as they usually at least superficially do in other works of literature—this is the result of the radical fictionality of Tolkien’s world, and his metafictional insistence, the textual focus), further meanings are produced, because the very production of meaning inside the fiction, on several levels and in several systems, is itself a signifier and works to produce new meanings in the outside reader. The functions and elements of meaning production aggregate in the Ring and thematize the differences and significances of these productive discourses for us; they capture the ultimate relevance of Tolkien’s signifying system for a reader of the “real world.”

In Gollum’s figure, however, there is a further layer of desire which is brought into focus by the operation of the subjecting and subjectifying discourses; and this is the desire for the self, the ultimate self-reflexive attitude which determines subjects and their meanings. The Ring, as we saw, by focusing Sauron’s “othering” discourse, seeks the erasure of exactly this desire (along with its object); and thus the Ring as signifier acquires a further meaning: it is a sign for the subject, or more specifically Gollum, through this lack, through substituting for this object of the self-reflexive (and self-defensive) desire. It is in this erasure and lack that Gollum is constructed; it is from this that he is reconstructed, both “in deed” and “in the text.” The emphasis on signs and signifying practices thus complement the weight that is placed by Tolkien’s text on the importance of subject positions.

And the ways The Lord of the Rings does this are in fact very meaningful in poststructuralist frameworks. In its thematizing a variety of linguistic registers, rhetorics, discourses and meanings, the book also successfully focuses on the subjects that produce and substantiate these: discourses and meanings are impossible without subjects to produce them, who are in turn impossible without the larger signifying system inside which they and their productive activity are situated. Tolkien’s emphasis on textuality and productive-interpretive practices suggests systems which are not in any way escapist and anachronistic; as he integrates philological and historical determinations into his framework, his work can be seen as a very special synthesis where traditional and (post)modern meet and fuse. Meaning is the meeting point; but meaning is, as we saw in this study of one “unit of meaning (production)” in The Lord of the Rings, guaranteed in vain in a context which does not explicitly integrate that guarantee. Meaning emerges in interaction, and is always changing, unfixed, plural (as are Tolkien’s texts in his huge corpus of textual variants). It is produced in language, as the very guarantee is produced (for us and for most people in Middle-earth) in language: Tolkien, even though he constructs a “deeply religious and Catholic” work (and world), really complements this with a subtle image of how the cultural discourse of the “religious” (or of the “Catholic”) is exactly a cluster of meanings that cultural traditions (and subjects who make them) consolidate into well-received representations. The character of Gollum deserves much credit for the pre-eminently successful thematization of many of the most important elements of the work’s potentials of meaning, how and in what frameworks, in what processes meaning becomes possible, “producible”; and this shows that in The Lord of the Rings meaning is found even where the subject is lost.

Notes

1 I would like to thank Attila Kiss (for whose 2002 Ph.D. seminar at the University of Szeged, Hungary, “Literature and/as the Semiotics of the Subject,” this paper was originally written) for his suggestions for revision, and Michael D.C. Drout, whose commentary proved just as useful in preparing the final version; and the two anonymous readers at Tolkien Studies.

2 See Tom Shippey’s classic inquiry in The Road to Middle-earth into how Tolkien adapts both themes and forms from medieval models; Jane Chance’s Tolkien’s Art: A Mythology for England also deals with this subject. Brian Rosebury, in Tolkien: A Cultural Phenomenon, supplies another angle in looking at how conventions of the novel, far from being discarded or ignored in The Lord of the Rings, in fact enrich its texture.

3 The “speaking subject” in this paper functions as a theoretical starting point to offer yet another argument for a poststructuralist approach to Tolkien. The term comes from a branch of literary and linguistic theory known as “postsemiotics,” due to the fact that its twofold emphasis in dealing with signifying practices (on the “speaking subject,” who produces utterances, and the system which contextualizes these and helps to produce the subject itself) relies on a different view of the subject (informed by Freudian and Lacanian psychoanalysis) than Saussurean semiotics. For a good overview, see Kaja Silverman, The Subject of Semiotics, esp. ch. 4, “The Subject” (126-93), and for a more detailed commentary on the complex Lacanian model, R. Coward and J. Ellis, Language and Materialism. Developments in Semiology and the Theory of the Subject (93-121).

4 Yuri Lotman’s typology of cultures (see “Problems in the typology of culture,” in Daniel P. Lucid, ed., Soviet Semiotics: An Anthology) describes the medieval world model as a “pansemiotic” one, where every single element (e.g. of the created world) by its nature functions as a sign (of the creator). Meaning is a theological given, and the ultimate transcendental signified (God) is always there to guarantee it (213–21).

5 Faramir’s reference in conversation with Frodo to “that which is beyond Elvenhome and will ever be,” and possibly Gandalf’s “naked I was sent back” (TT, IV, v, 285; TT, III, v, 106; my emphasis). On the latter, see Letters (201).

6 This is why he called The Lord of the Rings a “fundamentally religious and Catholic work” (Letters 172).

7 Since meaning is not an “ontologically independent” category, but always dependent on a subject in which it emerges, the models and strategies that subjects inherit and employ are of primary importance in a work that places such a heavy emphasis on tradition and its functioning.

8 And even then Pippin reports that “He did not speak so that I could hear words. He just looked, and I understood” (TT, III, xi, 198). Sauron uses language through intermediaries like “The Mouth of Sauron.”

9 Bilbo is the exemplary author figure only if we take a look at Tolkien’s whole work; in The Lord of the Rings, his role is somewhat limited, and gives place to Frodo (and even Sam) to step up as authors. A good overview of the authorial practices in The Lord of the Rings and their integration into Tolkien’s overall concerns of the presentation of the book as ultimately “textual” is now available in Verlyn Flieger’s Interrupted Music. The Making of Tolkien’s Mythology (61-73). It is interesting to note, as Rosebury does, that “the capacity to narrate” is always associated with a morally (therefore theologically) privileged position in The Lord of the Rings (50).

10 All through his work, Tolkien puts heavy emphasis on the importance of interpretation; The Lord of the Rings itself, in the narrative and in the details of its textual fiction (e.g. the fictitious construction of the fictitious narrators’ ways of employing traditions), always highlights how interpretation is a central action. But in the Silmarillion story, the Ainur “interpreted, according to their powers, and completed in detail, the Design propounded to them by the One” (Letters 284)—that is, the world is created, shaped, and governed in consecutive acts of the interpretation of Ilúvatar’s pattern, the “master meaning.”

11 The best recent example is British actor Andy Serkis (playing this role in Peter Jackson’s film adaptation) in an interview published at http://www.lordoftherings.net/index_editorials_becomegollum.html, access 17 Feb 2003.

12 Chance, The Lord of the Rings: The Mythology of Power.

13 It might be noted that in the writing of The Lord of the Rings, this effect was rather hard to achieve, and took long revisions. Gollum initially spoke much more coherently and logically, so that the contrast was much less striking between his two schizophrenic selves: see War (95-143 and 175-226) for variants of Gollum’s parts. See also Bonniejean Christensen’s account of “Gollum’s Character Transformation in The Hobbit” (9-28).

14 In The Hobbit, it is said that “he always called himself ‘my precious’” (H, v, 120 and n.8). In an earlier variant of the LR text, even Frodo was puzzled at a change of reference, having “thought that precious was Gollum’s self that he talked to” (War 97-98). Christensen notes that in The Hobbit Gollum originally referred to himself and Bilbo as “precious,” and this got extended in the revision to the Ring (11).

15 Anderson adds that these points “may have occurred to Tolkien” (H, v, 120 and n.8).

16 Victoria Neufeldt and David B. Guralnik, eds., Webster’s New World Dictionary of American English, entry “golem.”

17 As Isildur’s record reveals: “It is precious to me, though I buy it with great pain” (FR, II, ii, 266), and Bilbo’s deterioration is shown by his starting to handle (and speak about) the Ring in similar terms (FR, I, i, 42). “Liking” something and something being “precious” are clearly cases of the object having a profound meaning, signifying something. The Ring works by, finally, signifying all to its bearer.

18 Cf. Chance: “The diminution of intelligent life subverted by its own desires” (59).

19 As the Silmarillion text has it: “much of the strength and will of Sauron passed into that One Ring” (S 356). In a letter Tolkien writes that if power “is to be exercised, and produce results, [it] has to be externalized, and so as it were passes, to a greater or lesser degree, out of one’s direct control. A man who wishes to exert ‘power’ must have subjects, who are not himself” (Letters 279).

20 The control which this discourse exerts, however, is always only ambiguously total: Gollum always says that he wants the Ring for himself. Remembering his torment in Mordor, he “clenched his long hand into a bony fleshless knot, shaking it towards the East. ‘We won’t!’ he cried. ‘Not for you’” (TT, IV, i, 222); he dissuades Frodo from entering Mordor by the Morannon with “Don’t take the Precious to Him! ... Keep it, nice master, and be kind to Sméagol. Don’t let Him have it. Or go away ... and give it back to little Sméagol. Yes, yes, master: give it back, eh? Sméagol will keep it safe; he will do lots of good, especially to nice hobbits” (TT, IV, iii, 245-46). The corporeality of the power that Sauron operates can be seen (again in Gollum’s terms) to be metaphorized in the action of eating, devouring, swallowing (TT, IV, iii, 245), something that is apparent in Tolkien’s other monstrous evil figures too (like Shelob and Ungoliant). Rosebury, commenting on Wormtongue’s cannibalistic devouring of Lotho at the end, remarks that this is effective because “this mode of eating represents in ideal form the negation of others” (53). The applicability of this to Sauron is clear.

21 This status is interestingly prefigured in the text by Frodo’s description as “a tall stern shadow, a mighty lord who had hid his brightness in grey cloud” (TT, IV, i, 225.). He is already the master for Sam, which reflects another, socially coded hierarchy; and it is indeed Sam’s perspective through which we see even the prefiguration quoted above.

22 Cf. what he says when first called Sméagol, before swearing allegiance to Frodo: “Poor, poor Sméagol, he went away long ago. They took his Precious, and he’s lost now” (TT, IV, i, 223); this is one of the reasons why I called Gollum the “lost” subject above).

23 This is very much in keeping with Frodo’s emerging author-role (a continuation of Bilbo’s): Frodo’s actions at the end of the book are seen to culminate in finishing the book of the events, similarly a reconstruction of the story in another (linguistic) discourse.

24 See Gandalf’s account of his early history (FR, I, ii, 62-64).

25 See also Chance (35).

26 Cf. Chance: “the Ring appeals to the desires of the self for gold, power, and love” (28).

27 See Rosebury (45-46).

28 See also Chance (81).

29 Cf. Sam’s temptation with material but highly symbolic power: to become a gardener who revitalizes even Mordor (RK, VI, i, 177). Chance is unambiguous in calling this an “illusion of power” (31, 118); but in fact the Ring does confer some sort of power, even if it does not fulfil its visionary promises.

30 Peter Jackson’s film made from The Fellowship of the Ring contains a beautiful adaptation in the scene where we see Gandalf leaning over the Ring (lying on the floor) photographed from the Ring (as if it were the camera)—when Gandalf nearly touches it, we (and presumably Gandalf too) see it flash into the fiery Eye of Sauron.

31 See Frodo’s experience of perceptions when he puts on the Ring at Weathertop (FR, I, xi, 208) and Sam’s when he wears it at Cirith Ungol (TT, IV, x, 343-44). It is a clever narrative device on Tolkien’s part that when at the Prancing Pony Frodo accidentally slips on the Ring, nothing whatever is said of his experience (FR, I, ix, 172); this way the Ring’s sinister nature is unveiled later, and the dramatic consequences of Frodo’s action (which are more important at that moment) can be in the foreground.

32 Verlyn Flieger’s groundbreaking study of the light metaphor in The Silmarillion contains an interesting comment on the invisible world: “in terms of light, [invisibility] is not to be at all. Thus, Frodo is losing his physical self” (Splintered Light 157). As light (and thus the world made visible by it) is associated with the theological centre, Ilúvatar, the invisible world is conceived of as a counterpoint to it, and the Ring’s power is shown to wrench normal subjects from the normal (created) signifying system, diverting the normal meanings of the signs in pansemiotic Middle-earth. This, however, is somewhat called into question by the fact “those who have dwelt in the Blessed Realm live at once in both worlds” (FR, II, i, 235), which would either construct the invisible as also belonging to the signifying system (as its Other—but then even such elven-lords do not actually see Frodo wearing the Ring), or simply comment on the inherently occupied positions of power that such elven-lords automatically have in the hierarchy (they see and know, but to control they need Sauron’s expertise in ringmaking).

33 The process is described by the chief of the Nazgûl to the resisting Éowyn: “Come not between the Nazgûl and his prey! Or he will not slay thee in thy turn. He will bear thee away to the houses of lamentation, beyond all darkness, where thy flesh shall be devoured, and thy shriveled mind be left naked to the Lidless Eye” (RK, V, vi, 116). Rosebury sees Sauron’s power in the same terms: “[his] own vassals and slaves are robbed of distinct identity” (45-46); this, however, shows that identity and subjectivity are not interchangeable, and their relation is somehow problematic—no one would deny that the few orcs we get to know in some detail in The Lord of the Rings do have distinct identities. Shippey’s interpretation of the process as “wraithing”—with an admirable and ingenuous philological base (Road, 146-49)—can also come into play: the “bending,” “twisting” of the subject by Sauron’s discourse of power in fact makes it into a simple sign for Sauron instead of an autonomous subject (part of the pansemiotic world—a sign for Ilúvatar; see n.32 above).

34 Most notably the traditional images of the Gorgon and the Basilisk: see Gwenyth Hood (“Gorgon and Basilisk” 59-71). See also her comparison of Sauron and Dracula, which also has a part on the effects of the eyes and the gaze (“Sauron and Dracula” 215-30).

35 See Chance (20-25) and Patrick Curry (79). Foucault’s model of the Panopticon and technologies of power is elaborated in Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison.

36 See also Author (119, 125-26).

37 Cf. Chance (35, 120). Generally, critical treatments of Gollum do not miss the opportunity to see him as Frodo’s “other self.”

38 Cf. Chance (31).

39 Perhaps the first stage of Shippey’s “wraithing”: see n.33 above.

40 Rosebury concurs by writing that the Ring “gradually negates the particular identities of its owners, extending their lives ... but causing them to fade ... into a depersonalized wraithdom” (46).

41 Cf. Chance, “desire is part of what the Ring represents” (30).

42 See TT, IV, i, 224). Frodo, however, warns that the Ring is mischievous, and will “twist [Gollum’s] words”: the Ring is seen, even in its role as a sign authenticating a promise, as controlling discourses and meanings.

43 Cf. Rosebury: Sauron’s “service is a negation of personal autonomy” (46).

44 As the ground of identity, subjectivity becomes especially important in Tolkien when changing (Gollum, Bilbo, Frodo, Boromir), secreted (Aragorn), and misrecognized (Gandalf, Saruman) identities play crucial parts in the story. The character types in terms of subject positions (referred to in my introduction as the subjectivity continuum) play different dramatic and narrative roles, and foreground different operations, several ways of the constitution and manipulation of the subject. The further layer of identity (as defined and constructed on the types of subjectivity, as contextualized and determined by cultural embedding and discourses of power) can be a promising new step in the study of The Lord of the Rings.

45 After the Númenor catastrophe, Sauron “could never again appear fair to the eyes of Men” (S 347).

46 For a concise summary of how lack appears in the genesis of the subject in Lacan’s model, see Silverman (151-57).

Works Cited

“Becoming Gollum.” Feature article with interview with Andy Serkis. Available: http://www.lordoftherings.net/index_editorials_becomegollum.html. Access 17 Feb 2003.

Chance, Jane. The Lord of the Rings: The Mythology of Power. Revised ed., Lexington: Univ. Pr. of Kentucky, 2001.

Christensen, Bonniejean. “Gollum’s Character Transformation in The Hobbit.” In Jared Lobdell, ed. A Tolkien Compass. La Salle, Il: Open Court, 1975: 9-28.

Coward, R. and J. Ellis. Language and Materialism. Developments in Semiology and the Theory of the Subject. New York: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1977.

Curry, Patrick. Defending Middle-earth: Tolkien, Myth, and Modernity. London: HarperCollins, 1998.

Flieger, Verlyn. Interrupted Music. The Making of Tolkien’s Mythology. Kent and London: Kent State University Press, 2005.

———. Splintered Light. Logos and Language in Tolkien’s World. Rev. ed., Kent and London: Kent State University Press, 2002.

Foucault, Michel. Discipline and Punish. The Birth of the Prison. London: Penguin, 1977.

Hood, Gwenyth. “Sauron and Dracula.” In Margaret L. Carter, ed. The Vampire and the Critics. Ann Arbor, MI: UMI Research, 1988: 215-30.

———. “Sauron as Gorgon and Basilisk.” Seven 8 (1987): 59-71.

Kristeva, Julia. Powers of Horror. An Essay on Abjection. Trans. Leon S. Roudiez, New York: Columbia University Press, 1982.

Lotman, Yuri. “Problems in the typology of culture.” In Daniel P. Lucid, ed., Soviet Semiotics: An Anthology. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1977: 213–21.

Neufeldt, Victoria and David B. Guralnik, eds. Webster’s New World Dictionary of American English. 3rd college ed., Cleveland and New York: Webster’s New World Dictionaries, 1988.

Rosebury, Brian. Tolkien: A Cultural Phenomenon. New York and London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003.

Shippey, T. A. J. R. R. Tolkien, Author of the Century. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2001.

———. The Road to Middle-Earth. 3rd ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2004.

Silverman, Kaja. The Subject of Semiotics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984.

Three is Company: Novel, Fairy Tale, and Romance on the Journey through the Shire

Martin Simonson

1. The Shire and the Nineteenth-Century Blend of Novel and Fairy Tale

In The Lord of the Rings, the narrative treatment of the Shire entails a series of problems related to the question of how to integrate it into the larger universe of Middle-earth. These difficulties are to a great extent derived from the creative labors of the author, who did not know how or where the story would end when he first wrote this part of the narrative.1 The tale starts off almost casually in the Shire, the land of the hobbits, where Tolkien had left Bilbo at the end of The Hobbit several years earlier, but the story soon becomes more complicated than its predecessor. The first chapters of The Lord of the Rings clearly show the problems that arose when Tolkien realized that he needed to take the hobbits and the reader from one narrative universe (that of The Hobbit) to another (Middle-earth as presented in the greater part of The Lord of the Rings). This first part of the journey, from Hobbiton to Crickhollow, becomes an exploration of the strategies that Tolkien had to develop in order to bring the two worlds closer to each other.

The outcome of this process shows the Shire as an idealized reconstruction of a rural England prior to the Great War,2 and the literary traditions that Tolkien uses to portray this world belong fundamentally to the realm of the novel,3 especially the Victorian novel. As an example, we can clearly see the influence of Dickens’s The Pickwick Papers in Bilbo’s birthday speech4 and in the character of Sam Gamgee, who shares several features with his homonym Sam Weller (Pickwick’s servant), such as his role as quick-tongued and good-natured servant, his craftiness, his prejudices, and his general pragmatic attitude towards life. There are of course many other examples of this type of servant in Victorian literature, such as in the works of George Eliot or Elizabeth Gaskell among others, but the analogy with Sam Weller is perhaps most conspicuous since it is further enhanced by the episode taking place at The Prancing Pony, which is very similar to chapter 16 of The Pickwick Papers. At the same time, it should be noted that Tolkien was not very fond of this work (Letters 349).

Sam can also be identified with one of the prototypes of the hero’s friends in the British imperial adventure novel of the Victorian and Edwardian eras (Toda Iglesia 27),5 like those of Rider Haggard (especially Job, from She), something which could also be said of Gandalf, who initially takes on the role of the particular “helper-initiator” inherent in this genre, defined by Toda Iglesia as “the wise and powerful with fantastic and supernatural connections” (27-28).6

We also perceive touches of the narrative universe of Victorian novelists such as Thomas Hardy, George Eliot, Elizabeth Gaskell, and George Moore, particularly in the portraits of English nineteenth-century rural life in general, in the parallels to the gossipy tone of the rustic villagers found in the dialogues that take place at The Ivy Bush and The Green Dragon in Hobbiton and Bywater. The tone, setting, and atmosphere of the episode that tells of the dinner at Farmer Maggot’s house clearly recall several scenes from Far From the Madding Crowd.7 In addition, we notice an occasional humorous strain, similar to the tradition of elegant wit based on paradox and usually centered on the revelation of a cynical human nature, which was the trademark of Oscar Wilde:

“You don’t belong here; you’re no Baggins-you-you’re a Brandybuck!”

“Did you hear that, Merry? That was an insult, if you like,” said Frodo as he shut the door on her.

“It was a compliment,” said Merry Brandybuck, “and so, of course, not true.” (FR, I, i, 48)

While the hobbits travel through the Shire during daytime, their leisurely behavior is not far from that of the jolly group of traveling friends in The Pickwick Papers, but it is also close to Jerome K. Jerome’s Three Men In a Boat, another novel belonging to a similar tradition, if more straightforwardly expressed than in the pedantic diction of Dickens’s narrator. The irreverent joking of the members of the excursion is a constant feature of this part of the narrative, and the travelling as such is more like a walking holiday in the countryside than a dangerous expedition:

“All right!” said Pippin. “I will follow you into every bog and ditch. But it is hard! I had counted on passing the Golden Perch at Stock before sundown. The best beer in the Eastfarthing, or used to be: it is a long time since I tasted it.” (FR, I, iv, 97)

Part of the explanation for this lack of “seriousness” lies in the fact that the Shire is already known to us from a previous narrative–that of The Hobbit–which is much closer to the carefree and humorous tradition found in the mentioned novels, on the one hand, and that of the fairy-tale, on the other. This blend was a formula used by several well-known British writers in the nineteenth century, such as Thackeray (in, for example, The Rose and the Ring), Lewis Carroll (Alice in Wonderland), George MacDonald (The Princess and the Goblin), Andrew Lang (Prince Prigio), Oscar Wilde (The Selfish Giant), or Dickens (The Magic Fishbone), but it can also be detected in some writings belonging to the first category; stories which left out the fairy-tale on the surface level, but kept its spirit as an underlying essence. Allen (162), says that the world that Dickens evokes in The Pickwick Papers is “a world as innocent as Beatrix Potter’s ... the world of fairy tale, with the bad fairies not monstrous but absurd.”

The statement brings us straight to the core of the problem which Tolkien had to face when he wanted to move the hobbits out of the Shire and place them in the far bigger and immensely more complex narrative universe of Middle-earth. The setting that Tolkien first presented to the readers in The Hobbit, and which he later used as the starting point for The Lord of the Rings, shares many features with the blend between the nineteenth-century novel and the fairy tale.8 It is a cosy microcosm in which the monsters, as well as the other ominous elements of the greater world beyond its limits, simply do not make any sense. The absurdity of monsters in the Shire is revealed in the inflexible response to Sam Gamgee’s somewhat dreamy reflections on dragons and walking trees at The Green Dragon in Bywater:

“No thank ’ee,” said Ted, “I won’t [talk about dragons]. I heard tell of them when I was a youngster, but there’s no call to believe in them now. There’s only one dragon in Bywater, and that’s Green,” he said, getting a general laugh. (FR, I, ii, 53)

The defensive tone in the reply seems, at the same time, to acknowledge that there is a real threat implied in Sam’s mentioning of these strange phenomena. The effect of this is that the reader perceives the Shire as a momentarily safe but fragile utopia, into which darker elements may penetrate in a not too distant future. In effect, the plot will soon demand that darker elements enter this idyllic microcosm. Frodo, Sam, and Pippin will have to flee from nothing less than the Ringwraiths, Sauron’s most powerful servants, who have come to find the One Ring and will stop at nothing until they find it. They will be saved from the Ringwraiths by elves, another markedly foreign race that inhabits the greater world outside. All of this will take place within the microcosm of the Shire, made up of this nineteenth-century narrative blend of rural bliss, prosaic people, irreverent jokes, and a general fairy-tale/fable atmosphere à la Beatrix Potter or Kenneth Grahame,9 where the genuinely evil monsters and the dark side of the fantastic are out of place. Tolkien must have been acutely aware of the narrative obstacles presented by this circumstance, and he uses various strategies to carry out the delicate movement from the Shire to the exterior world, where mythic, epic, and romance narrative elements may be integrated with less friction.

In the first place, the narrator disposes of certain characters that help him modify the world of the Shire in order to make a little more room for the monsters. Bilbo is already known to us from The Hobbit, a story that has acquainted us with the idea of the hobbit-adventurer who leaves the Shire to roam unknown and dangerous parts of the world, having fantastic adventures as he goes along.10 Bilbo reminds us that the Shire is in fact a part of the much bigger Middle-earth, inhabited by a great number of strange and wild creatures, where both dangers and considerably more ceremonious and solemn cultural traits are part of the everyday life. The Ring, the most important inheritance from Bilbo’s adventures, is so prominent a theme in the first two chapters, “A Long Expected Party” and “The Shadow of the Past,” that it can almost be seen as the true protagonist of this part of the story.

In these chapters Gandalf, another important character taken from The Hobbit, talks and acts in accordance with the novelistic standards of the Shire, but he also contributes to the idea of the land of the hobbits as an exception to the “rules.” In his long digression about the Ring in the second chapter, Gandalf reminds us of a number of events from the previous narrative, such as the meeting between Bilbo and Gollum. He also informs us of the dangers implied by possessing the Ring, underlining its absolute relevance to the global conflict between the great forces that operate in Middle-earth.

Frodo is a new character, but he is significantly associated with the Ring from the first chapter, when he inherits it from Bilbo. Apart from Frodo’s initial identification with the Ring, Tolkien presents him as an unusual, restless, sensitive hobbit, not fully integrated into the lifestyle of The Shire.11 For this reason, the antecedent of Bilbo, the association with the Ring, and the personality of Frodo make the reader expect the appearance of some sort of unusual adventure related to his person.

Last but not least we have Sam Gamgee, Frodo’s gardener. Sam is one of the most novelistic characters of the whole story, but he has been absorbing Bilbo’s adventure stories ever since he was young, and he is eager to become acquainted with the mysteries of the world beyond the borders of the Shire. He ventures to question the limits of the prosaic local vision of his countrymen in the scene at The Green Dragon in which he tries to talk to Ted Sandyman about dragons and walking trees. His father, not quite pleased with this tendency, has already said of him:

“Crazy about stories of the old days he is, and he listens to all Mr. Bilbo’s tales. Mr. Bilbo has learned him in letters—meaning no harm, mark you, and I hope no harm will come of it.

“Elves and Dragons! I says to him. Cabbages and potatoes are better for me and you. Don’t go getting mixed up in the business of your betters, or you’ll land in trouble too big for you, I says to him.” (FR, I, i, 32)

Tolkien presents us with a split attitude towards reality: the prosaic, which seemingly comes from Sam’s upbringing (typical of the Shire) as well as his class; and the open-minded, which admits the possible existence of certain phenomena regarded as supernatural by the people of the Shire (typical of Bilbo).

Collectively, the characters of Bilbo, Gandalf, Frodo, and Sam confirm the possibility of high adventure and the inclusion of dark, fantastic elements in a narrative that starts off in a nineteenth-century blend of bourgeois fairy tale and humorous and rural novels, in a community marked by a narrow-minded concern for material interests and respectability.

However, Tolkien uses more narrative elements than just characters to help him render coherence to the presence of the darker and “grander” elements that anticipate the wealth of the exterior world. My analysis of the inter-traditional literary dialogue in this part of the story will focus on the strategies that Tolkien uses to integrate romance elements into the nineteenth-century blend, as together with the reader the hobbits move along the road that leads towards the rest of Middle-earth.

2. The Black Riders in the Shire

The limited power and competence of the Black Riders as agents of Sauron during their sojourn in the Shire has been the subject of both hostile and reconciliatory critical approaches.12 From my point of view, none of these approaches has yielded a very satisfactory explanation. At this stage of the story, the Black Riders seem almost incompatible with the powerful and terrible creatures we come across further on in the narrative, and this incongruity is not easily accounted for. C. N. Manlove (181), in his characteristically naïve analysis of Tolkien’s works, attributes this inefficiency of the Black Riders to sheer incompetence on behalf of the author, arguing that Tolkien is unable to stick to his initial narrative propositions, while Tom Shippey (105) admits somewhat apologetically that they are less powerful here than in any other part of Middle-earth, adding laconically that “[i]t seems likely that … Tolkien found the transit from familiar Shire to archaic Wilderland an inhibiting one.”

Tolkien himself tries to explain the initial weakness of the Riders in one of his letters, stating that they have an intrinsically limited physical power over the brave, and that their real strength lies in the fear they inspire in their victims. In the same letter, Tolkien also claims that the Witch King of Angmar could not be as powerful at this stage of the story as he later would become (in RK), alluding to the transformational effects taking place when Sauron gives him the military command over the troops, something which would render him an additional, demonic force. (Letters 272).

This argument sounds very much like a reconstruction with the benefit of hindsight; an attempt at rationalizing the intuitive narrative strategies the author employed when trying to fit the Black Riders into the narrative zone of the Shire. In the first place, even if it would be true that the Ringwraiths should become more feeble the further away from Mordor they come, hence making their limited power in the Shire coherent with their conception, it still would not make much sense that Sauron should send a pack of ghosts with limited physical power over the brave to recover something as supremely important as the One Ring. A more credible scenario, given Sauron’s pragmatic ruthlessness, would put another kind of malevolent warrior on display; someone as implacable as the Black Riders but more inconspicuous, cunning, and subtle, for instance the ambassador who appears in the chapter “The Black Gate Opens,” especially as we know that Sauron disposes of such subalterns.

For my part, I believe that the reason for the weakness of the Black Riders in the Shire is due to the initial uncertainty of the author when he first launched the hobbits out of the Shire and into the exterior world. At first, Tolkien believed that he was writing a sequel to The Hobbit, but to his surprise, his narrative world had changed since he last visited it and he found himself immersed in a far darker, vaster, deeper and wider world than the fairy-tale atmosphere that haunted the version of Middle-earth in the earlier narrative would give room for. The progressive discovery of this “new” world would eventually lead him on over many hundred pages and culminate in the narrative we today know as The Lord of the Rings, but the fact remains that Tolkien did not know where the road would lead him when he wrote the first drafts of the initial episode, and this includes the later role of the Black Riders. During the subsequent re-elaborations of the text that took place once the whole manuscript was finished, he must have become aware of the problems the Riders entail as powerful and supernatural beings within the boundaries of the Shire. This was probably the reason why he decided not to elevate them to their full status as the most powerful agents of the Dark Lord until the third book, leaving the original descriptions of them much as they were. However, even in this “lighter” version their presence becomes a serious narrative challenge, the demands of which Tolkien meets with not a little skill.

Thomas J. Gasque considers that the Black Riders are presented ambiguously at first, “so that we have believed in them as real men before they are confirmed as Wraiths” (155). This point of view is a more fruitful starting point than the opinions we have seen earlier, although it does not explain all the facets of the problem, as we shall see.

From the chapter “Three Is Company” on there is a significant change in the narrative, due to the narrator’s shifting focus, which is now directed towards a more romance-oriented perception of reality.13 In order to achieve a balanced and coherent dialogue between novel and romance, the narrator frequently makes use of what we might call “light effects.” When the chapter begins, the narration is firmly rooted in the characteristic blend between the nineteenth-century humorous and rural novel and the fairy tale, the narrative trademark of the Shire, with a narrator putting an ironic emphasis on the gossipy inclination of the villagers:

One summer’s evening an astonishing piece of news reached the Ivy Bush and Green Dragon. Giants and other portents on the borders of the Shire were forgotten for more important matters: Mr. Frodo was selling Bag End, indeed he had already sold it—to the Sackville-Bagginses! (FR, I, iii, 75)

Shortly after, Gandalf leaves the Shire and Frodo waits in vain for his return. Finally, he decides to begin his journey without the wizard, accompanied by Sam and Pippin. After finishing his last dinner at Bag End, Frodo goes for a short walk in the neighbourhood. Night is falling, and the progressively weakening light affects Frodo’s perception of his home:

The sun went down. Bag End seemed sad and gloomy and dishevelled. Frodo wandered round the familiar rooms, and saw the light of the sunset fade on the walls, and shadows creep out of the corners. (FR, I, iii, 78)

The description is a clear anticipation of the first appearance of a Black Rider, a few lines later. Significantly, in this first encounter, Frodo can only vaguely hear the voice of the Rider, which intuitively seems to him “strange” and “unpleasant,” and it is a relief to him to hear the footsteps move down the road, away from Bag End. The first description of the twilight brings about this strangely threatening atmosphere, closer to romance than to the novel, based as it is on purely subjective impressions in turn affected by an almost supernatural sensibility, pushing the narrative from the daylight realm of order and familiarity towards the chaotic, fearful and uncontrolled landscapes of the night.14 A moment later, Frodo tries to rationalise his instinctive fear, turning back toward his familiar house where he meets Sam Gamgee, with whom he talks in a way that once more recalls the interaction between Pickwick and his servant Sam Weller:

“Sam!” he called. “Sam! Time!”

“Coming, sir!” came the answer from far within, followed soon by Sam himself, wiping his mouth. He had been saying farewell to the beer-barrel in the cellar.

“All aboard, Sam?” said Frodo.

“Yes, sir. I’ll last for a bit now, sir.” (FR, I, iii, 79).

The journey begins. The narrator holds the romance elements in check by sticking to the nineteenth-century narrative blend in the meticulous descriptions of the landscape and the exact chronology of the events. These are mixed with a certain inclination towards the fable and the fairy tale, as in the use of parenthesis and the sudden, seemingly uncalled-for focalisation on behalf of a fox watching the sleeping hobbits as he passes by (FR, I, iii, 81).15

The next meeting with a Black Rider will alter this atmosphere once more. This time, the appearance of the Rider does not take place at dusk or at night (though it is hinted at when the narrator mentions that the sun is on its way down).16 Nevertheless, its mere presence produces an uncanny reaction in Frodo, who, motivated by his fear, feels an almost irresistibly strong need to put the Ring on his finger. As Gasque observes in the quotation above, the description of the Rider is thoroughly ambiguous:

Round the corner came a black horse, no hobbit-pony but a full-sized horse, and on it sat a large man, who seemed to crouch in the saddle, wrapped in a great black hood and cloak, so that only his boots in the high stirrups showed below; his face was shadowed and invisible.

When it reached the tree and was level with Frodo the horse stopped. The riding figure sat quite still with its head bowed, as if listening. From inside the hood came a noise as of someone sniffing to catch an elusive scent; the head turned from side to side of the road. (FR, I, iii, 84, my emphasis)17

On the one hand, the narrator describes the Rider as a man, but on the other, the person is shrouded in mystery, hidden under his clothes with his face concealed. In the following paragraph, the Rider is referred to as a “figure,” while the sniffing sound and the head turning from side to side (not his or her, but its head, as if the creature were sexless or belonged to the animal world) leave us with an uncertain impression as to the Rider’s identity, making us ask ourselves whether we are dealing with a man or an animal, or perhaps a monstrous combination of both. The threatening atmosphere is very much present in this scene, and the almost supernaturally motivated fear that Frodo feels for the Rider makes us associate the black color of the clothes with its symbolic significance: violence, death, and evil.18

The fact that these symbolic associations are more immediate here than those of, for example, the grey color of Gandalf’s cloak in the scene describing his arrival at Hobbiton in the first chapter,19 indicates the degree to which the appearance of the Black Riders adds a strong flavor of the romance tradition to the narrative, as well as the necessity to construct a dialogue to fit in this new element. However, it is also important to notice that the descriptions are still ambiguous. Tolkien offers a dialogue between the novel and the romance traditions which ends with a return to the territory of the novel. We are not convinced of the human characteristics of the Rider, but nothing in the descriptions clearly indicates that he should belong completely to the realm of the supernatural. Rather, the description shows something—a man, a strange animal or perhaps something else—which at any rate is markedly foreign to normal hobbit experience: the Ringwraith is “dressed up” as a person because of the need to adapt him to the narrative zone of the Shire. At the same time, the description leaves a clear romance mark on the narrative.

It is Sam who brings the narrative back to the novel tradition when he retells his father’s conversation with the Black Rider at Bag End (the same conversation that Frodo barely overheard before leaving), providing a new point of view that underlines the human potentiality of the Black Rider:

What sort of a fellow was he? says I to the Gaffer. I don’t know, says he; but he wasn’t a hobbit. He was tall and black-like, and he stooped over me. I reckon it was one of the Big Folk from foreign parts. He spoke funny. (FR, I, iii, 85)

As a result of tossing the Rider back and forth between possible interpretations, the ambiguity of the figure is still present, but as Sam’s father is given the last word, our final interpretation is inclined towards a novel-conceived reality.

The next time the Rider approaches the hobbits, night has already fallen and a pale “unearthly” starlight makes the descriptions of the landscape less precise. At this occasion, Tolkien does not insist on the ambiguity of the Rider, whose human characteristics are considerably toned down:

The sound of hoofs stopped. As Frodo watched he saw something dark pass across the lighter space between two trees, and then halt.… The black shadow stood close to the point where they had left the path, and it swayed from side to side. Frodo thought he heard the sound of snuffling. The shadow bent to the ground, and then began to crawl towards him. (FR, I, iii, 88, my emphasis)20

In this description, the stress falls on the infra-human characteristics of the Rider, emphasising the threatening sensation and an animal-oriented behaviour. The Rider is no longer mounted on his horse, it is not only the head but the whole body that turns from side to side, the verb “sniff” is changed for “snuffle”; and when the figure moves it “crawls” over the ground towards Frodo. Again, the influence of the weak light guides the narrative toward romance paradigms, revealing, even if it is only partially, the monster that resembled a human being during the day.

The repeated apparitions of the Black Rider during the first stage of the journey, the ambiguity of the descriptions and the threatening atmosphere brought about by his presence also recall the mysterious knight who appears time and time again before Ralph, the hero of William Morris’s The Well at the World’s End, in the first chapters of that book. However, this prose romance is closer to the romance tradition and does not engage in dialogue with the novel—and even less with the nineteenth-century blend we have mentioned—in the same way as The Lord of the Rings.

3. The Elves in the Shire

Luckily for the hobbits, dusk is also an adequate atmosphere for the introduction of more benevolent romance beings, such as the elves. When Gildor Inglorion arrives a moment after the re-appearance of the Black Rider, the descriptions suddenly acquire far more positive symbolic associations, such as the songs,21 the laughter, and the light in the eyes and around the feet of the elves. In accordance with novelistic rules of probability, Frodo justifies the presence of the elves by explaining to the others that they (the elves) sometimes cross this part of the Shire. However, the facts are that the reader is witnessing the first instance of what Tolkien calls “eucatastrophe.” Given the arbitrary character of such miraculous turns of events, this must be excluded from one of the basic premises of the realist novel, namely that of credibility. Both improbable coincidences and a miraculous saving grace play an important part in the structural framework of romance narratives in general,22 and the fact that the narrator feels obliged to justify their presence denotes the still strong novelistic influence on the events taking place in the narrative zone of the Shire, even in its nocturnal, more “romance-friendly” version.

The elves as such are also related to the tradition of medieval romance. Shippey (55-65) concludes that the medieval poem Sir Orfeo is the text that inspired Tolkien the most when creating the elves, while at the same time acknowledging many other analogues to romance narratives, such as Pearl and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and their presence substantially modifies the narrative towards these domains. The gratuitous appearance of an “adventure,” the indistinct landscape of medieval romance and the elves’ slightly archaic diction—“we too are only tarrying here a while, ere we return over the Great Sea” (FR, I, iii, 89)—all contribute to the general influence of romance paradigms on the narrative, which from this moment on becomes a mélange of the romance and novel traditions. This mixture is born out of the tension between the elves, the night, and the monstrous enemy, on the one hand, and the hobbits and the Shire—even in its nocturnal shape—on the other.

As a result, Sam and Pippin, a lot more novelistic in attitude and conception than Frodo, become more difficult to integrate in this environment, and the efforts of Pippin to adapt his speech to that of the elves sound artificially forced: “‘O Fair Folk! This is good fortune beyond my hope,’ said Pippin. Sam was speechless” (FR, I, iii, 90).23 Pippin’s comment shows that a basically novelistic character cannot suddenly alter his natural speech in accordance with the diction of another tradition without considerable friction. If this radical change in tone has not been previously prepared for by means of an efficient narrative transition of some sort, such a clash is doomed to seem incongruous. In terms of the inter-traditional dialogue, we may consider Pippin’s intervention an “arrested intruder,” given that it reflects a romance influence on his person which is not incorporated into the dialogue with sufficient narrative fluency. One of the reasons for this failure is that his sudden reverential attitude and formal speech do not match his previous assimilation of romance elements—as opposed to Frodo, Pippin has up until this moment been consistently immune to any tradition alien to the blend of the nineteenth-century novel and fairy tale.

The hobbits are invited by Gildor to join the elves, and they walk together to a glade in the woods. During this night time walk, the narrator suggestively combines vague and exact descriptions in his constant references to a concrete geography, at the same time omitting any specifications regarding distances and the chronology of events. The novel/romance mélange persists in the subsequent conversation between Gildor and Frodo, during the course of which the hobbit manages to keep his discourse on a level above the colloquial tone he has employed in his interaction with Sam and Pippin, but without yielding totally to the ceremonious diction of romance. Gildor not only uses a more archaic speech than Frodo, but he also explicitly acknowledges the possible influence of the hand of fate on their encounter:

“In this meeting there may be more than chance; but the purpose is not clear to me, and I fear to say too much.”

“I am deeply grateful,” said Frodo, “but I wish you would tell me plainly what the Black Riders are. If I take your advice I may not see Gandalf for a long while, and I ought to know what is the danger that pursues me.”

“Is it not enough to know that they are servants of the Enemy?” answered Gildor. “Flee them! Speak no words to them! They are deadly. Ask no more of me! But my heart forebodes that, ere all is ended, you, Frodo son of Drogo, will know more of these fell things than Gildor Inglorion. May Elbereth protect you!”

“But where shall I find courage?” asked Frodo. “That is what I chiefly need.” (FR, I, iii, 94).

In this dialogue we notice the difference in attitude towards reality shown by Frodo, on the one hand, and Gildor, on the other: while the words of the elf are shrouded in mystery and have an air of vagueness about them, expressing irrational beliefs, such as forebodings based on intuition, Frodo wishes to find out concrete things, for practical purposes. A romance attitude is mingled with a novelistic impulse, firmly rooted in a tangible reality, and we do not perceive any clear direction in this dialogue.

This mélange, in which romance elements are given more room than before, is not in any way opposed to the nineteenth-century blend of novel and fairy tale that conforms to the daylight version of the narrative zone of the Shire; rather does it act as a logical extension of it. The integration of the idea of destiny and forebodings in the framework of a rural novelistic narrative set in a nineteenth-century milieu is not a new one; it has an antecedent in Thomas Hardy, whose novel Far From the Madding Crowd we have already mentioned as a possible source of inspiration for certain aspects of the Shire (though it must be said that there is no evidence that Tolkien ever read Hardy).

In this context, it is interesting to notice that E. M. Forster considers that Hardy puts an excessive emphasis on the element of causality: “the flaw running through Hardy’s novels [is that] he has emphasized causality more strongly than his medium permits” (90). The comment—which could also be applied to other nineteenth-century writers about rural life, such as Emily Brontë or Nathaniel Hawthorne (though the latter portrays rural New England)—suggests that Hardy breaks with what Forster perceives as a fundamental premise of the realist novel, namely that of presenting a plausible portrait of people whose lives depend both on circumstance and chance, rather than one based on other grounds (whether in the shape of a divinely defined, and hence predestinate, plan for the course of events or the overarching influence of a plot-centred narrative in which the characters conform to the story rather than the other way around).

The use that Tolkien makes of the idea of destiny, taking its presence into account while not fully acknowledging it as the supreme controlling force, likewise moves the narrative toward the periphery of the realm of the novel, but, as in the cases of Hardy, Hawthorne, and Brontë, without obliterating its influence. This is an important part of the process that creates the mélange between novel and romance in this episode. The outcome is a narrative zone which, being compatible with the daylight version, can act as a mediator between the Shire and the outside world, preparing the reader for what is to come in later chapters.

The next day, the elves have disappeared and we are back in the daylight version of the narrative zone of the Shire. Accordingly, Pippin is given plenty of room to exhibit his most irreverent joking side, including comments that could have been taken straight out of Three Men in a Boat—“I didn’t want to leave you any [food], but Sam insisted”—and he harasses Frodo with questions related to purely practical issues, such as the route to follow. Frodo, however, is still stunned by the nocturnal meeting with the elves and seemingly needs more time to assimilate the shift back to the carefree holiday atmosphere which surrounds the hobbit excursion in the daytime.

After dismissing Pippin, Frodo turns to Sam, with whom he spends some time talking about the elves. Only after this is he allowed to be drawn back toward the narrative territory of the novel, mainly through the renewed conversation with Pippin. During the ensuing dialogue between romance and novel, the romance aspects of Frodo gradually fade as the novel paradigms become more dominant.

The rest of the journey through the lands of the Shire remains anchored in the nineteenth-century blend reaffirmed in the episode with Farmer Maggot, a character whose diction, behavior and local knowledge shows a marked resemblance to the portraits of farmers in Hardy and other rural novelists of the era. Nightfall alters the narrative once more towards romance standards, though the narrator allows himself to play a cheap trick on the credulous hobbits (and the readers, by now), based on a limited perception of reality produced by the darkness and the fog, having Merry appear in the shape of a Black Rider. This false concession to romance brings the narrative dangerously close to the satirical devices used by Jane Austen in Northanger Abbey, in which the author ridicules the conventions of the gothic novel by having apparently supernatural phenomena rationally explained. This trick would have pushed the delicate balance between romance and novel (which, as I have argued, is essential to the construction of the Shire as a narrative zone) too far towards the territory of the novel and the satire if it had not been counterbalanced by the reminder that the danger, though “supernatural,” is at least potentially real. This is shown by the sudden appearance of a real Black Rider on the opposite side of the river a few moments later.

At the same time, the fact that Tolkien does include the joke in the first place shows just how deep into the territory of the nineteenth-century blend of novel and fairy tale the narrative has delved. In the next chapter we find the hobbits comfortably settled in a bourgeois cottage, bathing, chatting, singing and dining in the carefree spirit of the Pickwickians, Jerome’s holiday-goers, or the animals in Grahame’s The Wind in the Willows.

The opinion of Gasque, who emphasises the credulity of the hobbits, and above all that of Sam, as the key to the reader’s acceptance of the elves, is just a part of the intricate fabric of narrative strategies that Tolkien had to weave in order to integrate these elements into the narrative zone of the Shire (155). More important is the lingering influence of the first drafts of this part of the story, when Tolkien still thought he was writing a sequel to The Hobbit. The subsequent revisions make the narrative zone of the Shire, largely inherited in spirit from the first story, fit into a larger literary chronotope dominated by the mélange between earlier narrative traditions, such as myth and epic.24

Romance, whether in the shape of the adventure novel, the pseudo-medieval novels of Morris, the gothic novel or the original nineteenth and early twentieth-century fairy tales and fables, proved an efficient narrative vehicle to put traditions in dialogue. Tolkien would later exploit this further for the incorporation of new traditions, as in the episode of the Old Forest and the Barrow Downs, when the narrative engages in a dialogue with myth, and in Bree, when the reader and the hobbits arrive at the threshold of the epic world. It is possible that the problem of how to integrate the Black Riders and the elves in the narrative microcosm of the Shire triggered his discovery and later use—conscious or not—of romance as the most eloquent mediator between the different narrative traditions that take part in the narrative dialogue in The Lord of the Rings.

Notes

1 The best book to understand the creative process behind the writing of this part of the story is, naturally, The Return of the Shadow. Christopher Tolkien’s annotated transcription of the original manuscript, together with the successive revisions, reveal that the author of The Lord of the Rings did not know from the start what would happen to his main characters, nor where they were headed. See also Letters (216-17).

2 See Shippey (102-3), and Letters (235).

3 See Forster (29-31) on the relationship of the novel with “life in time.” Segura, however, considers that time in the Shire passes slowly and leisurely, in an almost unreal and idyllic way (187). To a certain extent, the Shire is also similar to the “chronotope of the provincial town,” defined by Bakthin as “the town of the petite bourgeoisie that, with its repetitive way of life, is a frequently used setting for novels written in the nineteenth century.… Nothing ever happens in this type of town, apart from the repetition of ‘ordinary’ events.… Day after day, the same ordinary things and conversations take place” (398). My translation is from the Spanish. See also Bobes Naves (179-80).

4 Looking at two fragments from these two works will make our point clearer. The first one is taken from Bilbo’s birthday speech, together with the responses from his audience, which Tolkien describes in the following way: “I hope you are all enjoying yourselves as much as I am. Deafening cheers. Cries of Yes (and No).… The noise subsided. I shall not keep you long, he cried. Cheers from all the assembly” (FR, I, i, 37). Dickens portrays Pickwick’s initial discourse in a similar way: “He (Mr Pickwick) would not deny, that he was influenced by human passions, and human feelings, (cheers)—possibly by human weaknesses—(loud cries of “No”); but this he would say, that if ever the fire of self-importance broke out in his bosom the desire to benefit the human race in preference, effectually quenched it” (Dickens 17). One of the major differences between these two works is the somewhat distanced and ironic presentation of Pickwick on behalf of the narrator, whereas the narrator of The Lord of the Rings displays a much more respectful attitude towards Bilbo (even if it is not wholly deprived of irony). On the similarities between Dickens and Tolkien, see Nelson (145-49).

5 This type of couple is also present in other emblematic representatives of the novel tradition, such as Don Quijote and Sancho Panza in Cervantes’s famous novel, or Tom Jones and Partridge in Fielding’s, but the relationship between Frodo and Sam is closer to the treatment of these “types” in the Victorian and Edwardian adventure novels. Regarding The Lord of the Rings as “an adventure story in the Edwardian mode,” see Lobdell (1-24).

6 “[L]os sabios y poderosos con conexiones con lo extraordinario y sobrenatural” (Toda Iglesia 27-28). The translation is mine. In this study, Toda Iglesia explains the main features of the relationship between the hero and his friends in the British nineteenth-century adventure novel.

7 For example, the episode that relates Gabriel Oak’s arrival at the village where the woman he loves keeps her farm, and his conversation with the locals at the inn (Hardy 46-43). Allen’s opinion (244) about the narrative universe of Hardy’s novels is also interesting in that it shows the similarities with Tolkien’s attitude towards past and present: “[P]erhaps it is on the word story telling that the emphasis should fall. Of current theories of realism he was highly critical.…[He] turned to the primitive oral tale.… Acutely, painfully aware of the modern world as he was, he looked back to the past and summed up in his fiction a life that was dying when he was a child, a life cut off from the main stream of national life, more primitive, more pagan.”

8 Segura’s article, “Tolkien, el narrador de historias: la evolución de la voz narrativa desde El Hobbit a El Señor de los Anillos,” provides a useful introduction to the narrative strategies Tolkien employs in order to carry out the transition from the fairy tale world (of the Shire) to the more majestic, epic sceneries of the outside world (Segura and Peris 217-37). See also Segura (129-30). For a more detailed and precise explanation of the term “fairy-tale,” or “fairy-story,” as Tolkien saw the genre, see “On Fairy-stories.”

9 We know that Tolkien appreciated both Beatrix Potter (MC 117-18) and Kenneth Grahame (Letters 90). Tolkien considered that most of Beatrix Potter’s stories belong to a genre somewhere between the fable and the fairy tale, and that it is their inherent morality that brings them close to the latter category. A combination of novelistic rules of credibility and nineteenth-century fairy tale, such as the one we find in the opening chapters of The Lord of the Rings, would fall closer to Tolkien’s definition. As for Kenneth Grahame, the influence of The Wind in the Willows can also be seen in the episode taking place in the Old Forest, which is very similar to chapter 3 (“The Wild Wood”) of Grahame’s fable.

10 Shippey talks of Bilbo as having two essential sides, saying that he “knows almost nothing about Wilderland, and cannot even skin a rabbit, being used to having his meat ‘delivered by the butcher, ready to cook.’” Yet he has a place in the ancient world too, and there is a hint that (just like us) all his efforts cannot keep him entirely separate from the past.” Shippey concludes that Bilbo has “not entirely lost his passport into the ancient world, and can function in it as our representative, without heroic pretensions but also without cynical ironies” (71-72).

11 See Segura (190). Bobes Naves (180) also points out that the hero’s self-imposed alienation from his fellow countrymen is a typical feature of novels set in provincial towns (the most famous example of how this chronotope can be used in the novel is found in Flaubert’s Madame Bovary). Frodo himself admits that “there have been times when I thought the inhabitants too stupid and dull for words, and have felt that an earthquake or an invasion of dragons might be good for them” (FR. I. ii, 71). In this way, in the Shire Frodo is portrayed as a character with certain affinities to romance—being associated with the realm of the fantastic thanks to the Ring—but also to novel paradigms, especially in his attitude towards the world that surrounds him and towards “truth,” as we shall see.

12 See Manlove, Shippey, Gasque, and Letters.

13 For introductory studies on the perception of reality in romance literature, see Vinaver, Stevens, and Beer. The common idea is that the treatment of space and time is subordinated to the experiences of the protagonist, and that reality is often presented as dreamlike and vague; space becomes a scenery in which rational perception fades, and time is split up in fragmentary, unconnected moments (Vinaver 5).

14 Night is related to “chaos, death, regression, anxiety, secular fear” and it is “a symbolic realm full of monsters” (De Paco 323). My translation.

15 Segura underscores the similarities between The Hobbit and this part of The Lord of the Rings, making references to the episode with the fox and the use of parenthesis, which are more appropriate for a narrator of fairy tales (Segura and Peris 129-30).

16 In the first draft, this scene begins in the middle of a sentence, without previous reference to space and time (Shadow 47). The fact that the final draft presents us with a scene taking place at nightfall might be due to a significant change in the text: in the first draft, it is Gandalf who appears on the horse. Only when the Black Rider had been substituted for the wizard, did Tolkien indicate the references to dusk and night, perhaps as a means of preparing the appearance of the Black Rider with a “romance-friendly” ambience.

17 The emphasis is mine. It is interesting to notice that in the first draft, in which it is Gandalf who appears on the horse, he too is ambiguously presented. The subsequent modifications altered the initial descriptions, making the horse black instead of white, the man upon it large and not small, and eliminating the description of an actual nose that appears from within the hood, sniffing (Shadow 48, 54).

18 It is also interesting to notice that Miller (283), when discussing the figure of the “Black Knight” in the epic and romance traditions of the Scandinavian and Germanic north, says that in these traditions, black “also marks … the monster, who is simultaneously made black, anomalously shaped, and inhumanly hideous.”

19 See FR, I, i, 33. On the one hand, Gandalf does not only wear grey: his hat is blue, and his scarf is silver. On the other hand, the wizard arrives in plain daylight and he is welcomed by hobbit-children.

20 My emphasis. This description is identical to that of the first draft (Shadow 48).

21 Concerning songs and declamations of poetry in The Lord of the Rings, Segura considers that they function as an interlacement of the different cultural traditions that exist in Tolkien’s imaginary world (122). Gildor’s song doubtlessly contributes to enhancing the dialogue between novel and romance. Regarding the elves and their relation to the romance treatment of space and time (see note 13), all through The Lord of the Rings, the episodes in which elves play a prominent role bring about some sort of distortion in ordinary perception of space and time (in the Shire, Rivendell and Lórien), paving the way for transcendental experiences. In the Shire, where the narrative mélange novel/romance does not permit any major deviations in either direction, these experiences are reduced to mere sensations, as when Sam, the day after meeting the elves, seems to lack words to describe what he feels about them.

22 Stevens divides the fantastic elements in romance narratives into four categories: the exotic; the mysterious; the strictly magic (the marvellous controlled by man); and the miraculous (the marvellous controlled by God) (4). Eucatastrophe leans close to the last category, albeit without any explicit mention of any divine influence over the course of the events.

23 In the original draft, this comment belongs to Bingo (later Frodo), and not to Odo (Pippin) (Shadow 60).

24 Segura considers that Tolkien, when writing this part of the narrative, realized that it was necessary to eliminate the authoritative and impersonal tone of the omniscient narrator that he had begun with. This is shown in the progressive evolution of the style, from the nineteenth-century blend of the rural/humorous novel and fairy-tale/fable of the first chapters, towards the prose romance that comes to dominate the narrative once the hobbits arrive at Bree (125).

Works Cited

Allen, Walter. The English Novel. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1971

Bakhtin, Mikhail. La Teoría y Estética de la Novela. Trans. Helena Kriukova and Vicente Cazcarra. Madrid: Taurus, 1989 [First published 1975].

Beer, Gillian. The Romance. London: Methuen, 1977 [First published 1970].

Bobes Naves, María. La Novela. Madrid: Síntesis, 1993.

De Paco, Albert. Diccionario de Símbolos. Barcelona: Editorial Optima, 2003.

Dickens, Charles. The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club. London: Penguin Books, 2003 [First published 1836-37].

Forster, E. M. Aspects of the Novel. London: Edward Arnold, 1963 [First published 1927].

Gasque, Thomas J. “Tolkien: the Monsters and the Critters.” In Tolkien and the Critics: Essays on J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. Neil D. Isaacs and Rose A. Zimbardo, eds. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1968. 151-63.

Hardy, Thomas. Far From the Madding Crowd. London: Penguin Books, 2000 [First published 1874].

Lobdell, Jared. The World of the Rings: Language, Religion, and Adventure in Tolkien. Chicago and La Salle, IL: Open Court, 2004.

Manlove, C. N. Modern Fantasy: Five Studies, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978 [First published 1975].

Miller, Dean A. The Epic Hero, Baltimore, MD: John Hopkins University Press, 2000.

Nelson, Dale. “Little Nell and Frodo the Halfling,” Tolkien Studies, volume II (2005): 145-49.

Segura, Eduardo. “Tolkien, el Narrador de Historias: La evolución de la voz narrativa desde El Hobbit a El Señor de los Anillos.” In Tolkien o la Fuerza del Mito, by Eduardo Segura and Guillermo Peris, eds. Madrid: LibrosLibres, 2003.

———. El Viaje del Anillo. Barcelona: Minotauro, 2004.

Shippey, Tom. The Road to Middle-earth, rev. and exp. ed. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2003.

Stevens, John. Medieval Romance: Themes and approaches. London: Hutchinson University Library, 1973.

Toda Iglesia, María Ángeles. Héroes y Amigos: masculinidad, imperialismo y didacticismo en la novela de aventuras británica, 1880-1914. Salamanca: Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca, 2002.

Vinaver, Eugéne. The Rise of Romance. Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 1984 [First published 1971].

Beowulf as Fairy-story:Enchanting the Elegiac in The Two Towers

Richard W. Fehrenbacher

Though scholars have long noted that the languages of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Rohan and Anglo-Saxon England are pretty much identical, they have until recently hesitated to examine other parallels between the fictional and historical cultures—or for that matter, between The Lord of the Rings and Anglo-Saxon literature.1 I suspect this reluctance stems at least partly from Tolkien’s own claim that his use of the Anglo-Saxon language in The Two Towers did “not imply that the Rohirrim closely resembled the ancient English otherwise, in culture or art, in weapons or modes of warfare, except in a general way”2 (RK, VI, Appendix F, 414), and it is true that even a less-than-rigorous reading of the The Lord of the Rings will reveal any number of anachronisms and inconsistencies that defeat easy allegorical translations of Third Age Rohan into, say, eighth-century Mercia. However, as Tom Shippey has noted in his J.R.R. Tolkien: Author of the Century, upon more careful examination Tolkien’s “merely” linguistic appropriation of Anglo-Saxon England in The Lord of the Rings appears to “[run] very deep” (91).

Shippey argues that the Rohirrim present a specific “image of Englishness—Old English, of course” (91) and that this “Old Englishness” stems from not just a linguistic but also a literary source: “the underlying model for much of what [The Riders of Rohan] do and how they behave is furthermore perfectly obviously the Old English epic of Beowulf”(94). I would like to extend Shippey’s examination of the similarities between The Two Towers and Beowulf—which he mostly limits to a convincing demonstration of the close parallels between the treatment of the fragmented Fellowship upon its arrival at Edoras and Beowulf’s at Heorot.3 I’d suggest that the Rohan episode’s parallels with Beowulf run even deeper; that in fact the Fellowship and Beowulf step into strikingly similar situations. In both, an elderly king barely manages a precarious grip upon his throne; in both, the king is possessed of a nephew perceived (at least by some) as treacherous and potentially usurping; in both, a close female relative of the king’s is married to a neighboring lord; in both, the kingdom’s borders are troubled by threats of war the king cannot adequately address.

These similarities have been mostly overlooked due to some equally striking differences. For example, unlike Beowulf’s Denmark, in Tolkien’s Rohan there lurk no monsters. Though such creatures are not far to seek in most of Middle-earth, no grimma gæst stalks the moors surrounding Meduseld. Since Grendel, his mother and the dragon serve as Beowulf’s primary antagonists and their attacks provide most of the narrative impetus for Beowulf, their absence from the Riddermark tends, I think, to obscure the similarities between the texts. Of course, another significant difference between the works is how these initially unpromising situations resolve themselves. For Beowulf’s Danes, doom beckons. The Geatish hero’s epic fortitudo cannot save Hrothgar from senescence or Heorot from flames, nor can it prevent the “ambiguous”4 Hrothulf from ascending (perhaps illegitimately) to the Danish throne or the peace woven by Freawaru’s marriage from unraveling. Indeed, Tolkien saw Beowulf as “an heroic-elegiac poem . . . all its first 3,136 lines are a prelude to a dirge” (MC 31). In the Lord of the Rings, however, the similarly unpromising state of Rohan is somehow redeemed. The Fellowship rescues Théoden from dotage and reconciles him to his nephew Éomer, Saruman’s encroaching orcs are defeated, and Éowyn (after escaping the attentions of Gríma) marries Faramir in a nuptial that cements the previously wary alliance of Gondor and Rohan.

Of course, any attempt to address the similarities between Beowulf and The Two Towers should probably attempt to account for the differences, and I think that both can best be understood by turning to two of Tolkien’s essays: the classic and well-known “Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics” and the less well-known but no less important “On Fairy-stories.” As Verlyn Flieger has noted, these two essays are “the keys to [Tolkien’s] mythology.”5 They are certainly, I think, the keys to understanding how Tolkien rewrites Beowulf in The Two Towers.

Tolkien’s “Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics” is probably better known amongst scholars for what is taken to be its staunchly New Critical stance than what it actually suggests about the monsters that inhabit the work.6 In the essay, Tolkien asserts that Beowulf expresses a “Northern” pre-Christian worldview. This view derives quite heavily from W. P. Ker’s take on the Norse pantheon in The Dark Ages, which Tolkien quotes approvingly in his essay:7

“The Northern Gods,” Ker said, “have an exultant extravagance in their warfare which makes them more like Titans than Olympians; only they are on the right side, though it is not the side that wins. The winning side is Chaos and Unreason”—mythologically, the monsters—“but the gods, who are defeated, think that defeat no refutation.” (MC 21; Tolkien’s emphasis).8

Although Beowulf’s epic heroism allows him to defeat Grendel and his mother, such triumphs cannot forestall ultimate loss, and even the gods themselves, ensnared by temporality and as fated as any man, can offer no way to transcend a universe at whose ultimate and impenetrable horizon stand the twinned monsters of “Chaos and Unreason.” At day’s end there remains nothing but Death and the only redemption facing it down with what Tolkien called “northern heroic spirit” (MC 21).

However, Tolkien also recognizes that Beowulf is the work of a Christian, and that by the time of Beowulf’s composition the “pre-Christian” worldview outlined above had been superceded by a Christian one in which “the tragedy of the great temporal defeat remains for a while poignant, but ceases to be finally important. It is no defeat, for the end of the world is part of the design of Metod, the Arbiter who is above the mortal world. Beyond there appears a possibility of eternal victory (or eternal defeat)” (MC 22). Nevertheless, Tolkien also insists that this shift from a pagan to a Christian point of view “is not yet complete in Beowulf,” and that the poem’s essentially elegiac tone remains.

However, as Shippey has noted, “Tolkien wanted all his life to bring together the Christian religion in which he devoutly believed, and the relics of the pre-Christian beliefs of his ancestors embedded in the literature which he spent his professional life studying” (Author 259). Thus while Tolkien no doubt felt a great degree of admiration for the stark heroic conception of “northern courage” that flavors Beowulf, I think he felt less for its relentlessly elegiac tone, and in his rewriting retained the poem’s heroic elements while de-emphasizing its elegiac ones. For while moments of loss and failure and chaos and unreason certainly occur in the The Lord of the Rings, the story nevertheless ends in victory, however qualified. I would like to suggest that in the Rohan episodes of The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien attempts to transform what he saw as the doomed and monstrous world of Beowulf’s northern paganism into a victorious and hopeful one by employing his theory of Fantasy as outlined it in his essay “On Fairy-stories.” Just as Tolkien’s movement from the Beowulf essay to “On Fairy-stories” is, as Verlyn Flieger notes, a “turn from dark to light” (21), so too is his turn from Heorot to Rohan in The Two Towers.

According to Tolkien, writing a fairy-story entails the creation of a consistent and believable Secondary World out of the materials of the Primary World of reality. This is, he notes, a difficult task that “will certainly demand a special skill, a kind of elvish craft.” Tolkien suggests that this “elvish craft” “may perhaps most nearly be translated by Magic—but it is magic of a peculiar mood and power, at the furthest pole from the vulgar devices of the laborious, scientific, magician” (MC 114). In order to differentiate these two types of Magic, he grants the more powerful, less vulgar and scientific one the rubric of Enchantment, which “. . . produces a Secondary World into which both designer and spectator can enter, to the satisfaction of their senses while they are inside; but in its purity it is artistic in desire and purpose . . .To the elvish craft, Enchantment, Fantasy aspires” (MC 143). In short, Saruman employs Magic; Gandalf creates Enchantment.

These definitions of course beg a question—if the technique of magic is used to “dominate things and wills” what then is the vague “artistic purpose” of Enchantment? Tolkien’s answer comes in the final section of his essay, where he asserts that Enchantment offers readers (and writers) Recovery, Escape, and Consolation. According to Tolkien, “Recovery (which includes return and renewal of health) is a re-gaining—regaining of a clear view.” Thus “we should meet the centaur and the dragon, and then perhaps suddenly behold, like ancient shepherds, sheep, and dogs, and horses—and wolves. This recovery fairy-stories help us to make” (MC 146). Since the Secondary Worlds of Fantasy are “made out of the Primary World” one of Enchantment’s effects is to defamiliarize the quotidian, to make it strange, and by doing so to allow us to recognize the wonderful in what unfortunately has become to us mundane.

The recovery of a clear view thus allows us to Escape, however conditionally, from not only the minor annoyances of the modern world, but also “things more grim and terrible” like “hunger, thirst, poverty, pain, sorrow, injustice, death” (MC 151).

But the most important function of the fairy-story is Consolation, which Tolkien finds in what he calls “The Consolation of the Happy Ending”:

In its fairy-tale—or other-world—setting, it is a sudden and miraculous grace: never to be counted on to recur. It does not deny the existence of dyscatastrophe, of sorrow and failure; it denies (in the face of much evidence, if you will) universal defeat and in so far is evangelium, giving a fleeting glimpse of Joy, Joy beyond the walls of the world, poignant as grief. (MC 153).

Like the consolation of philosophy, the consolation of the happy ending offers an alternative to what Tolkien saw as the Beowulfian vision of a world ruled by capricious wyrd, offering at least the possibility of some joyous resolution of life’s travails that lies beyond the troubled realm of the temporal.

Though what Tolkien calls the eucatastrophe’s “sudden and miraculous grace” might not “be counted on to recur,” it plays a large part in The Lord of the Rings, so much so that I’d suggest the work’s major narrative trope is the eucatastrophe. Throughout the story, Tolkien’s fellowship is thrust into daunting, seemingly hopeless episodes from which miraculous rescues are effected. Just a few examples would include Tom Bombadil’s rescues of the hobbits, Frodo’s escape from the Black Riders at Rivendell, Gandalf’s resurrection after his duel with the Balrog, the last-minute relief of the besieged garrsion at Helm’s Deep, the sudden appearance of the Riders of Rohan at the Siege of Gondor and the Army of the Dead before the Battle of Pelennor Fields, and Sam and Frodo’s rescue by eagles on the slopes of Mount Doom. There are many more, of course, and by design, I think. The recurring eucatastrophic trope is a large part of what I see as Tolkien’s project: the project of writing the great fairy-story in the form of The Lord of the Rings.

In the rest of this paper, I would like to demonstrate how Tolkien works this enchantment in the Rohan sections of The Two Towers, sections replete with allusions to and borrowings from Anglo-Saxon texts, especially Beowulf. However, in his text Tolkien banishes the monsters of Beowulf—those heroic-elegiac symbols of inescapable Chaos and Unreason—and employs “the essential attributes of the Fairy-story” to “enchant” both the land of Rohan and the text of Beowulf. This allows him to rewrite what he saw as the heroic but ultimately doomed pre-Christian worldview of Beowulf in order to allow for the eucatastrophe, the happy ending denied the Danes but central to Tolkien’s project in The Lord of the Rings.

The reason that Rohan does not become Heorot is because aid arrives not in the form of the heroic Beowulf, but rather in that of the Fellowship—made up here of a legendary lost king in disguise, an Elf, and a Dwarf (and soon to include a wizard). Tolkien thus employs this fantastical Fellowship to introduce enchantment into the elegiac and prosaic realm of Rohan—a land, to be sure, full of horse-riding warriors, but notably bereft and fearful of enchantment. By doing so he turns a heroic tale of loss into a fairy-story of Recovery, Escape and Consolation. Throughout the Rohan episodes, the “strangeness” and “elvishness” of the Fellowship repeatedly sponsors a recovery of a clear view, an escape from Saruman’s magic (and the elegiac worldview), and a series of eucatastrophic happy endings that contrast quite starkly with the unhappy resolutions of Beowulf.

The enchantment of Rohan begins with the Fellowship’s first meeting with the Riders. Though this encounter begins with the same words as Beowulf’s to the Danish coastguard—“Hwæt syndon ge?”9 in Beowulf, “Who are you, and what are you doing in this land?” in The Lord of the Rings—they play out quite differently. Beowulf satisfies the coastguard’s suspicions by demonstrating his familiarity—he is a Geat, he replies, the son of Ecgtheow returning to Heorot in order to aid Hrothgar with his Grendel problem. Though Beowulf’s bearing initially impresses the coastguard, it is actually his familiarity that wins him passage to Hrothgar’s hall. In The Two Towers, on the other hand, the Fellowship’s “arresting strangeness” (MC 143) is emphasized. The Fellowship’s introduction to the Riders occurs when Aragorn, Gimli, and Legolas, in hot pursuit of the Uruk-Hai who have abducted Merry and Pippin on the plains of Rohan, spot the Riders from a distance. They hide and allow Éomer’s patrolling horsemen to pass by, only to reveal themselves suddenly to the unsuspecting Riders. Initially, the sight of the Fellowship unsettles the Rohirrim, who suspect their “strangeness” and “elvishness.” Indeed, Éomer at first thinks them orcs—products of Magic (something the Riders, through their dealings with Saruman, are familiar with) rather than Enchantment. But Éomer quickly recognizes that

there is something strange about you, Strider.” He bent his clear bright eyes again upon the Ranger. “That is no name for a Man that you give. And strange too is your rainment. Have you sprung out of the grass? How did you escape our sight? Are you elvish folk?” (TT, III, ii, 34)

It is significant that the two adjectives Éomer uses to describe Aragorn are “strange” and “elvish,” for it is just these qualities that Tolkien emphasizes in “On Fairy-stories” when defining Enchantment: it is an “elvish craft” that we know by its “arresting strangeness.” It is also worth noting that the Fellowship at first escapes the Riders’ sight. This is the first of many episodes that underline Rohan’s initial blindness to enchanted beings and its eventual “recovery of clear sight.” This recovery repeatedly occurs in Rohan due to the Fellowship’s ability to inspire “wonder,” which is precisely the effect Tolkien sees as sponsoring the recovery and escape offered by the fairy-story. In these passages, the Primary World of unenchanted Rohan (and Beowulf) is brought into contact with the Secondary World of the Fellowship (and the Lord of the Rings); Fantasy results, along with Recovery, Escape, and Consolation.

However, the Riders initially distrust the members of the Fellowship—and even more the concept of Enchantment, which they see as Magic. For example, when Aragorn mentions to the Rohirrim that the Fellowship has spent time in Rivendell with Galadriel, Éomer shows himself not quite capable of discerning Enchantment from Magic: “Then there is a lady in the Golden Wood, as old tales tell,” he said. “Few escape her nets, they say. These are strange days! But if you have her favor, then you are also net-weavers and sorcerers, maybe” (TT, III, ii, 35). Indeed, Éomer is only convinced—and enchanted by—the Fellowship when Strider reveals himself to be Aragorn—the fantastic Númenórean version of the prosaic ranger Strider:

Éomer stepped back and a look of awe was in his face. He cast down his proud eyes. “These are indeed strange days,” he muttered. “Dreams and legends spring to life out of the grass.” (TT, III, ii, 36)

Of course, this is precisely the point of Tolkien’s essay—in fairy-stories, dreams and legends do spring to life out of grass. The primary world of Rohan and the secondary world of legendary Middle-earth represented by the Fellowship are not incompatible, and when a Rider scoffs at Aragorn’s mention of Halflings, dismissing them as “only a little people in old songs and children’s tales out of the North,” and asking, “Do we walk in legend or on the green earth in the daylight?,” Aragorn’s answer comes straight out of “On Fairy Stories”—“A man may do both . . . The green earth, say you? That is a mighty matter of legend, though you tread it under the light of day!” (TT, III, ii, 37) . After all, as Tolkien suggests:

Faërie contains many things besides elves and fays, and besides dwarfs, witches, trolls, giants, or dragons: it holds the seas, the sun, the moon, the sky; and the earth, and all things that are in it: tree and bird, water and stone, wine and bread, and ourselves, mortal men, when we are enchanted. (MC 113)

After parting from Éomer’s troop, Aragorn and his companions unexpectedly encounter Gandalf, whose transformation from Grey to White is of course yet another example of fairy-story eucatastrophe. The reunited members of the Fellowship then make their way to Edoras, only to find it in an elegiac state worthy of Beowulf. For example, upon arrival in Edoras, Aragorn recites a poem of Rohan “in a slow tongue unknown to the Elf and Dwarf; yet they listened, for there was strong music in it.” After hearing the poem, Legolas judges that “it is like to this land itself; rich and rolling in part, and else hard and stern as the mountains. But I cannot guess what it means, save that it is laden with the sadness of mortal men” (TT, III, vi, 112). When Aragorn translates the poem into Common Speech, we hear that it is, in fact, a sort of paraphrase—down to its ubi sunt motif—of one of Anglo-Saxon England’s most famous elegies, The Wanderer. Of course, the elegiac “sadness of mortal men” is precisely what the ubi sunt motif takes for its theme, and to Tolkien this marks the ultimate limit of unenchanted Rohan’s literature (and Beowulf’s Weltanschauung), which does not or can not conceive of the eucatastrophic ending. Beautiful and stern Rohan and its people and poetry may be, but they are also as doomed as the Danes of the “heroic-elegiac” Beowulf unless they are enchanted.

The enchantment of Rohan continues when the Fellowship arrives at Edoras. Interestingly, Tolkien had originally planned for the door guards at Edoras to address the Fellowship in Anglo-Saxon and “strongly ‘Beowulfian’” terms. Their initial words very closely echo those of the coast-watcher’s in Beowulf— “Hwæt sindon ge, lathe oththe leofe, the thus seldlice gewerede ridan cwomon to thisse burge gatum?” (“Who are ye, friends or foes, that have come thus strangely clad riding to the gates of this town?”) (Treason 442, 449)

In Edoras, as on the plains of Rohan, the Fellowship’s appearance is met with “wonder.” Upon seeing them, the Rohirrim are suspicious: “Wonder was in their eyes but little friendliness” (TT, III, vi, 112), and even Háma the Doorward is taken aback as “Wonder . . . came into [his] eyes”(TT, III, vi, 114). Slowly, however, the guards begin to recognize the Fellowship for what it is: “The guard stepped back and looked with amazement on Aragorn. ‘It seems that you are come on the wings of song out of the forgotten days’” (TT, III, vi, 115).

This enchantment culminates when the Fellowship meets with the magicked Théoden. Like Hrothgar, Théoden is presented as old—“so bent with age that he seemed almost a dwarf”(TT, III, vi, 116), and attended by a troublesome advisor—Unferth in Hrothgar’s case, Gríma in Théoden’s. Gríma, we will discover, is not only troublesome, but also an agent of Saurman’s, and thus a representative of magic—that alteration of the primary world whose “desire is power in this world, domination of things and wills.” In Beowulf, Unferth taunts Beowulf for his alleged lack of prowess in his swimming-match against Breca. However, in The Two Towers Gríma mocks Gandalf and the Fellowship for failing to bring to Edoras precisely what Beowulf brought to Heorot. “Do you bring men? Do you bring horses, swords, spears? That I would call aid; that is our present need. But who are these fellows at your tail? Three ragged wanderers in grey, and you yourself the most beggar-like of the four!” (TT, III, vi, 118). These four wanderers, however, are creatures of Faërie, and to Tolkien the aid they bring is much more powerful than horses, swords, and spears. Indeed, they bring something more powerful than Beowulf’s thirty-man strong grip, which, however excellently it dispatches monsters, cannot offer recovery or escape or consolation. What they can offer is enchantment, and it is through Gandalf’s enchantment that Théoden will recover his clear sight, escape the clutches of Saruman, and achieve the consolation of the happy ending that Beowulf can not. Gandalf saves Théoden not through heroic deeds of bravery and strength—as Gríma recognizes and fears, it is his staff, that well-known symbol of Enchantment, that will restore Théoden. This enchantment allows Théoden to “regain clear sight”—the passage detailing his enchantment begins with Théoden sitting in shadows, and the scene lightens progressively until Théoden once again sees his realm, and his situation, clearly. In the end, he recognizes that, although his “eyes were almost blind,” “it is not so dark” (TT, III, vi, 120).

Still, Théoden’s awakening also allows him to perceive the danger of his situation—as Tolkien suggests, the recovery of clear sight allows us to see wolves as well as dogs. In lines again alluding to Beowulf, Théoden despairs that fire will consume Meduseld. This is indeed what happens to Heorot—as the Beowulf poet tells us almost immediately after recounting the construction of the hall:

Sele hlifade

heah ond horngeap, heaðowylma bad

lathan liges; ne wæs hit lenge þa gen

þæt se ecghete aþumsweorum

æfter wælnniðe wæcnan scolde (81-4)

The hall towered high,

cliff-like, horn-gabled, awaited the war-flames,

malicious burning; it was still not the time

For the sharp-edged hate of his sworn son-in law

To rise against Hrothgar in murderous rage (Chickering 53).

Heorot will burn; Meduseld, however, still stands at the end of The Lord of the Rings. Again, this is because the events which lead to Heorot’s destruction—the usurpation of the throne by Hrothgar’s nephew Hrothulf and the disastrous marriage of Freawaru to Ingeld—remain merely threats in The Lord of the Rings, where they are averted through the power of enchantment.

Though Théoden is restored by Gandalf’s enchantments, there still remain loose ends in Rohan. Most importantly, Théoden must make peace with his nephew—his sweostorsunu—Éomer. In Beowulf, Hrothulf, the son of Hrothgar’s brother Halga (the “good”) is suspected, at least by some scholars—and by Tolkien, who refers to Hrothulf as “ambiguous”—as eventually turning against his uncle and usurping the throne from Hrothgar’s son Hrethric.10 This treachery, however, does not occur in The Two Towers. After Théoden is restored by enchantment, Gandalf’s first advice is that he be reconciled with his nephew. Théoden returns Éomer his sword, and he uses it to fight with him against Saruman’s orcs. In Rohan, there will be no usurpation, nor even the suspicion of one. Théoden himself recognizes Éomer as his son and heir, and upon Théoden’s death, the crown passes to Éomer.

Nor will there be an ill-fated marriage. In Beowulf, upon his return to the land of the Geats, Beowulf informs Hygelac, his king, that King Hrothgar intends to marry his daughter Freawaru to the Heathobard king Ingeld, probably in order to forestall Ingeld’s revenge upon the Danes for the murder of his father Froda. Early in the text of Beowulf, a scop at Hrothgar’s court alludes to the story of the Fight at Finnsburh, in which the marriage of Hildeburh to Finn could not erase the hatreds fostered by an earlier blood-feud or prevent the deaths of her son and her brother Hnæf. Beowulf sees Hrothgar’s attempt to make Freawaru a freoffiuwebbe, “peace weaver,” as similarly hopeless. In a stark and sad passage, Beowulf imagines a scene at feast attended by both the Danes and Heathobards. An older retainer urges on a young warrior to take his revenge on the man who killed his father, peace-weaver or no. He does, and

þonne bioð [ge]brocene on ba healfe

aðsweord eorla; syððan Ingelde

weallað waelniðas, ond him wiflufan

æfter cearwælmum colran weorðað.

þy ic Heaðo-Beardna hyldo ne telge,

dryhtsibbe dæl Denum unfæcne,

frëondscipe fæstne. (ll. 2063-69)

Then, on both sides, broken like swords,

the nobles’ oath-swearing once deadly hate

wells up in Ingeld; in that hot passion

his love for the peace-weaver, his wife, will cool.

So I count it little, the Heathobard’s loyalty,

Friendship so firm, peace-sharing with the Danes.

Think it less than the truth. (Chickering 170-71).

In Beowulf, the institution of freoffiuwebbe never prospers.11 The failures of Freawaru and Hildeburh seem to indicate that it is a doomed convention, that in the heroic-elegiac world the futile machinations of man cannot undo the inherent antipathy each bears another outside the realm of the tribe. However, in The Lord of the Rings, such a catastrophe is averted. Though in The Two Towers there is no direct equivalent of Freawaru’s and Ingeld’s marriage, Wormtongue’s desire for Éowyn does evoke the possibility of a “bad marriage” to a belligerent neighbor. After Théoden’s recovery, we learn that Gríma’s reward for betraying Théoden and Rohan was to have been marriage to Éowyn, Théoden’s niece. It would not have been a happy union for Rohan, as is revealed in Gandalf’s interrogation of Gríma :

“Down on your belly! How long is it since Saruman bought you? What was the promised price? When all the men were dead, you were to pick your share of the treasure, and take the woman you desire? Too long have you watched her under your eyelids and haunted her steps.” (TT, III, vi, 124)

After escaping the attentions of Wormtongue, Éowyn falls in love with Aragorn, who rejects her. Though she is wounded in love and battle, she finds herself transformed when Faramir proclaims his love for her—“Then the heart of Éowyn changed, or else at last she understood it. And suddenly her winter passed, and the sun shone on her” (RK, VI, v, 243). The marriage of Faramir and Éowyn results in a renewed alliance between Gondor and Rohan. At their “trothplighting,” Éomer, now king after Théoden’s death at the battle of Pelennor Fields, proclaims “Thus . . . is the friendship of the Mark and of Gondor bound with a new bond, and the more do I rejoice” (RK, VI, vi, 255). In Beowulf, the institution of freoffiuwebbe fails and the Heathobards and Danes fight each other. In The Lord of the Rings, it does not, and Rohan and Gondor fight together:

And where ever King Elessar went with war King Éomer went with him; and beyond the Sea of Rhûn and on the far fields of the South the thunder of the cavalry of the Mark was heard, and the White Horse upon the Green flew in many winds until Éomer grew old. (RK, VI, Appendix A, 352)

Enchantment also saves the Fellowship and Rohan throughout their battles in Middle-earth. In Beowulf and such poems as the Battle of Maldon, battles are fought bravely and to the death but also end in defeat. Similar defeats threaten Rohan and the West throughout The Lord of the Rings. For example, after Théoden’s recovery, things still look bad for Rohan. Upon taking the field with his men, Théoden meets with a Rider who has been fighting the orcs with Erkenbrand. His report is not encouraging: “We were overmastered. The shield-wall was broken. Erkenbrand of Westfold has drawn off those men he could gather towards his fastness in Helm’s Deep. The rest are scattered” (TT, III, vii, 132). The phrase “the shield-wall was broken” is from the Battle of Maldon (l. 242), and while it evokes that poem’s “northern courage,” it is also a reminder of defeat. Just such a defeat seems a real possibility when Théoden and the Rohirrim find themselves besieged by hordes of orcs at Helm’s Deep. In the sort of glorious but desperate last-gasp gesture that Tolkien saw as characteristic of Old English heroic-elegiac verse, Théoden and Aragorn prepare for a final charge against the orcs. However, at Helm’s Deep as at Maldon, such heroic gestures alone cannot save the day. But enchantment can. Eucatastrophe arrives in the form of Gandalf and those quintessential creatures of the Secondary World, the Ents:

“Behold the White Rider!” cried Aragorn. “Gandalf is come again!”

“Mithrandir, Mithrandir!” said Legolas. “This is wizardry indeed! Come! I would look upon this forest, ere the spell changes. (TT, III, vii, 147)

In The Lord of the Rings, unlike The Battle of Maldon and Beowulf, there will be victory, and this victory will be achieved not through the mere heroism that Tolkien admired but found wanting in the epics and sagas of his beloved “northern” literature, but also through enchantment, which offers throughout The Lord of the Rings precisely the eucatastrophic moments that Tolkien saw as essential to the fairy-story.

Thus I would suggest that the Rohan episodes in The Lord of the Rings are not just an allusive tip of the hat to Tolkien’s beloved Anglo-Saxon epic. They are, I think, a part of Tolkien’s larger project in The Lord of the Rings, which attempts to recover and transform what he viewed as the heroic but doom-ridden and pagan texts of the medieval saga and epic traditions. Along with the Riders of the Mark, in these episodes Tolkien’s narrative moves from elegy to eucatastrophe, from epic to fairy-story, from Beowulf to The Lord of the Rings.

Notes

1 The first extended examination of Tolkien’s debt to Anglo-Saxon literature is Tom Shippey’s seminal The Road to Middle-earth. Recently, essays on this topic have appeared in two collections. Jane Chance’s Tolkien the Medievalist, for example, contains Miranda Wilcox, “Exilic Imagining in The Seafarer and The Lord of the Rings” (133-54). Tolkien and the Invention of Myth, also edited by Jane Chance, includes Michael D.C. Drout “A Mythology for Anglo-Saxon England” (229-48); John R. Holmes, “Oaths and Oath Breaking: Analogues of Old English Comitatus in Tolkien’s Myth”, (249-62); and Alexandra Bolintineanu, “On the Borders of Old Stories”: Enacting the Past in Beowulf and The Lord of the Rings” (263-73).

2 In his letters, Tolkien again emphasizes Rohan’s exclusively linguistic debt to Anglo-Saxon England “‘Anglo-Saxon’ is not only a ‘fertile field’, but the sole field in which to look for the origin and meaning of words or names belonging to the speech of the Mark . . . outside this restricted field reference to A.S. is entirely delusory” (Letters 381).

3 “In the epic Beowulf and his men are challenged by a Danish coastguard, who hears what they have to say, makes his own decision to let them pass, and escorts them to the hall of King Hrothgar itself. Here he leaves them, to be met again by a doorwarden, who keeps the visitors outside till he has gone in and reported their arrival to the king; he then comes back, invites them in, but tells them firmly to leave their weapons outside: ‘Let the battle-shields wait here . . .’ Beowulf then goes in, to be greeted by the king, but then, shortly after, to be challenged and indeed insulted by the king’s consellor, who ‘sat at the feet of the lord of the Scyldings.” All this is exactly what happens in The Two Towers” (94).

4 This is Tolkien’s term for the controversial Hrothulf. See B&C (50, 94).

5 As Flieger points out, “In the Beowulf essay, dark heavily outweighs light; the heroes go from light into dark and down to defeat. In the fairy-story essay, light is victorious; joy triumphs over sorrow” (12-13).

6 For an account of critical reactions to the essay, and the “New Criticism” controversy, see Michael Drout’s “Introduction” in B&C.

7 This view of a sort of pan-Germanic pre-Christian ideology has been challenged most recently and powerfully by A. G. Stanley in his Imagining the Anglo-Saxon Past.

8 The issue of paganism’s survival in Anglo-Saxon texts is a vexed one, as is the issue of its appropriation by romantic and nationalist (and national socialist) ideologies. See, for example, E. G. Stanley; Peter North, Heathen Gods in Old English Literature; and Christine Chism “Middle-earth, the Middle Ages, and the Aryan Nation” in Jane Chance, ed. Tolkien the Medievalist (63-92).

9 Beowulf l.235. All quotations of Beowulf are from Beowulf: An Edition, ed. Bruce Mitchell and Fred C. Robinson. Interestingly, Tolkien originally planned for the door guards at Meduseld to address the Fellowship in Anglo-Saxon and “strongly ‘Beowulfian’” terms.

10 Hrothulf’s treachery is still taken as a given by many scholars, even though some have recently questioned it. See, for example, Kenneth Sisam, The Structure of Beowulf (35-43, 80-2) and Gerald Morgan, “The Treachery of Hrothulf” (23-39). For a recent argument asserting Hrothulf’s treachery, see Sam Newton, The Origins of Beowulf and the Pre-Viking Kingdom of East Anglia (77-104). Tolkien himself seems to have thought Hrothulf a bit inscrutable, and at least potentially dangerous. He thus describes Beowulf’s flyting with Unferth as “depicting Beowulf and his character as a proud, highspirited, young man, and of bringing part of his earlier history before us, at the same time relating it and interlinking it cunningly with the large and ominous background against which we now see him: the great court of Heorot, the ambiguous figure of Hrothulf, and the sinister figure of the evil counselor Unferth” (B&C 50, 94).

11 The controversy over the role of the freoðuuwebbe in Anglo-Saxon literature is recounted in Gillian R. Overing, "The Women of Beowulf: A Context for Interpretation," in The Beowulf Reader: Basic Readings, ed. Peter S. Baker (219-269).

Works Cited

Bolintineanu, Alexandra. “‘On the Borders of Old Stories’: Enacting the Past in Beowulf and The Lord of the Rings.” In Tolkien and the Invention of Myth, edited by Jane Chance. Lexington, KY: University of Kentucky Press, 2004.

Chance, Jane. Tolkien the Medievalist. New York: Routledge, 2003.

Chickering, Howell D. Jr. Beowulf: A Dual Language Edition. Garden City, NY: Anchor Press, 1977.

Chism, Christine. “Middle-earth, the Middle Ages, and the Aryan Nation.” In Tolkien and the Invention of Myth, edited by Jane Chance. Lexington, KY: University of Kentucky Press, 2004.

Drout, Michael D.C. “A Mythology for Anglo-Saxon England.” In Tolkien and the Invention of Myth, edited by Jane Chance. Lexington, KY: University of Kentucky Press, 2004.

Flieger, Verlyn. Splintered Light. Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1983.

Holmes, John R. “Oaths and Oath Breaking: Analogues of Old English Comitatus in Tolkien’s Myth.” In Tolkien and the Invention of Myth, edited by Jane Chance. Lexington, KY: University of Kentucky Press, 2004.

Mitchell, Bruce and Fred C. Robinson, eds. Beowulf: An Edition. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1998.

Morgan, Gerald. “The Treachery of Hrothulf,” English Studies 53 (1972).

Overing, Gillian R. “The Women of Beowulf: A Context for Interpretation.” In The Beowulf Reader: Basic Readings, edited by Peter S. Baker. New York: Garland Publishing, 2000.

Shippey, Tom. J.R.R. Tolkien: Author of the Century. London: HarperCollins, 2000

Shippey, Tom. The Road to Middle-Earth.London: Allen and Unwin, 1982.

Stanley, E. G. Imagining the Anglo-Saxon Past. Boydell and Brewer, 2000.

Newton, Sam. The Origins of Beowulf and the Pre-Viking Kingdom of East Anglia. Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 1993.

North, Peter. Heathen Gods in Old English Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1997.

Sisam, Kenneth. The Structure of Beowulf Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1965.

Tolkien, J.R.R. The Monsters and the Critics and Other Essays, edited by Christopher Tolkien. London: George Allen & Unwin, 1983.

Wilcox, Miranda. “Exilic Imagining in The Seafarer and The Lord of the Rings.” In Tolkien the Medievalist, edited by Jane Chance. New York: Routledge, 2003.

Barbarians and Imperialism in Tacitus and The Lord of the Rings

James Obertino

The strongest current in Tolkien studies rightly connects him to northern literature and languages; in fact, some scholars, Tom Shippey and Jane Chance among them, focus entirely on the northern roots of Tolkien’s fantasy. This paper, while recognizing the importance of the northern connection, takes a different tack, joining those few discussions which have noted The Lord of the Rings’ filiations with the Latin language and Roman literature. That Roman literature should influence Tolkien is not surprising, since he remarked on his love of Latin (Letters 376) and read Classics at university.1 As a man of his times, Tolkien may also have been influenced by the Victorian and Edwardian fascination with the Roman Empire. Born in 1892, Tolkien lived at a time in which many British writers viewed their empire in terms of the Roman Empire.2 Although the influence of Virgil on parts of The Fellowship of the Ring has been commented upon, the influence of Tacitus on The Lord of the Rings has, as far as I know, not yet been discussed (Morse). Tolkien, with his strong interest in early northern European literature, may have felt a natural affinity for Tacitus. While Tacitus’ aim in writing the Germania is arguable, the text does provide a cultural survey of Germanic tribes, and some of the Annals, a history of Rome that combines political, military, and social history, shows the German tribes at war with Rome. In addition, Tolkien shares with Tacitus, who thought that history has a moral purpose (Annals 3.65), a strong moral vision that sees the world and the process of history largely in terms of heroes and villains. Thus, each writer’s depictions of strange, outlander peoples often have a moral resonance. Tolkien follows Tacitus in showing both good and bad barbarians. Just as Tacitus shows that Germanicus and other Roman generals, even as they battle hostile tribesmen, are helped by barbarian auxiliaries in the service of Rome, so in accomplishing his mission, Frodo is both aided and impeded by various peoples who are not Hobbits and whose ways and even appearances are often quite different from the folk of the Shire. These peoples may fairly be termed barbarians, in the Latin sense of people who are from barbaria, a foreign country. This paper argues that some strong parallels of themes and episode suggest the influence of Tacitus upon Tolkien in descriptions of exotic peoples and their territories, as well as some similarity in their views of imperialism, even though Tacitus for the most part favors it and The Lord of the Rings shows the insidious workings of Sauron’s aggressive expansion against other peoples in terms suggesting Roman imperialism. Tacitus’ discussions of the Germans, both in The Annals and the earlier Germania, may influence Tolkien’s portrayals of some of the exotic peoples who inhabit Middle-earth, Orcs as well as Woses, Dwarves and even Elves. Furthermore, Tacitus’ account in The Annals of the expedition of Germanicus into Germany after the loss of Varus and his legions may well be one of the sources for the journey of Frodo’s company to and through Moria.

Tacitus in Germania implies a hierarchy among the German tribes. The very best of the Germans in Tacitus’ view are the Chauci, who though adept at warfare, show little aggression against their neighbors. The Chatti, Arminius’ tribe, are admirable for their vigorous courage, their discipline, and, for Germans, Tacitus remarks, unusual intelligence and sagacity (30). Both these tribes contrast strongly with their neighbors, the ineffectual and passive Cherusci, deemed cowards and fools (36). The most primitive tribe of all is the Fenni, whose condition is not much above the animals (46). With a stronger sense of hierarchy than Tacitus, The Lord of the Rings shows clear degrees of intelligence and even spiritual excellence among the exotic peoples—a quality little emphasized by Tacitus, and not surprising in the work of a medievalist and conservative Roman Catholic. Tolkien thus places the Elves at the very top of the free peoples. Below Elves are Hobbits (little people) as well as standard-sized Homo sapiens (big people), below them the irascible Dwarves, and at the very bottom, the Woses. Elves, Dwarves, and Woses all live in places corresponding to their levels within the hierarchy. The spirited and spiritual Elves appropriately dwell in the golden treetops of Lorien, while the acquisitive, imperialist Dwarves prefer the sunlessness of mines, and Woses enjoy the somnolent darkness of deep forests. Below all these, and hostile to them, are the Orcs, the evil race who serve Sauron.

Despite preferring some tribes to others, Tacitus is nothing if not nuanced in his understanding of the northern barbarians. Sometimes he praises their freedom and nobility and sometimes he despises them for their cruelty and filth. He is among the first to imply the category of the noble savage, but not surprisingly, he also finds ferocious savages among the Germans. Tolkien draws upon Tacitus in depicting both the admirable and debased peoples that Frodo encounters. Tacitus’ idealized barbarian provides one of the sources for Tolkien’s portrait of the Elves. Tolkien’s Woses, neither idealized nor vicious, may also be based on some of Tacitus’ ideas about the Germans, in both their love of liberty (History 4.64) and their inertia and sorditudo, their sloth and squalor (Germania 15, 20).3 The opposite of the noble savage is the vicious savage. Tacitus’ descriptions of ferocity among the Germans may well influence Tolkien’s portrait of the Orcs, who excel in hatred and anger, even among themselves. Their mutual animosity recalls odium sui, the intertribal hatred Tacitus attributes to the Germans (Germania 33). Like the Germans, Orcs are both filthy and good fighters. Both groups commit atrocities, honoring neither human nor divine laws (Annals 2.14).

Clear analogues exist between Tacitus’ descriptions of German tribal territories and homes and Tolkien’s depiction of both of these for the Elves. Tacitus remarks that the tribes, compelled by mutual fear, suspicion, and enmity, live some distance from one another (Germania 1, 33). Even within a tribe, the Germans prefer dwellings well apart; their dispersal, Tacitus believes, is emblematic of liberty (Germania 1, 16). While there is no hint that the territories of the Elves are dispersed because they fear each other, their demesnes are in fact widely separated. Rivendell is some days’ march from Hollin, and Hollin is a long way from Lothlórien. There is no huge elven nation state, and the smallness of each elven land is part of the charm of Elves, even as the smallness of the Shire helps make the Hobbits attractive. While Tacitus is a Roman imperialist, Tolkien generally prefers the small and apparently weak over the great and powerful, not surprising in terms of Tolkien’s faith and Paul’s remarks in First Corinthians 1.27: “God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty.” The most obvious representative of the mighty and powerful in The Lord of the Rings, the nearest analogue to imperial Rome, is Sauron’s cruel and expansionist imperium.

Resisting foreign aggression, whether by Rome or Sauron, German tribes and the Elves share some common characteristics. Brave and effective combatants like the Germans, and like them a forest people, Tolkien’s Elves are the most spiritual, and thus the freest, of the free peoples. Tolkien shows the Elves of Lorien in arboreal domiciles in groves of golden trees, perhaps influenced by Tacitus who emphasizes that the Germans are tribes of forest people. The Elves of Lorien are so spiritual that the forest in which they live is itself a sacred temenos, recalling the groves the Germans consecrate to the gods (Germania 9). A further mark of elvish spirituality is their relative lack of interest in wealth. Elves, like Tacitus’ Germans, have no gold or silver mines, and while the trees of Lorien are golden, the gold is vegetable, not mineral. In this, Elves contrast strongly with the mithril-loving Dwarves who dig deep into the ground. The hostility the Germans feel for those of different tribes Tolkien captures in the animosity between Elves and Dwarves, each a free people, yet at odds because of an ancient feud. Unlike Tacitus’ uncouth Germans or Tolkien’s irascible Dwarves, Elves are a beautiful people with silvery voices and courteous ways, and, as Spurr remarks, idealization and estheticization are typical in the depiction of the noble savage (125-28).

Savage, but somewhat ignoble, and at the bottom of Tolkien’s hierarchy of free peoples are the Woses, the Wild Men of the Woods. They paradoxically share some of the Elves’ values, as well as some of the Orcs’ traits. Like Tacitus’ Fenni, the Woses are half animal, mira feritas (46), in their simplicity of life and speech, with apparently few tools and exiguous shelters. Unlike the comely Elves of Lorien who live in the treetops, Woses resemble the forest floor where they live, as do the Fenni, who live in foeda paupertas (46). The Wose king is “gnarled as an old stone,” and the scanty hairs of his beard look “like dry moss” (RK, V, v, 105). Despite this identification with the earthy parts of nature, Woses resemble Elves in their love of liberty and hatred of Orcs. Like the Elves, Woses use arrows, but theirs are poisoned. The Woses, “wild and wary as the beasts,” resemble Elves in their reluctance to show thems Elves to strangers, and like Elves, the Woses are “woodcrafty beyond compare” (RK, V, v, 105). On the other hand, Wose speech is deep and guttural, unlike the silver-tongued Elves. The dirtiness and squalor Tacitus observes as universal among the Germans Tolkien appropriates for the Orcs and Woses alone. Distinctions nevertheless exist between Orcs and Woses. While the Orcs are hideous and cruel, the Woses are “strange and unlovely” (RK, V, v, 109) but also “wild and free” (RK, V, v, 106), fighting only in self-defense. They are among the oldest inhabitants of their part of Middle-earth and become the allies of the Riders of Rohan because of their mutual hatred of both Orcs and the darkness Sauron has brought on. Orc speech is also harsh and guttural, and they use at times poisoned weapons. Woses, however, lack the furious energy of Orcs. The Woses want only to return to their sleep, something Tacitus observes the Germans are very fond of (Germania 15), and when the war is over, not to be hunted any more by the men of Rohan.

The Woses fight only in defense of their territory; boundaries and territorial integrity are important to both Tacitus and Tolkien. Tacitus, for all his criticism of Augustus, praises him for establishing the proper limits of Roman rule. The ocean and distant rivers formed the boundaries of the empire and, within these limits, linking all things together, are the legions and navy, Roman law, and respect for allies (Annals 1.9). In describing the tidily demarcated Shire, Tolkien, like Tacitus, plainly values clear territorial boundaries. Both writers implicitly endorse definite geographical limits, perhaps because both were aware of the perpetual danger to their civilizations from what lay outside the boundaries. For both men, the Germans presented the greatest threat, real or potential, in their lifetimes. Nevertheless, each writer, for all his love of boundaries, is fascinated and repelled by what lies outside the proper limits, by what is apparently limitless and excessive, and thus transgressive, whether that be the wilderness, where no prudent man lightly goes, or among the barbarians thems Elves. The lands of the barbarians, in Tolkien and Tacitus, are necessarily outside what Romans or Hobbits regard as civilization. While Tacitus paradoxically favors Roman expansion, yet values the defensible boundaries set by Augustus, he does not share the triumphal optimism of Virgil. That poet, who died many decades before Tacitus was born, wrote hopefully and triumphantly of Rome’s imperium sine fine, empire without end (Aeneid 1.279). Tacitus, however, viewing the continuous erosion of the autonomy of the Roman Senate as the emperor’s powers expanded, did not share Virgil’s confidence or sense of glory. Tacitus also knew how effectively the German barbarians destroyed three of Augustus’ legions, which happened after Virgil’s death. Tolkien lived long past the high Victorian days of his childhood and the Edwardian afternoon that preceded the Great War; the British Empire continued to expand geographically in the first decades of Tolkien’s life, but even before the Great War, many knew that imperialism, even British imperialism, had serious flaws. Both Tacitus and Tolkien would see an empire grow in size even as it seemed to have lost its soul. Tolkien is clearly a Little Englander, who describes the Shire as we find it at the start of The Lord of the Rings as a nearly perfect home county, with its leisure-loving, tea-drinking Hobbits, with no factories, mines, or telegraph wires to mar the landscape, and no colonies contributing to Frodo’s prosperity. Emphasizing the Shire’s cozy insularity is its clear boundary—a hedge. Anything outside is likely to be dangerous, uncanny, or frightening, even though there are settlements of Hobbits outside the Shire, and the Hobbits learn to love the friendly uncanniness of the Elves. Beyond the Rhine, where Varus took his legions to their doom, are only the wilderness, hard travel, and hostile tribesmen. For Frodo and the company, something like the dangers and difficulties the Romans find beyond the proper limits of their empire in Germany is met first outside the Shire in the Old Forest, then later on the Barrow Downs, in Moria, and in other places where the hazards of the quest are most apparent.

Nothing in either Tacitus or Tolkien is further outside the proper boundaries of civilization than the hostile wilderness. Tacitus stresses in both Germania and Annals the extreme difficulty of the German terrain. Tolkien similarly emphasizes the arduousness of the journey when the company meets the wilderness directly outside the Shire, as they will again in other places. Just as the Romans must cross the Rhine to enter Germany, so in Tolkien the company crosses a clear boundary between civilization and the wilderness as they leave the Shire, which they do in darkness, through a tunnel and then a barred iron gate that closes with a clang and locks behind them (FR, I, vi, 121). Right outside the familiar and homely Shire lies the Old Forest, the first wilderness the company encounters and which shares some characteristics with other places of particular challenge, such as Moria. The Old Forest appears to be uninhabited, but dense vegetation and the tracks thems Elves oppose the traveler, even without the presence of other enemies. Like Germany, the Old Forest is dark, damp, and labyrinthine in its difficulty. Such paths as there are appear to “shift and change from time to time” (FR, I, vi, 121). Seemingly with a mind of its own, the forest forces the company away from the direction they wish to take down into a morass of “bogs and pools” (FR, I, vi, 127), recalling locus uligine profunda and lubricus, the mire and swamps of Germany (Annals 1.64). In a swamp by the River Withywindle, Old Man Willow, who embodies the hostile intelligence of the Old Forest, does his mischief.

The approach march to Moria again puts the company into the wilderness in ways that suggest Tacitus’ influence. For both Frodo’s company after leaving Rivendell, and Germanicus’ legions after they cross the Rhine, there is a period in the wilderness before the enemy attacks, a time when the landscape itself is menacing and difficult in its own right, as well as suggesting always the possibility of enemy action. Both Tacitus and Tolkien stress the immensity of the territory that must be marched through. Each writer especially emphasizes the obstacle of water, whether in swamps, bogs or streams, along with the constant menace of enemy warriors who might attack at any time. The terrain the Romans negotiate is so difficult that at times it seems avius, a trackless wilderness with vastas paludes, vast swamps through which rivis incerta erant, a maze of streams wander. Even the fallacibus campis, treacherous-looking plains (Annals 1.61, 63), suggest the possibility of ambush. The boggy German forests and plains very nearly prove to be a death trap for Germanicus’ legions, just as Frodo’s company is attacked at times in other wildernesses. After leaving Rivendell, the company crosses a moor (from the Old English mor, a wasteland), a wide and empty country that recalls Tacitus’ treacherous plains in its hidden menace. The company senses danger, so, hoping to “escape the notice of unfriendly eyes,” they lie up during the day. As they continue their “hard and dreary” journey, paths lead them at times to “deep valleys filled with turbulent waters” or, just as in the Old Forest, to “the edge of some sheer fall, or down into treacherous swamps” (FR, II, iii, .295), again recalling Tacitus’ vast swamps. The company receives an attack only after they have traveled for some days. Significantly, the attack is at night, preparing the reader for the dangers of darkest Moria, which the company chooses to enter because other options are even worse.

Moria is every bit as much the quintessence of the barbarian landscape, vast, confusing, and lethal, as the German wilderness where Varus’ legions met their doom and where Germanicus later marches. Near impenetrability is characteristic of the German woods and swamps, silvis horrida aut paludibus foeda, as Tacitus first notes in Germania (5) and then re-emphasizes in the Annals. Similarly, the labyrinthine complexity of Moria’s sinister tunnels always threatens to defeat and even annihilate the traveler. Each place conforms, in Spurr’s terms, to the barbarian landscape as a figure of darkness, absence, nothingness, and death (92-94). Sites of violence and transgression, both the German wilderness and the mazy depths of Moria participate in the horror and danger of the limitless and undefined, informen terris (Germania 2) in their chaotic darkness. Each is a desolate, savage place, hard to penetrate, traversed only with danger and difficulty, and not easy to leave with one’s skin intact. Like the occulta saltuum (Annals 1.61), hidden and uncertain tracks, that Roman troops in the German wilderness must travel, so the tunnels of Moria are confusing, “vast and intricate” (FR, II, iv, 324). The tunnels are thems Elves a kind of wilderness, hopeless in their complexity without the guidance of Gandalf, and hazardous, at times intersected by chasms, and always threatening the possibility of the inextricable trap. To enter such places is to risk everything, as the fates of Varus and Balin show. To re-enter, as Germanicus and Frodo’s company do, territory that has been won and then lost is doubly hazardous.

Right outside Moria stands “a dark still lake” of “ominous water” (FR II, iv, 314) that proves to be as perilous for the company as the boggy German woods and fens are for the Romans. The source of this sinister and unclean lake, “the dark waters under the mountains,” suggests the horror and peril of the limitless and undefined. These dark waters, like the Orcs who live within the mountains, Tolkien associates with the primal abyss, “the deep places of the world” (FR, II, iv, 324), corresponding to the abyssal chaos Tacitus finds in the German landscape (Germania 2). Boromir’s carelessly cast stone awakens the Watcher, whose green color suggests both stagnant water and the verdant power of a malevolent nature, and this impulsive action emphasizes that self-restraint is important in dealing with these waters. Once inside Moria, Gandalf advises the company not to drink the water, a prohibition they observe, but Pippin’s dropped stone, which falls down into the depths of Moria before it strikes “deep water” (FR, II, iv, 325), alerts the enemy lurking below, and starts them signaling. Water does not help the Orcs attack, as it does when the Germans assault the Romans, but disturbing deep water alerts the enemy to the company’s presence. The waters of both Germany and Moria are the waters of death.

That the etymology of Moria is overdetermined is no surprise, given Tolkien’s fascination with languages, both northern and classical. The first syllable of Moria, from the Anglo-Saxon, connects it to the moor that the company crossed not long before. Greek (moros, final portion; and moira, fate) and Latin (mors, death; and mora, delay) also play their parts in the etymology. In darkest Moria and darkest Germany are found the sites of massacres. In describing the place where Varus’ legions died, Tacitus remarks that their bones remind the Romans of sortem hominum, the lot or fate of mankind (Annals 1.61). Moria contains the site of another massacre, as Balin’s tombstone and the remains of those who fell in their last stand show, and for a time it seems to be the place where the company will die as well. Just as the Romans, whether under Varus or Germanicus, risk death in the German wilderness, so in Moria, the company take the same risk of arriving quickly at what is the final portion or fate of everyone, as the discovery of the Dwarves’ bones just before the Orcs attack suggests. In pausing in the Chamber of Records, where Balin’s companions made their last stand, the company receives a surprise attack by the Orcs and their allies, who come up from the dank depths, apparently alerted by Pippin’s rashly dropped stone. Fearing that the massacre the company has just discovered will be repeated, Gandalf exclaims, “Trapped! Why did I delay? Here we are caught, just as they were before” (FR, II, v, 337; emphasis added).

In his narrative of Germanicus’ operations in Germany, Tacitus describes the Roman discovery of the killing-ground of the Teutoburg Wald (Annals 1.61), a place of horrors that occurred long before Germanicus’ expedition and a legend of fear among the Romans. Moria, where the shadows lie, also casts its long darkness even before the company enters it; they remember Moria as “a legend of vague fear” and “a name of ill omen.” Aragorn remarks that having passed through Moria once, “the memory is very evil” (FR, II, iv, 310). Finding the tomb of Balin and the fallen Dwarves around it deepens the horror with its stark reminder of the fate of free people who went before them. Where the legions died Tacitus describes as maestos locos, a place gloomy and sad, as well as visuque ac memoria deformis, hideous to sight and memory (Annals 1.61). Its counterpart in Moria is the Chamber of Records, where the Dwarves made their last stand. The killing grounds in the German wood and the chamber epitomize the misfortunes of war. Germanicus’ troops and the company find bones and fragments of weapons on the site of each massacre (Annals 1.61; Tolkien FR, II, v, 335). Horrifying to Romans is that the Germans did not bury the Roman dead, instead leaving their whitening bones (albentia ossa) and skulls where they fell. As an infantry officer on active service, Tolkien saw his share of unburied corpses and does not stress that the dead are unburied. But Tolkien, unlike Tacitus, does not mention whether the bones are Dwarf or Orc, and he does remark that some of the weapons are the enemies’: “orc-scimitars with blackened blades.” By showing that the Dwarves killed as well as died, Tolkien prepares the reader for the eventual escape of the company from the chamber.

Both narratives stress the possibility of disaster repeating itself. Caecina, one of Germanicus’ commanders, heavily engaged and apparently trapped by the Germans in the marshes, dreams that the dead Varus calls to him, inviting Caecina to join him in death (Annals 1.65). When the Orcs attack the company in the Chamber of Records, where they have just read the last words of the Dwarves before they died, members of the company exclaim, “They are coming!” and “We cannot get out” (FR, I, v, 336), words they have just read in the Dwarves’ logbook. These repetitions intensify the sense of the trap: as the past was, so the present is, and the future shall be. Just as Caecina leads his troops to fight their way out of the trap, so does the company make a successful fighting withdrawal, led by Gandalf.

The Germans who annihilate Varus’ legions show none of the noble traits Tacitus describes in Germania. After overwhelming the Romans, the Germans show only the utmost ferocity and cruelty. They are, in the Roman view, entirely bad, torturing their prisoners, slaughtering them, and nailing their skulls to tree trunks. Tolkien’s Orcs, whom the company first encounters in Moria, share this savagery; moreover, they completely lack any redeeming qualities. In Fellowship of the Ring, Orcs are at first found only in darkness and depths, which, we have seen, in Tolkien are often sinister. In fact, early in The Lord of the Rings Orcs seem able to live only in darkness; thus, when the company finally escapes from Moria, they fear pursuit by Orcs only after sundown. “Orc” derives, through the Anglo-Saxon orcneas, from the Latin Orcus, which can refer to both the underworld and death; thus, it is fitting that the Orcs first appear in the dark, deadly underworld of Moria, like the German woods, a place of death-like gloom (funestas tenebras; Annals 1.65). Later the Orcs are obliged for tactical reasons to journey outside in the daylight, but even then they hate sunlight, and only fear of punishment can keep them going after sunrise (TT, III, iii, 52). In their hatred of light, the Orcs recall Gollum, who after confirming himself in evil, finds that he hates the sun and withdraws toward the roots of mountains, where he can live unhurt by its rays.

When Orcs attack the company in Moria, Tolkien first stresses their unnerving noise. The assaulting Orcs make “harsh cries” and sound horns. The horrific crashing of the Orc drums sounds to the company like “Doom, doom” (FR, II, v, 337, original emphasis), reminding the reader of the death and fate of Balin, the mors and moira that Moria’s name suggests. The Orcs’ deafening tumult recalls the din of Germans in making war. Tacitus observes that to inspire thems Elves and to dispirit their enemies, the Germans shout with their mouths to their shields, which through reverberation swells to a harsh and confused roar (Germania 3). Orcs can be extremely noisy at other times as well. Sam later hears their “hoarse singing, blaring of horns, and banging of gongs, a hideous clamour” (TT, IV, x, 352). Orc speech also has nothing pleasant about it, their “hideous language,” sounding at all times full of anger and hate (FR, II, v, 341; TT, III, iii, 48).

Those belonging to the savage Other resemble each other within their own groups in both Tacitus and Tolkien. Thus, Germans all look alike, with their blue eyes, red hair, and huge bodies (Germania 4). Similarly, Orcs, while they are of various sizes, are all the same color—black. The worst Orcs are “the black Uruks of Mordor,” who are “large and evil” (FR, II, v, 338). These are cannibals, and thus resemble beasts, with “rending claws” and “protruding fangs” in mouths that can snarl like animals and growl (RK, VI, i, 182-83). As noted above, Tacitus remarks in general terms that Germans are dirty and, when not fighting, lazy (Germania 15, 20). Tolkien shows with disgusting specificity how physically repellent the Orcs are, describing from the viewpoint of captive Hobbits the reek of Orc breath and the long hairy arms and claw-like hands that grip the young prisoners with such painful strength (TT, III, iii, 48, 62). Orcs, moreover, show neither loyalty nor compassion. Orc guards show only amusement when one of their number, still living, is trussed up by Shelob to be eaten later (TT, IV, x, 350).

Tacitus’ nuanced view of the Germans, especially in the Germania, allows him at times to despise the Germans for their shortcomings, while at other times implicitly to praise them, by noting their adherence to traditional Roman and even Greek virtues. Tacitus’ admiration of the German tribes in Germania may in fact be aemulatio and nostalgia for what Romans used to be. Chief among the Roman virtues is the warrior ethos. Thus, in Germania, Tacitus admires the Germans for their valor and vigorous courage (14, 30). This manifests, for example, in their adherence to the Spartan code that dropping one’s shield in action is disgraceful (6). Further, in the Germania, Tacitus claims similarities between the German and Roman religions: the Germans worship Mercury, Mars, and even Isis, and honor Hercules (3, 9). Nevertheless, the Germans who committed atrocities against Roman prisoners and Roman dead are simply bad. Not surprisingly, Tacitus makes no connection between the Teutoburg Wald massacre and Germanicus’ orders in a battle: nil opus captivis, solam internicionem gentis finem bello fore, that no prisoners be taken, as only the destruction of this tribe will finish the battle (Annals 2.21). In fact, Tacitus acknowledges that one aspect of Roman warfare is to terrify opponents; the Romans had their own Schrecklichkeit, as Tacitus’ phrase Terrore nominis Romani (Annals 4.24) suggests, long before the Germans of the twentieth century. The purpose of exemplary cruelty in battle was to create terror and demoralize the enemy in order to shorten wars, which may explain, but does not excuse, Tacitus’ moral neutrality concerning Germanicus’ order. Tacitus at times approaches implicit approval of General Sherman’s genocidal dictum that the only good Indian is a dead Indian. Tolkien shows the Orcs to be irredeemably evil. While no one among the free peoples in Tolkien ever urges the annihilation of all Orcs or says that the only good Orc is a dead Orc, nevertheless, the horsemen of Gondor act from the unspoken premise that annihilation of this enemy is best, as do the Elves in Lorien and the Woses in their forest when they kill to the last Orc. The Orcs are so disgusting and savage, cruel in the extreme even to each other, that sympathy for them is impossible. Orcs are a completely debased Other and Tacitus’ Germans are not, for they, even in their cruelty, remain human rather than feral, the Fenni notwithstanding.

Moria, like Germany in the Annals, was once colonized, but with the annihilation of Varus and his legions on the one hand and Balin and his Dwarves on the other, each place has reverted to its primal state. After Varus’ disaster and Germanicus’ expedition, Rome focused on securing the west bank of the Rhine as a defensible frontier rather than seeking territory beyond the river. The end of Balin and his people in Moria similarly marks the end of Dwarf hopes to colonize the mines. Within Moria, Gandalf says, the Orcs replaced the Dwarves, and “since the Dwarves fled, no one dares to seek the shafts and treasuries down in the deep places: they are drowned in water—or in a shadow of fear” (FR, II, iv, 331). Thus, the greatest source of wealth, mithril or Moria-silver, is associated with both water and fear, on the one hand, and with transgression, on the other. The Dwarves “dug too deep,” awakening their nemesis in the depths. Of the free peoples, Dwarves are by far the greediest, and their deep mining in the wilderness is something like a colonial project, where to exploit hitherto hidden resources, they must go into terra incognita and fight the unwelcoming autochthonous people already there. Seeking too much wealth is avarice, which recalls Sauron’s imperial agenda. In Moria, two kinds of barbarians collide: Dwarves, the most angry and acquisitive of the free peoples, and Orcs, the most savage of all the peoples Tolkien depicts.

There is something unmistakably violent about the Dwarves, for all their being a free people on the right side in the war with Sauron. A measure of their inherent aggressiveness is their weapon of choice: they fight with axes and usually seem ready for a fight. That the other free race they are most at odds with is the Elves, the most spiritual of the free peoples, also shows the low level of civility among the Dwarves. They are also the only race of Middle-earth who work and live deep in the earth, the very place Smeagol-Gollum goes when his degenerative path makes sunlight painful for him to bear, the place the Orcs prefer to live as much as the Dwarves, and the lair of Shelob. Tolkien nevertheless suggests some distinctions between Dwarf and Orc. It is one thing to be the most savage of the free peoples and another to be vicious. Gimli, for example, though pugnacious, is never cruel, and he does not look or smell disgusting. While Dwarves are miners, the Orcs are plunderers (FR, II, iii, 331), despoiling the wealth that the Dwarves won from the depths through their hard work.

Roman imperial ideology is clearly manifest in Tacitus, who implicitly accepts the racial and cultural superiority of his own people, believing for example that the Romans are favored by the gods (Germania 33). Tacitus, moreover, usually never questions the means Rome uses to impose its will. Nevertheless, in the Agricola, which, among other things, is a biography of Tacitus’ father-in-law, who governed Britain, Tacitus puts in the mouth of the Briton Calgacus remarks that plainly show the cost of Roman imperialism not only to Romans, as Virgil did, but also to the peoples Rome invades and exploits. Calgacus remarks that Romans, raptores orbis, plunderers of the world, set no limit to their ambition and greed. The empire itself is robbery and murder on a grand scale; the result is that Romans solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant, make a desert and call it peace (Agricola 30). Calgacus’ appraisal of Roman imperialism is, however, not something Tacitus himself necessarily endorses, and may simply reflect rhetorical training that taught disputation in terms of recognizing both sides of an argument. Moreover, elsewhere Tacitus in propria persona never criticizes the Roman way of imperialism; he even suggests that Rome without conquests is somehow not what Rome ought to be (Annals 2.26 and 4.32).

Tolkien’s abhorrence of imperialism accords well with Calgacus’ disparagement of Roman occupation and is as much at odds with Tacitus’ imperialist bias. In The Lord of the Rings, Sauron makes a desert and calls it peace, as the desolation of Mordor, where slaves toil and troops march, shows. Empires typically depend upon subjugation of others, not mutual accommodation. Tolkien foregrounds disparagement of empires, depending as they do on the “desire for power” over others (FR, II, ii, 353), the motive of Sauron. One sees this in Mordor in the bullying ways the Orcs have with other tribes of Orcs and the cruel treatment of even their comrades in arms. In marked contrast, the free peoples for the most part show mutual accommodation of difference (with the exceptions of friction between Dwarf and Elf and the persecution of the Woses), as well as respect for one another, despite the implied hierarchy that exists among them. No one type dominates another. Neither Hobbits nor Elves seek to gain territory or to control other peoples. The very existence of the Fellowship of the Ring, which is an alliance among various peoples, shows Tolkien’s preference for accommodation over domination. The Dwarfish project of subduing the untamed wilderness, which for them is beneath mountains, shows that they most nearly approach Roman imperialism as they try to subdue nature and perforce must fight the savages under the earth. And their project costs them dearly. Tolkien shows that the final consequence of the Dwarves’ imperial design in Moria is a desert, where only monsters and savages live in darkness. Like the Romans Calgacus describes, the Dwarves refused to set a limit to their operations: they dug too deep. The result is the end of the Dwarves in Moria. Their bones mark the end of Dwarfish colonization there, just as the remains of Varus’ troops mark the same limit for Roman imperialism in Germany. Germanicus’ legions may bury the remains, but they cannot stay to reclaim the lost territory. Germany and Moria are lost colonies, which can be re-entered only at great peril, as the expeditions of Germanicus and Frodo show. Unlike Tacitus, Tolkien distrusts all empires, and is certainly no apologist for the Pax Britannica or British Empire.

For all their mutual valuing of heroism and hatred of iniquity, both writers are pessimistic about the process of history. Tolkien’s view of history, however, shows pessimism paradoxically tinged with hope. This ambivalence reveals itself in a letter of 15 December 1956 where he writes that history is “a long defeat—though it contains . . . some samples or glimpses of final victory” (Letters 255). Despite the melancholy and nostalgia in much of Lord of the Rings, one does see the occasional glimpse of ultimate victory of good over evil. Even in Mordor, Sam has a vision that suggests that evil will not have the last word. Exhausted and resting in cover, Sam sees, “a white star twinkle for a while. Its beauty smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him.” In his epiphany, Sam sees “that in the end the Shadow is only a small and passing thing: there was light and beauty for ever beyond its reach” (RK VI, ii, 199). Despite Sam’s hopeful vision, in other places The Lord of the Rings suggests no final victory of good over evil, a view also seen in Tacitus. Both Germanicus and Frodo do enjoy success, but only up to a point. For Germanicus to defeat the Germans after Varus’ debacle and then finally to retire with his command intact are remarkable accomplishments. Germanicus, moreover, in recovering the lost standards of Varus and burying the remains of Varus’ soldiers, achieves things of great importance to the Roman people (Annals 1.61-2, 2.41). Nevertheless, despite Germanicus’ successes against the German tribes, Tiberius recalls him before he can conclude a satisfactory peace, and Germanicus dies not long afterward. Also pressuring Tacitus toward pessimism about the direction of history are some of the other facts of the era. Rome’s frontier now stops at the Rhine, despite Germanicus’ successes; Varus’ annihilated legions are never reconstituted; and, most important of all in Tacitus’ view, the Senate never reasserts its autonomy against the emperor (Wells 74-76). Charting the degeneration and decline of Rome, Tacitus’ account of Roman problems with the Germans shows part of the process. Like Germanicus, Frodo also completes his mission against all odds, and, contrary to his own reasonable expectations, he even survives to return to the Shire. Despite all this, the decline of Middle-earth, symbolized by the continuing departure of the Elves, will persist. Most important, any victory over the Dark Lord is always temporary because he is sure to manifest again later. Like Germanicus, Frodo does not live long after returning home. For each, the path of duty leads both to success and to an early departure from this life.

Notes

1 John Garth also discusses Tolkien’s love of classical languages.

2 For example, James Lord Bryce, Charles Lucas, and Norman Vance.

3 I have at times modified the Loeb translations of Tacitus.

Works Cited

Bryce, James Lord. The Ancient Roman Empire and the British Empire in India. London: Oxford University Press, 1914.

Carpenter, Humphrey. Tolkien: A Biography. London: Houghton Mifflin, 1977.

Chance, Jane. The Lord of the Rings: the Mythology of Power. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2001. rev. ed.

Garth, John. Tolkien and the Great War. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2003.

Lucas, Charles. Greater Rome and Greater Britain. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1912.

Morse, Robert F. Evocation of Virgil in Tolkien’s Art: Geritol for the Classics. Oak Park IL: Bolchazy-Carducci, 1986.

Shippey, Tom. J.R.R. Tolkien: Author of the Century. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2001.

______. The Road to Middle-earth. 2nd ed. London: Grafton, 1992.

Spurr, David. The Rhetoric of Empire: Colonial Discourse in Journalism, Travel Writing, and Imperial Administration. Durham: Duke University Press, 1993.

Tacitus. Agricola. trans. M. Hutton, rev. R. M. Ogilvie. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1970. Loeb Classical Library.

_____. The Annals. trans. John Jackson. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1931. Loeb Classical Library.

_____. Germania. trans. M Hutton. rev. E. H. Warmington. Cambridge: Harvard Press, 1970. Loeb Classical Library.

_____. The Histories. trans. Clifford H. Moore. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1931. Loeb Classical Library.

Vance, Norman. The Victorians and Ancient Rome. Oxford: Blackwell, 1997.

Wells, Colin, The Roman Empire. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1992.

Notes and Documents

Karen Wynn Fonstad

I met Karen Fonstad in June of 1994 at the Mythic Journeys conference in Atlanta. We’d both been invited because we were in Tolkien Studies, and found ourselves part of an “event” officially listed as Tolkien but really devoted to Alan Lee. While Alan was busily signing books (which went on for most of the afternoon), Karen and I discovered a warm and ready friendship. Over the course of that and subsequent conversations, I persuaded her that our readers would be interested in how she researched and made the maps for The Atlas of Middle-earth. Tolkien Studies is proud to be able to include in this volume the last thing Karen wrote, and on which she worked very hard through her increasingly serious illness in the months before she died. We mourn her passing and we honor her work.

Verlyn Flieger

For Tolkien Studies

Notes and Documents

Writing “TO” the Map

Karen Wynn Fonstad †

“I wisely started with a map, and made the story fit ... The other way about lands one in confusions and impossibilities.”

—J.R.R. Tolkien1

When I first started my work on The Atlas of Middle-earth, I envisioned designing the site maps first, then filling in larger and larger “pieces of the puzzle” as parts were completed. Tolkien’s world had so many wonderfully detailed descriptions that it seemed best to begin with those places that were most completely described.

Houghton Mifflin had requested that I provide them with a few sample maps so they could decide whether my work was acceptable for them to offer a contract. I had chosen: Minas Tirith (site map), the Downs, the Wold, and the Emyn Muil (regional map), and the Battle of the Pelennor (battle map) to give some variety.

Developing the Process

As soon as I began on the Minas Tirith map, a whole gamut of questions arose: What was the bedrock? What could have caused the “towering bastion of stone”? What materials might have been available to build the “white city” and “white tower,” yet provide the black wall of the first level which was similar to the rock of Orthanc? Elevation was given, but not the shape or diameter of the hill. How could those best be determined?

As I sought the answers to these questions, my research took me farther and farther afield, until I finally realized that all the research had to be in place first. The overall patterns had to be established so that I could see how the pieces fit into the whole. To do this, the text had to be checked for clues such as terrain descriptions, slope, minerals, caves, springs, vegetation, rock color, stream patterns, glaciation, precipitation, temperatures, and more. The maps also provided information about the ways the mountains, hills, rivers, and coastlines were related to each other. Distances had to be cross-checked to be sure that the features appeared where the text placed the characters. Only when the completed ‘world” view was analyzed closely, could the small pieces be superimposed on the whole.

I had learned in the end what Tolkien had known at the outset: that the overall picture was necessary before the detailed stories could be fitted into place.

Applying the Technique

Because Professor Tolkien had worked with such care when he wrote his stories, my task was immensely simplified. Only occasional difficulties arose, most over distances and chronology. In reading through Letters and the History of Middle-earth, it has become apparent that some of the difficulties which I have encountered were ones of which he was aware even while writing, but apparently never satisfactorily resolved. The greatest difficulties were the chronology—and therefore the scale—of Shelob’s Lair and the distances in The Hobbit compared with The Lord of the Rings. In the former, the difficulty appears to have arisen from the re-envisioning of the two stairways’ relationship to the Lair (War 180, 187) as well as from the chronology having been out by a day (Treason 182)

The differences between the journeys in The Hobbit and those in The Lord of the Rings arose, I believe, because there was no scale on the map in The Hobbit. While Tolkien worked to reconcile the locations in the two stories, he apparently did not attempt to make the daily journeys comparable (Atlas 101). Only a few key dates were available for The Hobbit, and those led to extremely slow travel based on simple division.

Details of many of these decisions are described in The Atlas:

• The OUTWARD-facing Downs present in Eriador (centered on Weathertop)—with the steep wall behind Tom Bombadil’s giving the key to which direction for the Downs the steep face and gentle backslope must lie.

• The similarity of the Weald, with its adjacent INWARD-facing downs, aligning with the two distinct ridges of the western Emyn Muil, and the lower cliffwall of Rohan.

• The ridges of eastern Emyn Muil were more faulted and did not fit as well into the comparison.

• The great “hogbacks’ climbed by Frodo, Sam, and Gollum west of the Ephel Duath are similar to the Downs in function, but are much more steeply pitching.

Water features described and/or mapped also provide much information:

• The springs, water-cut caves, and many falls of Ithilien are indicative of a certain limestone bedrock.

• Even more distinct “karst topgraphy” features lay in the heart of Beleriand: the Gates of Sirion, Menegroth, and Nargothrond.

• The drylands of the Barrow-downs, conversely show a different limestone bedrock.

• Inland deltas and marshes such as those of the Entwash/Wetwang are related to the sudden change of “grade” from the steep mountain river to the flat plains of Rohan.

• A similar, but lesser example is that of the marshes at the east end of the Forest River—dropping from the plateau above Thranduil’s Caverns to the flatlands of Long Lake.

• The internal drainage in Mordor naturally results in the bitter, saline water Sea of Núrnen. For similar reasons The Sea of Rhûn may have been salt water.

The crucial part of the geography is to relate these features as part of the stories. Here is where Tolkien’s meticulous mastery is most in evidence: the vistas from Weathertop, from the granite boulders of Hollin Ridge, and the east wall of the Emyn Muil where Frodo and Sam look towards Mordor. Each feature is carefully placed to coincide with the journey being described at that point. The various overlays placed on the original map (see Treason) were probably drawn to more closely reflect the journeys as they developed.

“The map was a continuous development, evolving in terms of, and reacting upon, the narrative it accompanied” (Treason 300).

Examples of the problems that sometimes occurred because of the changes include:

• The placement of Belegost south of its location in The Silmarillion, based on the maps in Shaping, pages 231 and 232 and Treason, page 302.

• Similarly, Rhosgobel was described as being near the Carrock (UT 461), yet in The Lord of the Rings as near the Gladden Fields (FR, II, iii, 287) and the Dimrill Stair.

Some of the discrepancies were based on my decisions—especially in the Revised Edition—of what changes to make. Some were based on the restriction that only 1/3 of The Atlas could be changed and some errors had to remain.

The passage partially quoted at the beginning of this note also stated that Tolkien worked “generally with meticulous care for distances.”

Tolkien’s extensive knowledge of our “Primary World” and its processes gave his world its realism. It is wise for all to keep in mind his advice from “On Fairy-Stories”: (1) that the Secondary World must have “the inner consistency of reality” and (2) that this consistency “is more difficult to produce, the more unlike are the images ... to the actual ... Primary World” (MC 140).

While the Primary World discussion may not seem to be related to maps, it is closely tied. Designing the “map” on which one’s stories will be based requires much more than, as Tom Shippey states, “putting some squiggles on a piece of paper.”2 It requires pre-planning the world and the story enough to be able to begin drawing.

The map may be redone—and redone—as one works. Indeed, it is apparent that Tolkien’s maps were much amended. Nevertheless, it is vital to the consistency of the tale—and to the sanity of the writer—to have “the map” available from the outset, so that one may write “TO” the map.

Notes

1 Letters #144 177.

2 “Languages and Landscapes of Middle-earth.” DVD bonus feature: National Geographic “Beyond the Movie: The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring.”

Works Cited

Fonstad, Karen Wynn. The Atlas of Middle-earth. Rev. ed. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1991.

Notes and Documents

R. W. Chambers and The Hobbit

Douglas A. Anderson

In mid-August 1937, Tolkien directed his publisher, George Allen & Unwin, to send an early copy of The Hobbit, whose publication was scheduled for September 21st, to R. W. Chambers, the Quain Professor of English at University College London. At the end of the month, Tolkien wrote to his publisher: “Professor Chambers writes very enthusiastically, but he is an old and kind-hearted friend” (Letters 20).1 A few years later, after Chambers collected his lectures and essays in a volume entitled Man’s Unconquerable Mind: Studies from Bede to A. E. Housman and W. P. Ker (1939), Tolkien wrote to Chambers:

My thanks are overdue for your most welcome book. My shelves are well-endowed with your generous gifts, yet there are I think 2 studies in the volume that I do not possess, and have not read—alas! not yet even in the collection. I have meant to, but I delay no longer to thank you, for it will be some time before I read anything rational. I shall first re-read viii and ix, which I remember so eminently deserves several readings.2 (Chabot 93)

Remarks like these make it clear that the friendship between Tolkien and Chambers was a long one which involved the mutual sharing of their professional publications. This friendship has been little-explored. Here follows an introductory perspective on it, looking particularly at one way in which Chambers seems to have had a direct effect on Tolkien’s composition of The Hobbit.

Raymond Wilson Chambers was a Yorkshireman, born at Staxton on 12 November 1874. At the age of 17, he went to University College London, where he studied under W. P. Ker, the literary scholar and Quain Professor of English, and A. E. Housman, the poet and classicist. He received his Bachelor’s degree in 1894, and worked elsewhere as a librarian for five years before returning to University College London in 1899, when Ker appointed him to be Quain Student. Chambers received his Masters degree in 1902, and in 1904 was made an Assistant Professor. For slightly more than two decades he also served as the Librarian of the College Library.

His first book, Widsith: A Study in Old English Heroic Legend, was published in 1912. Two years later he published a revision of A. J. Wyatt’s edition of Beowulf. During the Great War, he served as an orderly at a hospital base in France. After the war he returned to scholarly work.

His ground-breaking Beowulf: An Introduction to the Study of the Poem, announced as forthcoming in the introduction to the 1914 edition of Beowulf, appeared in 1921. On the death of Ker in 1923, he succeeded his mentor as the Quain Professor of English. In 1925, Chambers was offered the Rawlinson and Bosworth Professorship of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford, but he turned it down, thereby coincidentally paving the way for Tolkien’s election to the Chair—a position which Tolkien held for twenty years.

In the 1920s Chambers’s publications increased. These include England before the Norman Conquest (1926), and an edited volume of Ker’s lectures and notes, Form and Style in English Poetry (1928). The expanded version of Beowulf: An Introduction appeared in 1932, and Chambers wrote some of the introductory chapters to the facsimile edition of The Exeter Book of Old English Poetry that was published in 1933.3 His landmark biography Thomas More appeared in 1935, and this work aided the cause for More’s canonization. Chambers, who was not Roman Catholic but Anglo-Catholic, was proud of the personal letter of thanks that he received from His Holiness Pope Pius XI for his work on More. Another study, The Place of St. Thomas More in English Literature and History, came out in 1937.

Chambers’s lectures to the British Academy and other essays were collected in 1939 in Man’s Unconquerable Mind. With the advent of the Second World War, Chambers and University College removed to Wales. His health began to fail, and he retired from the Quain Chair in 1941, but continued as a Special Lecturer. In the following year, Chambers fell ill after lecturing on the history and significance of University College to students in Aberystwyth and Bangor. He died in a nursing home in Swansea on 23 April 1942.

Tolkien’s friendship with Chambers seems to have begun around 1922, when Tolkien had been given the responsibility of writing the annual chapter on “Philology: General Works” for The Year’s Work in English Studies. Chambers sent him an offprint of his own inaugural lecture as Quain Professor, Concerning Certain Great Teachers of the English Language, which Tolkien reviewed sympathetically in The Year’s Work in English Studies 1923 (1925). After Tolkien’s election to the Rawlinson and Bosworth Professorship in 1925, the friendship seems to have deepened. Unfortunately, the few surviving letters represent only a portion of their correspondence.

Tolkien probably bought Chambers’s book Widsith as an undergraduate. This kind of scholarly exploration and reconstruction of the Germanic heroic past out of what survives in historical and literary references would have resonated perfectly with Tolkien’s own mindset. It certainly influenced his thinking with regard to Beowulf and the stories of Finn and Hengest, and it may also have informed the indistinct method by which Tolkien planned to associate his early mythological stories, “The Book of Lost Tales,” with Anglo-Saxon England.

Tolkien acquired the first edition of Beowulf: An Introduction in September 1921, soon after its publication in August.4 Subsequently, Chambers seems to have presented Tolkien with copies of his works upon publication—articles and offprints, in addition to books. Tolkien likely sent his publications to Chambers in return.

Chambers’s essay on “The Lost Literature of Medieval England,” which appeared in early 1925, is another piece of scholarship that would have very much appealed to Tolkien. In The Road to Middle-earth, Tom Shippey has noted that R. M. Wilson’s later book, published in 1952 and bearing a title identical to that of Chambers’s article, would have been one that Tolkien must often have read (22). Chambers’s work not only preceded Wilson’s, but was in fact the basis and inspiration for it.5

Tolkien was effusive with his praise of Chambers’s foreword to Archibald Strong’s 1925 translation of Beowulf. This foreword, titled “Beowulf and the Heroic Age in England,” was described by Tolkien, in his lecture series Beowulf and the Critics, as “the best thing written on the subject” (B&C 32), while Tolkien referred to Chambers himself as “the greatest of living Anglo-Saxon scholars” (B&C 32) and “the Beowulf-poet’s best friend” (B&C 106).

Chambers, meanwhile, also wrote in praise of Tolkien’s scholarship. He reviewed Tolkien’s British Academy lecture, “Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics,” in the Modern Language Review, calling it “the finest appreciation which has yet been written of our finest Old English poem” (273).

Tolkien also shared with Chambers some of his own creative efforts. In 1933, he sent Chambers a fine manuscript of one of his humorous alliterative poems named “Doworst,” loosely modeled on Piers Plowman, a poem on which Chambers had published extensively. Tolkien’s poem is about the howlers committed by nervous students taking their oral examinations at Oxford. The manuscript was illuminated by Tolkien in blue and yellow inks. Chambers prized it and had it bound by Sidney Cockerell. On Chambers’s death the manuscript passed to his pupil and colleague, Miss H. Winifred Husbands, who upon retirement in 1957 gave it to Arthur Brown. Brown, one of Chambers’s undergraduate pupils in 1939-41, subsequently followed Chambers’s lead, becoming Quain Student and eventually Professor of English at University College London.6

In 1934, Tolkien sent Chambers what he had written of his alliterative poem “The Fall of Arthur,” and though Chambers responded favorably and encouraged Tolkien to finish it, it remained incomplete at Tolkien’s death many years later.7

Along with a letter to Chambers dated 8 February 1937, Tolkien included a page from an Allen & Unwin catalog announcing the publication of his children’s book, The Hobbit. The manner in which Tolkien revealed this news to his scholar-friend is quite interesting:

The enclosed does not announce Leverhulme first-fruits8—I wrote this ridiculous story some years ago—but the result of an accident. A member of the production dept. of this firm found the MSS. lying about in a nunnery, and hence what was written for my children (and occasionally wandered to friends) is now being “published”. Very foolish of me: but I will send you a copy and you can judge. (Chabot 88)

Tolkien himself dated the writing of the first chapter of The Hobbit to one summer day in 1930 as he was laboring on the annual task of grading examination papers. There is some evidence to support this date because the Tolkien family moved house in January 1930, from no. 22 Northmoor Road, to the much larger house next door at No. 20. Though Tolkien’s two elder sons, John and Michael, recalled elements of what became the story of The Hobbit being told to them at the older residence (Anderson 9), Tolkien’s own recollections concerning the writing of the story are consistent and contradict any earlier dating. In one account, he said that he wrote the first chapter “certainly after 1930 when I moved to 20 Northmoor Road” (Carpenter 177), and in a later version (the 1968 BBC television program Tolkien in Oxford), he was more specific:

The actual flashpoint was—I can remember very clearly—I can still see the corner of my house in 20 Northmoor Road where it happened. I’d got an enormous pile of examination papers there [pointing to his right] . . . I remember picking up a paper and actually finding—I nearly gave it an extra mark on it, an extra five marks—one page of the particular paper was left blank. Glorious. Nothing to read, so I scribbled on it, I can’t think why, “In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.” (Anderson 11)

In August 1937, when the origins of The Hobbit would have been fresh in Tolkien’s mind, he wrote that his eldest son was “thirteen when he heard the serial” (Letters 21) and John had turned thirteen in November 1930. Thus, according to Tolkien’s own memories, the first parts of The Hobbit would have been read to his children for their Winter Reads beginning around Christmas 1930.

After Tolkien met his publisher Stanley Unwin for the first time in October 1937, Unwin recorded in a memorandum several things Tolkien had said, one being that Tolkien “mentioned that The Hobbit took him 2 or 3 years to write because he works very slowly” (Unwin 81). By January 1933, The Hobbit was far enough along in typescript to be lent to C. S. Lewis to read. Thus Tolkien’s two-to-three years of composition can be reasonably defined as spanning summer 1930 to January 1933.9 He presumably worked on it mostly during vacations, especially winter ones, preparing chapters for the Winter Reads to his children.

Revelatory comments Tolkien made over the years about the writing of The Hobbit include the fact that he stopped several times. In a BBC Radio interview he said of his children that “they were so used to me scribbling and writing on that kind of thing that until I’d got something more worthwhile to read them, they didn’t take much interest. But I think they did, on the whole, like the hobbit story, and were sufficiently interested for me to go on and finish it (I stopped several times)” (Slade). And in 1957 he said, “I wrote the first chapter first—then I forgot about it, then I wrote another part. I myself can still see the gaps. There’s a very big gap after they reach the eyrie of the Eagles. After that I didn’t really know how to go on” (Anderson 8).

Tolkien’s handwritten manuscript of The Hobbit confirms this. One can observe stages of the composition, owing to changes of paper or ink, or slight changes of handwriting. As Tolkien said, there was clearly a break at the end of chapter six, leaving Bilbo and Gandalf and the dwarves stuck up in the eagle’s eyrie (Anderson 8).

We may tentatively date this point to the winter of 1931-32, and here is where Chambers becomes relevant. The second edition of his Beowulf: An Introduction was published in May 1932. The new edition was much expanded from the first edition of 1921.10 On the 24th of May, Chambers, as usual, sent Tolkien an inscribed copy of the book. Tolkien, then regularly lecturing at Oxford on Beowulf, was also studying the historical matter on Hengest and Finn, as well as working on what would lead up to his 1933 lecture series Beowulf and the Critics. The lecture series—which takes its name in echo of chapter four of Chambers’s Widsith (i.e., “Widsith and the Critics”)—is the predecessor to the more condensed form we know of as Tolkien’s 1936 lecture to the British Academy, “Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics.” Tolkien, because of both personal and professional interest, would have read the new edition of Chambers as soon as his regular duties allowed.

Concurrently, stumped on his writing of The Hobbit, Tolkien seems to have found in Chambers the direction in which he would next take his children’s story. The Beorn episode is suffused with imagery inspired by critical thought on Beowulf: from the Germanic-styled hall in which Beorn entertains his visitors, to the leisurely descriptions of clover, bees, hives, and bee-pastures all surrounding his hall—this imagery circles around elements associated with the derivation of the name Beowulf from “Bee-wolf.” Chambers wrote on this matter extensively, saying: “The obvious interpretation of the name Bëowulf is that suggested by Grimm, that it means ‘wolf, or foe, of the bee’. Grimm’s suggestion was repeated independently by Skeat, and further reasons for the interpretation ‘bee-foe’ have been found” (365). Chambers presented some dissent from this viewpoint by those who believed that while the etymology was satisfactory, “bee-wolf” must be rejected because it seems to be meaningless.11 But Chambers continued:

Yet it is far from meaningless. “Bee-foe” means “bear.” The bear has got a name, or nickname, in many northern languages from his habit of raiding the hives for honey. The Finnish name for bear is said to be “honey-hand”: he is certainly called “sweet-foot,” sötfot, in Sweden, and the Old Slavonic name, “honey-eater,” has come to be accepted in Russian, not merely as a nickname, but as the regular term for “bear.” And “bear” is an excellent name for a hero of story. The O. E. beorn, “warrior, hero, prince” seems originally to have meant simply “bear” (366).

All of this certainly has the feeling of background to Tolkien’s character Beorn. Tolkien’s thoughts on this etymology also found expression in his unpublished short story, “Sellic Spell,”12 which is to an extent an attempt to reconstruct a version—not necessarily the version—of the Anglo-Saxon story that lies behind the folktale elements in Beowulf. In “Sellic Spell” a young boy is found in the den of a great bear recently killed by some huntsmen. The child had evidently been fostered by the bear, and he has such a love of honey that he is given the name Beewolf. Tolkien apparently wrote this short story in the early 1940s, but according to Christopher Tolkien the original germ may have been somewhat earlier. In the mid 1940s, Tolkien gave “Sellic Spell” to Gwyn Jones for publication in The Welsh Review, where his poem “The Lay of Aotrou and Itroun” appeared in 1945. But the magazine folded in 1948 before it could be published, and with regret Jones returned the manuscript to Tolkien.

As Tom Shippey has pointed out (80), elements of Tolkien’s character Beorn also certainly came from Bothvar Bjarki, a hero in the Norse Saga of Hrolf Kraki whose name means “little bear.” Interestingly, Bothvar Bjarki’s father is called Bjorn, and after spurning the advances of a queen, Bjorn is cursed to become a bear during the daytime and to revert to being a man at night. Tolkien of course knew this saga very well. One of his students at Leeds, Stella Mills, translated it, and her edition, dedicated to Tolkien, E. V. Gordon, and the lexicographer C. T. Onions, was published by Blackwells in Oxford in 1933. Chambers, of course, discusses Bothvar Bjarki extensively in his Beowulf: An Introduction as a figure with a very remarkable resemblance to Beowulf.13

There are numerous aspects of Beorn in all of this. But examination of the manuscript of The Hobbit reveals that the character we know as Beorn was not originally so named. In the handwritten manuscript the character was called Medwed. Tolkien-scholars have long recognized that Medwed is Russian for “honey-eater” and thus appropriate for the Beorn character, but there has been puzzlement over where Tolkien might have got the name, for he is not known to have been adept in Russian.14

Medwed in fact comes right out of Chambers. In a discussion of a number of “Bear’s son” stories and their relation to Beowulf, Chambers wrote: “A closer parallel is that of Ivashko Medvedko, ‘John Honey-eater’ or ‘Bear’” (372).15 Here Chambers has even glossed the meaning of the Russian name, and he follows this with a two-page summary of the folktale, using a translation made for him by one of his students, for Chambers did not know of “any accessible translation into any Western language” (374).16

Tolkien told an interviewer: “Names always generate a story in my mind” (Slade), and he was probably much less interested in the folktale of Ivashko Medvedko than in the name Medvedko, which he anglicized as Medwed, and thereby Medwed found his way into The Hobbit. By January 1933, when Tolkien shared the typed version of The Hobbit with his friend C. S. Lewis, he had changed Medwed to Beorn, disguising the character’s literary heritage and giving him a Germanic name more appropriate to the world of his tale.

In a letter about The Hobbit published in a newspaper in 1938, Tolkien wrote that “Beowulf is among my most valued sources” (Letters 31). This has long been recognized as true. But we can now see that Tolkien found inspiration not only from Beowulf but also from Beowulf criticism, and in particular the book by “the Beowulf-poet’s best friend,” R. W. Chambers.

Notes

For assistance with this study, I would like to thank Christopher Tolkien for providing information and answering a number of questions, and Dan Mitchell of Special Collections, University College London, for assistance with their Chambers Collection. Verlyn Flieger and Tom Shippey commented on earlier drafts, and one of the two anonymous reviewers for Tolkien Studies was especially helpful. David Bratman and John D. Rateliff also assisted with a last-minute comments. A version of this paper was delivered in May 2005 at the 40th International Congress on Medieval Studies at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo, Michigan.

1 Tolkien also sent to Chambers one of his author’s copies of The Hobbit on publication.

2 Interestingly, in view of Tolkien’s oft-quoted remark that he “disliked cordially” the works of Shakespeare (Letters 213), these two essays in Man’s Unconquerable Mind are both on Shakespeare’s plays.

3 This sumptuous edition was limited to 250 copies and priced astronomically at £8 8s.

4 Christopher Tolkien has informed me that his father kept some papers with his copy of the 1921 edition, including a clipping of the anonymous Times Literary Supplement review, dated 12 January 1922, which devotes a lot of space to discussing the Finn and Hengest elements in Beowulf. According to The Times Literary Supplement Centenary Archive, this review was written by Bruce Dickins, then Lecturer in English Language at Edinburgh. Also kept with the book is a request from G. N. Clark, the editor of The English Historical Review, that Tolkien review it. Tolkien noted on 28 July 1922 that he had accepted the task, and he made several pages of notes, but in the end no review appeared in that journal.

5 Shippey has also noted (350) that a vital part of Wilson’s book came out previously—before being collected in book-form. In fact, the basis of Wilson’s book appeared in three parts in Leeds Studies in English and Kindred Languages for the years 1933, 1936 and 1937. Wilson’s book does not mention his debt to Chambers, but the first installment in Leeds Studies in English owns up at the very beginning that it “owes much to the previous work of Professor Chambers on the subject” (14 n.1).

6 In 1973 Brown left University College London to become Professor of English at Monash University in Victoria, Australia. In April 1978 Brown attended a meeting of the Fellowship of Middle Earth [sic], a fan-group at Monash University, and showed his manuscript. An account of this meeting, together with a facsimile of the first nineteen lines of the poem, appears in the second issue (circa June-July 1978) of the fanzine A Elbereth Gilthoniel. In J. R. R. Tolkien: A Descriptive Bibliography, this publication is erroneously cited as being in the first issue of A Elbereth Gilthoniel (Hammond 386). The location of this manuscript of “Doworst” since Brown’s death in 1979 is unknown.

7 Chambers called the poem “great stuff—really heroic, quite apart from its value as showing how the Beowulf metre can be used in modern English” (Carpenter 168).

8 Tolkien held a Leverhulme Research Fellowship and was concerned that his children’s book would seem to have been written at the expense of his academic research.

9 It should be noted that the writing of some of the later chapters of The Hobbit was apparently completed in the summer of 1936 (Anderson 11). However, these chapters were based on an earlier outline completed before January 1933 (Anderson 8).

10 The dust-wrapper states in small type that the new edition contains “over 100 pages of new matter.” Because the main part of the text was reproduced from stereotyped plates, all of the new material was placed in a separate section (Part V), “Recent Work on Beowulf to 1930” (389-506), with “Additions to the Bibliography to 1930” added at the end of the book (538-552).

11 According to An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary (1898) by Joseph Bosworth, edited and enlarged by T. Northcote Toller, the accepted derivation of Beowulf was from Beado-wulf or “war-wolf” (Icelandic Bö#úlfr also “war-wolf”). Toller’s 1921 Supplement tacitly supports this derivation

12 The title “Sellic Spell” comes from line 2109 of Beowulf, where “syllïc spell” (“strange tale”) is given as a kind of story to be recited at a feast.

13 See especially pages 44-61, but Chambers also includes a number of analogues to the Bothvar Bjarki story.

14 Before the first edition of The Annotated Hobbit was published in 1988, I discussed this with the late Taum Santoski, then working on a never-completed edition of the manuscript of The Hobbit.

15 It should be noted that the discussion of “Ivashko Medvedko” first appeared in the original 1921 edition, and was not part of the new material added in 1932. This added material includes an entire chapter (451-485) that continues the discussion of the folktale elements in Beowulf, and in particular the “Bear’s Son” folktales. Thus Tolkien could have found Ivashko Medvedko when using the first edition of Chambers, or in rereading pre-existing material in the second.

16 The story comes from the major multi-volume collection of Russian folktales assembled by Aleksandr Afanas’ev, Narodnïe russkie skazki, published in the 1850s and 1860s. An English translation of this particular tale (as “Little Bear’s-Son”), given with a slightly different ending, had appeared in 1912 in Post Wheeler’s Russian Wonder Tales (249-271). “Ivashko Medvedko” tells the story of a boy that had been reared by a bear and raised by peasants after the death of the bear. The boy grows astonishingly fast, and is soon expelled from his village because his great strength, though playfully exercised, maims the other children. He goes on an adventure, acquiring three strong companions on the way, and they encounter the old witch Baba Yaga, who bests each of the three companions before she is outwitted and overpowered by Ivashko Medvedko. It is worth noting here that the story translated as “Ivanko the Bear’s Son” by Norbert Guterman in Russian Fairy Tales is an entirely different story.

Works Cited

Afanas’ev, Aleksander, ed. Russian Fairy Tales. Translated by Norbert Guterman. New York: Pantheon Books, 1973 [First published in 1945].

Anderson, Douglas A., ed. The Annotated Hobbit: Revised and Enlarged Edition. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2003.

Bosworth, Joseph. An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary. Edited and Enlarged by T. Northcote Toller. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1898.

Carpenter, Humphrey. J. R. R. Tolkien: A Biography. London: George Allen & Unwin, 1977.

Chabot, Caroline. “Raymond Wilson Chambers (1874-1942),” Moreana, 24 no. 93 (February 1987): 69-82; and 24 no. 94 (June 1987): 83-96

Chambers, R. W. [Book review, of Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics, by J. R. R. Tolkien], Modern Language Review, 33 no. 2 (April 1938): 272-273.

———. Beowulf: An Introduction to the Study of the Poem with a Discussion of the Stories of Offa and Finn. Second ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1932.

———. “Beowulf and the Heroic Age.” In Beowulf: Translated into Modern English Rhyming Verse, by Archibald Strong. London: Constable, 1925: vii-xlix.

———. Concerning Certain Great Teachers of the English Language. London: Edward Arnold & Co., 1923.

———. “The Lost Literature of Medieval England,” The Library, Fourth series, 5 no. 4 (March 1925): 293-321.

———. Man’s Unconquerable Mind: Studies from Bede to A. E. Housman and W. P. Ker. London: Jonathan Cape, 1939.

———. Widsith: A Study of Old English Heroic Legend. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1912.

Hammond, Wayne G., with Douglas A. Anderson. J. R. R. Tolkien: A Descriptive Bibliography. Winchester, UK: St. Paul’s Bibliographies; New Castle, DE: Oak Knoll Books, 1993.

Mills, Stella M. The Saga of Hrolf Kraki. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1933.

Shippey, Tom. The Road to Middle-earth: Revised and Expanded Edition. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2003.

Slade, Irene. Interview with Tolkien for the program “A World of Sound,” BBC Radio, recorded 26 November 1964 and broadcast 1 January 1965.

Toller, T. Northcote. An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary: Based on the Manuscript Collections of Joseph Bosworth: Supplement. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1921.

Unwin, Rayner. George Allen & Unwin: A Remembrancer. Ludlow, UK: Merlin Unwin Books, 1999.

Wheeler, Post. Russian Wonder Tales. London: A. & C. Black 1912. New York: The Century Co., 1912.

Wilson, R. M. “Lost Literature in Old and Middle English,” Leeds Studies in English and Kindred Languages, 2 (1933): 14-37; “More Lost Literature in Old and Middle English,” 5 (1936): 1-49; and “More Lost Literature: II,” 6 (1937): 30-49.

———. The Lost Literature of Medieval England, rev. ed. London: Methuen, 1970 [First published in 1952].

Notes and Documents

A Spliced Old English Quotation in “Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics”

Michael D. C. Drout

lif is læne: eal scæceffi leoht and lif somod (MC 19).

[Life is fleeting, all departs, light and life together.]1

This Old English quotation, which J. R. R. Tolkien uses in “Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics” to describe the theme of Beowulf, does not appear anywhere in the corpus of Anglo-Saxon. It is an invention by Tolkien, created by splicing together a partial quotation from Widsith and an Anglo-Saxon poetic commonplace most famously found in the poems The Wanderer, The Seafarer, and Beowulf.2

The passage in Widsith is “oþþæt eal scæceffi / leoht and lif somod” (141b-142a; until all departs, light and life together).3 It occurs at the very end of the poem, when the poet says that singers will exalt the reputations of those who are generous to them and will continue to maintain the fame of the heroic “until all departs, light and life together.”

The “lif is læne” part of the quotation does not appear in exactly that form anywhere in the corpus of Old English texts, but the idea, usually phrased as an adjective-noun combination such as “þis læne lif” (“this fleeting life”) appears to be a commonplace.4 The most famous instances of the idea can be found in the Exeter Book elegies The Wanderer and The Seafarer, and in Beowulf.

In The Wanderer, the following lines occur after the famous ubi sunt passage that laments the passing of the glories of the world, a passage that was in adapted by Tolkien in “The King of the Golden Hall” into the poem “Where now the horse and the rider?” (TT, III, vi, 112). 5 The narrator of The Wanderer says:

Her biffi feoh læne, her biffi freond læne,

her biffi mon læne, her biffi mæg læne,

eal þis eorþan gesteal idel weorþeffi. (108-110).

[Here wealth is fleeing, here a friend is fleeting, here a man is fleeting, here a kinsman is fleeting; all this earthen foundation will become empty].

In The Seafarer, lines 64b-66a read “Forþon me hatran sind / dryhtnes dreamas, þonne þis dead lif,/ læne on londe” (Because to me the joys of the Lord are warmer than this dead life, fleeting on the land).6 The context of this quotation is the seafarer’s reverie when his mind roams over the empty sea. After the quotation the seafarer adds that every man will be destroyed by ill-health, old age or the sword’s edge.

“Lif is læne” sentiments occur several times in Beowulf. For example, Grendel’s mother is said to have left behind the days of her life and “this fleeting creation” (1622b).7 Later, in Hrothgar’s “sermon,” in which the old king advises young Beowulf, Hrothgar says “hit on endestæf eft gelimpeffi / þæt se lichoma læne gedreoseffi / fæge gefealleffi” (1753-1755a; In the last days it happens that the fleeting body decays and, fated, falls).

The poet calls Beowulf’s days on earth “transitory” (or “borrowed”) just before the old king is about to fight the dragon:

Sceolde lændaga

æþeling ærgod ende gebidan,

worulde lifes, ond se wyrm somod (2341b-2343).

[the noble one, proved good of old, had to abide the ending of his borrowed days on the world’s life, and the dragon, together].

The poet later adds every man should “alætan lændagas” (2591; give up his borrowed days)8 in the same manner as Beowulf does. Finally, speaking of both Beowulf and the dragon, the poet writes “hæfde æghwæffier ende gefered / lænan lifes.” (2844-2845a; each had fared to the end of this fleeting life).

The key word “læne” is not easily translated. Most translators use “transitory” or “ephemeral” or (if one wants to avoid Latin roots), “fleeting,” but the word is the antecedent of “loaned,” and it seems likely that the Anglo-Saxon audience would have understood the word as meaning “loaned from God to men.” Nevertheless the word’s applicability to the situation Tolkien is discussing in “Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics” is obvious: the life of this earth is brief, and “within time the monsters would win.”

Just as the phrase "a mythology for England" has become famous even though it was never written by Tolkien,9 so too this “lif is læne” quotation has spread across the internet (and perhaps into the published record) as an example of the beauty of Old English poetry even though it was not written by an Anglo-Saxon poet but by J. R. R. Tolkien.

Notes

1 All translations of Old English are my own.

2 All of the other quotations from Old English (and those from Latin, Old Norse and Middle English as well) are printed in italics in “Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics.” Tolkien does not use quotation marks at any point for ancient and medieval languages (he does for modern quotations). It is possible that Tolkien did not intend this sentence to be read as a quotation, that he was simply composing in Anglo-Saxon, but I think that Tolkien may have mis-remembered the source quotation from Widsith—I am not certain that he would present, unmarked, Anglo-Saxon verse of his own composition in a published British Academy lecture, as he did in fact remove the poems (by him and by C. S. Lewis) that were originally included in Beowulf and the Critics, the antecedent of “Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics.”

3 Widsith, The Wanderer and The Seafarer are cited from Krapp and Dobbie, ed. The Exeter Book. The Anglo-Saxon Poetic Records, volume 3.

4 According to the The Dictionary of Old English electronic corpus, there are 46 appearances of the “lif is læne” topos in the Old English corpus in both poetry and prose. The topos appears most frequently in homiletic materials.

5 Transformed and given to Theoden in Peter Jackson’s production of The Two Towers.

6 In the essay “A Secret Vice,” Tolkien writes: “You may say green sun or dead life and set the imagination leaping” (MC 219).

7 Quotations from Beowulf are taken from Fr. Klaeber’s Beowulf and the Fight at Finnsburg, 3rd ed.

8 “Lændagas” is an emendation of the manuscript reading “þenddago”; compare line 2951a, lændagas

9 See Anders Stenström’s “A Mythology? For England?” for a discussion of the invention and dissemination of this phrase.

Works Cited

D’Ardenne, S. T. R. O. “The Man and the Scholar,” in J.R.R. Tolkien, Scholar and Storyteller: Essays in Memoriam. Ed. Mary Salu and Robert T. Farrell. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 33-37.

Klaeber, Fr. Beowulf and the Fight at Finnsburg. 3rd ed. Lexington, MA: D. C. Heath, 1950.

Krapp, George P. and Eliot Van Kirk Dobbie. The Exeter Book. The Anglo-Saxon Poetic Records. New York: Columbia University Press, 1936.

Stenström, Anders. “A Mythology? For England?” in Patricia Reynolds and Glen H. GoodKnight, eds. Proceedings of the J. R. R. Tolkien Centenary Conference, Keble College, Oxford, 1992. Milton Keynes and Altadena: The Tolkien Society and The Mythopoeic Press, 1995. 310-14.

Notes and Documents

“The tree took me up from the ground and carried me off”: A Source for Tolkien’s Ents in Ludvig Holberg’s Journey of Niels Klim to the World Underground

James I. McNelis III

When I recently proposed to the University of Nebraska Press the reissue of my father’s 1960 edition of Ludvig Holberg’s The Journey of Niels Klim to the World Underground, it was far from my mind to think it would have any bearing on my study of Tolkien. NK is of great interest to students of early science fiction and political satires based on other worlds (such as Gulliver’s Travels, to which NK is greatly indebted). But because the reissue (and the informative preface by Peter Fitting) caused me to look into the text, something I had not previously done at any length, I found something quite unexpected: it appears that the kingdom of sentient trees presented in NK has such strong specific parallels to the Ents that some unconscious inspiration, based on a memory of having read NK, was at work in Tolkien’s process—pace the consensus that “[w]hat came entirely from his own mind was the connection [of ents] with trees” (Shippey 88-89).

The primary plot of the book is the first known version of the journey to an underground world, later developed by Verne and others. Niels Klim finds a kingdom of intelligent, mobile trees in the utopia of Potu. While there are sensible trees in classical literature, Canto XIII of Inferno, etc., the specific points of similarity to The Lord of the Rings are as follows.

In both texts the tree-creatures at first assume the interloper(s) to be dangerous and/or irrational, and fail to correctly identify the type of beings they are: “they conjectured I was a monkey, though of a species different from the monkeys of that country” (NK 17); “I should have just trodden on you, and taken you for little Orcs … what are you, I wonder?” (TT, III, iv, 67).

The tree-creatures then carry off the interlopers, who find their hosts’ language sonorous but incomprehensible. Leaping into a tree while pursued by a mad bull, Klim finds that it is sentient, and “presently another tree advancing to me, let down one of its branches, which had at the extremity of it six large buds in the manner of fingers. With these the tree took me up from the ground and carried me off, attended by a multitude of other trees of various kinds and different sizes, all of which kept muttering certain sounds, articulately indeed, but in a tone too foreign for my ears, so that I could not possibly retain anything of them” (NK 17). Compare: “A large knob-knuckled hand was laid on each of their shoulders . . . then two great arms lifted them up” (TT, III, iv, 66); “[h]olding the hobbits gently but firmly, one in the crook of each arm, Treebeard lifted up first one large foot and then the other … he set off with long deliberate strides” (TT, III, iv, 70); “[at the Entmoot] a curious and unintelligible conversation began. The Ents began to murmur slowly … Though he could not catch or understand any of the words—he supposed the language was Entish—Pippin found the sound very pleasant to listen to” (TT, III, iv, 84).

Klim can’t become a full citizen of Potus because of his insufficiently deliberative nature: “they even went so far as to give me the nickname of Skabba, which in their language signifies ‘overhasty’” (NK 78). Compare, of course, Treebeard’s frequent characterizations of Merry and Pippin as “hasty” (TT, III, iv, 67ff).

The trees of NK are “brave and warlike”; though they never declare war themselves, if it be declared against them they “push it with all imaginable vigour” (75). Compare, obviously, the Ents’ destruction of Isengard (TT, III, ix, 170-75).

The Potuan society is extremely slow to have political debates or to change any laws or policy: “The threefold repetition of words [in legal proceedings] was made use of to assist the slowness of their perception . . . for very few could comprehend what they had only cursorily read, or understand what they had only once heard. Those whose forward capacities took a thing presently were deemed defective in judgement” (NK 22) and no law of theirs has altered for the last 500 years (NK 64). Treebeard comments of the pace of the Entmoot that “we shall be here a long time yet: a couple of days very likely” (TT, III, iv, 86).

They resent the abuse of trees on the world above: “[H]e beheld me with some resentment when I attested that our trees were cut down for fuel to heat our furnaces and dress our provisions” (NK 26). Compare, for example, Treebeard’s anger at the felling of trees by Saruman’s orcs, whether to fuel the fires of Isengard or out of sheer destructiveness (TT, III, iv, 76-77).

Tolkien’s view of literary source-hunting and its relation to the Soup of Story and its constituents is admittedly applicable here. I do not know of any indication in his published writings that he read NK, or particularly held it in mind. Nonetheless, as one who shared Lewis’s interest in fantasy and sci-fi, the likelihood that he had read it at some time seems more than plausible in light of the resemblances listed above, and the relative prominence of the presumed source-text and its author. Holberg had been a student at Oxford, as documented in Simon C. Hamer, Ludvig Holberg: The Founder of Norwegian Literature and an Oxford Student (Oxford: B.H. Blackwell, 1920), and an English-language publication of Niels Klim was included in a collection of Popular Romances, Consisting of Imaginary Voyages … (1812) edited by the same Henry William Weber who edited the Illustration of Northern Antiquities as well as Metrical Romances of the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries … (1810). Holberg’s prominence in Scandinavian literature, his status as an Oxford alumnus, and the attention paid to his work by Weber, whose work Tolkien had cause to read as a medievalist—as well as the inevitable presence of more than one edition of Niels Klim on the shelves of the Bodleian—all attest to the likelihood that the book could hardly have escaped his notice.

In Old English, the term “Ent” applies to the most shadowy and indistinct category of giants (in Beowulf, the term appears distinct from those for the biblical giants, gigantas, as well as the Germanic terms eoten and $yrs). The connotation of the rare citations of the term in Old English is giants-as-builders, in the phrase ealda enta geweorc to describe the Roman ruin in the poem The Ruin, as well as in Beowulf. It is a logical progression for Tolkien to imagine the Ents as having the power to destroy great stone fortifications, concomitant with the power it would take to build them. However, neither the treelike nature of the Ents, their power in war, or the slowness of their deliberations is featured in any of the shadowy Anglo-Saxon literary references to them; the sole place name I have found, “Ent Hleaw” (Sawyer nos. 465 and 970), is similarly not too informative. And when these resemblances are placed alongside the tree creature’s mistrust of the newly encountered biped(s); the grabbing up and carrying of him/them; the uncertainty of his/their taxonomic classification as a sentient being; their outrage at the felling and burning of trees by the human(oid)s; and their pejorative characterization of him/them as “overhasty,” the weight of coincidence seems to become a ponderous one indeed

Works Cited

Hamer, Simon C. Ludvig Holberg: The Founder of Norwegian Literature and an Oxford Student. Oxford: B.H. Blackwell, 1920.

Holberg, Ludvig. The Journey of Niels Klim to the World Underground, edited by James I. McNelis. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2004.

Sawyer, P. H. Anglo-Saxon Charters: An Annotated List and Bibliography. Vol. 8. London: Offices of the Royal Historical Society, 1968.

Shippey, Tom. J.R.R. Tolkien: Author of the Century. London and New York: HarperCollins Pub., 2000

Weber, Henry William. Metrical Romances of the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Centuries. Edinburgh, 1210.

———. Popular Romances, Consisting of Imaginary Voyages and Travel… Edinburgh: James Ballantyne, 1812.

———, R. Jamieson, and W.S. [Walter Scott]. Illustrations of Northern Antiquities from the Earlier Teutonic and Scandinavian Romances. Edinburgh, 1814.

Book Reviews

Sí Qente Feanor & Other Elvish Writings, by J. R. R. Tolkien, edited by Arden R. Smith, Christopher Gilson, Patrick H. Wynne and Bill Welden. Cupertino, CA: Parma Eldalamberon, 2004. 122 pp. $25.00 (oversize paperback) [no ISBN]. Parma Eldalamberon XV. [Contains: “Names and Required Alterations,” edited by Patrick H. Wynne; “Name-list to ‘The Fall of Gondolin,’” edited by Christopher Gilson and Patrick H. Wynne; “Sí Qente Feanor,” edited by Christopher Gilson; “Early Qenya Pronouns,” edited by Christopher Gilson; “Index of Names for ‘The Lay of the Children of Húrin,’” edited by Bill Welden and Christopher Gilson; “English–Qenya Dictionary,” edited by Arden R. Smith and Christopher Gilson; “Addendum to ‘The Alphabet of Rúmil’ and ‘The Valmaric Script,’” edited by Arden R. Smith; and “Early Runic Documents,” edited by Arden R. Smith.]

The first phase in the history of J.R.R. Tolkien’s invented languages, roughly covering the decade from 1915, has been recounted in four issues of Parma Eldalamberon which focused alternately on the “high elven” Qenya and its sibling, Gnomish or Noldorin. Along the way two early writing systems, Rúmilian and Valmaric, have been introduced. This fifth installment, comprising miscellaneous dainties from across the period, is what hobbits might call “filling up the corners.” As such, it uncovers no substantial new strata in the development of Tolkien’s grammatical, phonological, semantic or graphical concepts. However, it offers much new detail for linguists, and for the rest of us it contains valuable illustrations of Tolkien’s creative method and themes.

The collection takes its title from the centerpiece, “Sí Qente Feanor,” or “Thus spoke Feanor”: a c.1917 Qenya text of the most substantial pieces of Elvish yet published, preceded only by the 1915–16 poem “Narqelion.” If Christopher Gilson’s painstaking and tentative translation is correct, this anticipates Tolkien’s explorations of human corruptibility in late writings associated with the “Athrabeth Finrod ah Andreth.” The topic also matches an early explicit religiosity seen, for example, in the myths of judgment after death in The Book of Lost Tales. It seems particularly apt against the backdrop of the First World War, in which Tolkien had seen battle in 1916 before being invalided with trench fever. A notebook jotting naming “the root of disease,” Nerqal, “wherewith Melko poisons his foes so that they die of a slow disease,” might have been suggested by time spent in hospital wards among gassed soldiers. Heading a sheaf of miscellaneous notes, the title “Enõlaõesíþ,” Old English for “a warrior of the Angles,” suggests a characteristic Tolkienian urge to use the distant past as a frame of reference: in this instance to define his own role as a soldier in an army that others tended to call “British.”

Tolkien’s early habit of writing his family into his myths is further evidenced: the wife of Ælfwine, the mariner who hears the Lost Tales, is Earisse, equated with Edith, of which it is near-rendering into Qenya sounds. Geographical identifications draw life and art even closer. In the manuscript of “The Cottage of Lost Play,” we learn, a note identifies the river Sirion as the Trent or the Severn: the great rivers of Staffordshire and Worcestershire, respectively, in whose watershed lay Birmingham, Tolkien’s boyhood home. The Trent flows through Great Haywood (Tavrobel of the Lonely Isle), where Edith Tolkien wrote out the tale for her husband early in 1917.

Such embryonic ideas have no relation to later Middle-earth topography. But a further early identification of the Sirion with the Rhine evokes the defining idea of the Lost Tales—that these are stories of which the European myths and fairy-tales are merely the fragmentary and faded echoes. Most intriguingly, in notes that relate names in the Lost Tales to equivalents in Germanic languages, we perhaps witness the first appearances of the names Beren and Lúthien, each with an application entirely different from the later, famous ones. Tolkien places a figure named Beren in an Indo-European-style myth of warring brothers; in a further noteworthy illustration of Tolkien’s recurrent interest in bears, his name is identified with Old English Beorn; the other brother is named in Old English Éoh, “horse.” Lúthien is not an Elvish enchantress but one of Ælfwine’s two sons. Curiously, the unwritten history behind the adaptations (not translations) is of the Elves meeting Germanic speakers and mimicking the sounds of their words, rather than of Indo-Europeans borrowing words from the Elves.

The notes headed “Enõlaõesíþ” afford the clearest illustration yet of how Tolkien “reconstructed” what Tom Shippey has called the “asterisk-reality” of his Lost Tales. Here he gathered miscellaneous Old English word lore; then he proceeded to extrapolate. Finding that Watling Street, the Roman road from Dover to Chester, shared its name with the Milky Way, he devised a myth of terrestrial and celestial road-building that would explain this, involving race rivalry, treachery, and redress by the gods. References to the “Gnomes of Péac” (the Derbyshire Peak, not a reference to height but a cognate of Puck), “the wild orcs of Íwerin” (Ireland), and most of all “Wóden (Manweg)” demonstrate that we are not only in the British Isles but also, already, in Middle-earth. Some items reflect Tolkien’s labour in the Ws on the Oxford English Dictionary, and the celestial Watling Street appears in his 1923 survey of philology for The Year’s Work in English Studies: professional work and private passion characteristically overlapping. These are early ideas, barely surviving in The Book of Lost Tales; yet now we see what must surely be the very first, barely recognisable conception of Feanor as he was forged by Tolkien (as Earendel sprang partly out of references to the obscure Wade) from a key figure in northern myth. He equates Feanor to the smith Wéland, or Völundr, who takes cruel revenge in the Norse Völundarkvi#a for being forced to work in thralldom; Tolkien’s barely sketched version of his story makes Melko or an orc-king his captor, and thus exonerates the vengeful Wéland of barbarism.

The name-list to “The Fall of Gondolin,” quoted extensively in The Book of Lost Tales, Part Two, is published in full for the first time here, along with a similar list for “The Lay of the Children of Húrin.” Anyone studying textual relations or the development of nomenclature in The History of Middle-earth should not overlook Parma Eldalamberon. An English-Qenya Dictionary is also of interest as an exercise in pseudo-history, with definitions written in the Valmaric script and some directions for usage, as if for the use of a traveller in Faërie.

All Tolkien’s surviving early runic work is presented, including Old English runes similar to those used in The Hobbit, and a flowing handwritten variant anticipating the written form of the cirth in The Treason of Isengard. Each character in an ephemeral “Gnomic” script appears in angular and rounded forms, perhaps indicating an imagined chronological development from carved to handwritten. The later connection in the tengwar and cirth between shape and sound already exists in the early “Gondolinic Runes,” republished here from Mythlore 67 (Summer 1992) where it was presented and analysed by Paul Nolan Hyde, but now with an additional script version.

Some of the dainties laid out here take a good deal of chewing over. I remember encountering in the Bodleian Library the original manuscript, if such it can be called, for the material that comprises the most intractable chapter. In front of me were slips for an Anglo-Saxon dictionary that Tolkien had once begun, written on the back of torn-up Elvish grammar charts. The fragmented charts contained no complete paradigms and no labels—though it was possible to recognize sets of pronouns and case endings. Somehow, Mr. Gilson has now descried the currents in an apparent maelstrom, and exhaustively analysed these early Qenya fragments. Perhaps, indeed, he has said the last word on them in terms of their grammatical features; but it will no doubt help elucidate obscurities elsewhere in the corpus. Over and over again, the editors succeed in revealing the patterns of revision beneath an apparent maze of variants.

To appreciate Tolkien’s creative feelings when he worked on these paradigms one has only to recall his reminiscence of a sitting in a wartime lecture next to a soldier who suddenly exclaimed, “Yes, I think I shall express the accusative case by a prefix!”

Just consider the splendour of the words! . . . What a pondering of alternatives within one’s choice before the final decision in favour of the daring and unusual prefix, so personal, so attractive; the final solution of some element in a design that had hitherto proved refractory. Here were no base considerations of the ‘practical’, the easiest for the ‘modern mind’, or for the million—only a question of taste, a satisfaction of a personal pleasure, a private sense of fitness.

As he said his words the little man’s smile was full of a great delight, as of a poet or painter seeing suddenly the solution of a hitherto clumsy passage (“A Secret Vice,” MC 199).

Language creation, for Tolkien, was an act of gorgeous, individualistic rebellion in an era of barbarous conformity. These papers afford a glimpse over his shoulder as he worried at the details in the still of the night, repeatedly tearing up his work but, no doubt, also occasionally leaning back with a smile of delighted discovery. It was on such foundations that Tolkien constructed his cathedral of myth.

John Garth

London, England

Smith of Wootton Major: Extended Edition, by J. R. R. Tolkien, edited by Verlyn Flieger. Illustrated by Pauline Baynes. London: HarperCollins, 2005. [irregular pagination] vi, 5-62, 59-149 pp. £14.99 (hardcover) ISBN 0007202474.

This “Extended Edition” of Smith of Wootton Major contains previously unpublished materials by Tolkien, and, as Verlyn Flieger says in her “Afterword,” “a particular aim of this new edition has been to afford the reader a glimpse of the author at work, by appending to the story transcriptions of documents pertaining to its creation and development” (66).

What are these documents? The Extended Edition presents “‘Genesis of the Story’: Tolkien’s Note to Clyde Kilby,” in which Tolkien relates that the idea for Smith occurred to him while he was preparing a preface for a new edition of George MacDonald’s The Golden Key. Following this is the preface itself, “Tolkien’s draft introduction to The Golden Key,” which is unfinished and breaks off in mid-sentence just as Tolkien was developing the analogy of the cook and the cake to illustrate the relationship between an author of a fairy tale and that tale’s ability to convey a glimpse of the realm of Fairy. Next comes “‘The Great Cake’ Time Scheme and Characters,” which contains a list identifying the characters of “The Great Cake”—Tolkien’s original name for the story—and a chronology relating events beginning sixty-two years before the fictional starting date of the tale. Following next is a query-filled set of notes of “Suggestions for the ending of the story,” which contain thoughts on possible revisions of the final section of the story and the effects that those revisions will have on character relationships. After this comes a document called “Smith of Wootton Major,” which is part essay and part narrative. This document by itself justifies a new edition, because in it Tolkien explains his own story and narrates some of the background events that affect Smith. Next we find a “[Hybrid draft transcription of ‘The Great Cake’],” which is the earliest complete version of the story. In this well-formatted section we can read the tale as a primary document on the left hand pages, where it appears in facsimile of the original typewritten and handwritten manuscript, and the transcription on the right hand pages. Last, we are given “Lake of Tears drafts and transcriptions,” which consist of two separate one-page versions, an earlier one in manuscript and a later one in typescript, of Smith’s experiences at a place in Fairy called the Lake of Tears.

The appended documents do give us a “glimpse of the author at work,” or several glimpses, but what do these glimpses tell us of Tolkien’s authorial process? Looking at the documents in order of production rather than presentation may help answer this question. We should begin, then, with the draft preface to The Golden Key and determine, if possible, what was in Tolkien’s mind when he hit upon the analogy of the cook and the cake, which, we know from the note to Clyde Kilby, written much later, triggered the idea for Smith.

When he reread The Golden Key after a space of many years, Tolkien did not like it. Nevertheless, Tolkien admired MacDonald, so instead of writing what he felt would be a negative essay about The Golden Key, Tolkien uses the preface to define “fairy” and “fairy tale.” He emphasizes that “fairy” means “enchantment or magic, and the enchanted world or country in which marvellous people lived.” He defines a fairy tale as “a tale about that world, a glimpse of it” (74).1 Tolkien does not restrict his definition by stating what an author has to do or show to give readers a glimpse of Fairy, but even bad writers (as he considered MacDonald) can sometimes succeed because “Fairy is very powerful,” and we can sometimes “catch a glimpse of Fairy” in a bad story “and go on to better things” (74). And then Tolkien hit upon the cook-and-cake analogy, started putting it into “a short story” to illustrate his point, and realized he had an idea for a short story of his own. But what kind of short story? Tolkien may have decided in that moment that it would be a fairy tale. If so, then, holding him to his own definition, what would Tolkien focus on, what would he choose to do and show to give readers a glimpse of Fairy? Throughout the draft preface, Tolkien expresses his own fascination with Fairy, “where all things were wonderful: earth, water, air, and fire” (74). Though he makes no analysis of The Golden Key, he does say that “the centre of the tale” for him was his memory of “the great valley encircled by hard towering mountains, with its smooth floor in which the shadows played, the sea of shadows cast by things that could not themselves be seen” (72). So the answer might possibly be the definition itself: his short story would be “a tale about that world, a glimpse of it.” Looking at the published Smith, that is the answer. Smith does indeed give us a glimpse of Fairy (or “Faery,” as Tolkien would eventually spell the word in Smith as published), and the descriptions of Smith’s journeys in Fairy have, because of their strangeness and their terse narration, more artistic potency than anything else in the story. By his own definition, he succeeded in creating a fairy tale.

But it was not the answer at the beginning. None of the melancholic, evocative, and dream-like Fairy episodes that everyone remembers from Smith appear in the Hybrid draft of “The Great Cake,” the first complete version of the story. This version tells us that Smith “became acquainted with Fairy, and knew some parts of it well,” but the closest thing we get to a description of Fairy is one sentence: “One day, however, he was walking through a wood in Fairy, and it was autumn there, and there were red leaves on the boughs and on the ground” (117). At the beginning, Tolkien’s thoughts and emphasis lay elsewhere: on the fairy ring that becomes a fairy star, and on creating circumstances in which the star can work its magic. In the first version, it is through the star that we catch a glimpse of Fairy.

So, the idea of working visions of Fairy landscapes into the story must have occurred after Tolkien wrote the first complete version. The “Lake of Tears” drafts support this view. Tolkien evidently wrote at least four full versions of what became Smith over a two year period: the Hybrid draft and three typewritten versions, called by Flieger Drafts A, B, and C (62-63). He added the Lake of Tears episode in the third full version (Draft B), and the drafts contained in the Extended Edition, show, as Flieger says, Tolkien expanding Smith “from the inside” (67). The addition of the Lake of Tears episode, which of course was expanded further as Tolkien progressed towards the final version, signals a shift of emphasis: the story is no longer focussed on the star. Instead of being the chief Fairy element in the story, the star’s importance decreases as it becomes Smith’s, and the reader’s, passport to the greater wonders of Fairy itself.

Chronologically, the next document in the production sequence appears to be “Suggestions for the ending of the story.” The first thing we notice about this document is that, in comparison with the documents we have seen, it was written after considerable story and character development: it contains references to Smith’s wife, his son, his daughter, his grandchild, and the Fairy Queen, none of whom are mentioned in the first version of “The Great Cake,” and, in addition, the Apprentice has developed into the King of Fairy. These notes clearly belong to a later stage in the two-year writing of Smith. Because the Extended Edition does not contain the later drafts, we can only check Tolkien’s notes here against the finished Smith to see what he used and what he rejected. Doing so reveals that some of the new draft material for the episode involving Smith’s meeting with the Apprentice and relinquishing the fairy star, which appears on page 82, was used in revised form in Smith, on pages 40 and 46-48 of the Extended Edition. The farewell wave exchanged by Smith and the Apprentice was not used, and though Tolkien decided here not to reveal the name of the child to whom the fairy star would pass, he later changed his mind.

We also discern that Tolkien must have written these notes just for himself. No attempt has been made to organize or formalize them for other readers: they begin as if in mid-conversation on the relatively minor point of the Apprentice’s needing to choose an apprentice for himself and then jump from question to question without graceful transitions. The notes certainly show, as Flieger says, Tolkien’s “thinking on paper” (68). Like many writers, Tolkien often had to clarify his story ideas through the writing process itself: for example, his several attempts to write the opening chapters of The Lord of the Rings, now published in The Return of the Shadow and The Treason of Isengard. But Tolkien also sometimes wrote down the unresolved issues as questions, as though the act of stating the question would help him resolve it: for example, the now famous “who is Aragorn?” question, with which Tolkien vexed himself more than once during his first two years of work on The Lord of the Rings. Looking at these questions, it seems likely that Tolkien had an active internal debate about the ending of Smith and the relinquishing of the star in particular. It appears that he was not debating the meaning of the ending (“sacrifice, and the handing on, with trust and without keeping a hand on things, of power and vision to the next generation” 81), but he was in doubt about the sequence of episodes, and he disliked some of what he had written. He seems to have written these notes to help himself resolve the open questions. He did resolve them, but he did not finally adopt all of the answers he provided here, which confirms that Tolkien wrote this document amidst competing concerns.

The next document produced was likely the “‘The Great Cake’ Time Scheme and Characters” because the title of the story was evidently still “The Great Cake” when this was written. Since Draft C introduced the title change, this document may belong to the Draft B stage of composition, or slightly later, because in all its details, the notes here appear to be in accord with the final version of Smith. Every event that occurs in the plot of Smith is recorded here, and every character is indexed, even the nominal ones, which Tolkien is careful to include in a note. The most striking aspects of these notes are their clarity and their polished accuracy. In sharp contrast to “Suggestions for the ending of the story,” here there is no hesitation, no indecisiveness, no muddled queries, no fragment sentences. This document reminds us of the “Tale of Years” in Appendix B of The Lord of the Rings. It seems clearly to have been prepared for other readers than Tolkien; in short, for publication.

The same can be said for the essay/narrative called “Smith of Wootton Major.” It seems to be a finished (or nearly finished) thing. Even the notes, though they are printed in the Extended Edition as though they could be riders or emendations, seem to be finished and to be intended as notes rather than possible insertions. The essay/narrative appears to be coeval with the Time Scheme and Character notes document, related to it, and similarly intended for publication and for reading by others than Tolkien. The narrative part of this document tells the important events that occurred in the sixty-two years before Smith begins, all of which correspond to the chronology of years in the Time Scheme, so in that sense the two documents illuminate each other. The essay portion shows Tolkien taking pains to explain to his readers the social culture of Wootton Major, the history of its crafts and trades, its geographical and temporal relationship to Fairy, and the history of the interactions between the folk of Wootton Major and the folk of Fairy. In short, the essay/narrative document reveals a considerably broader and deeper view of this new imaginary world than we experience in Smith.

In his list of characters, Tolkien marks with an asterisk those persons who are not mentioned by name “in the story as told, but would be important in a full tale.” This is a very curious statement. Did Tolkien not consider Smith a “full tale”? Surely he must have, or he would not have read it aloud at Blackfriars and then offered it to George Allen & Unwin for publication. Tolkien’s statement appears to assert not that the story was incomplete but rather that his imaginative development of the imaginary world in which Smith exists had gone far beyond the details disclosed in the tale itself. But the remark does suggest that there was more Tolkien could have told, had he wanted to (and he clearly did want to because he told much more of the back-story to Smith in the essay/narrative). In his unfinished preface to The Golden Key, Tolkien compares the beginning and ending of a story to the edges of a framed picture of a landscape: “it concentrates the teller’s attention, and yours, on one small part of the country,” he says, “But there are of course no real limits: under the earth, and in the sky above, and in the remote and faintly glimpsed distances, and in the unrevealed regions on the other side, there are things that influence the very shape and colour of the part that is pictured” (73). In the Time Scheme and Characters document and in the essay/narrative, Tolkien shows that he has visited the “remote distances” and “unrevealed regions” of the imaginary world in which Smith exists and that he has used his own journeys to influence “the shape and colour” of that part of the imaginary world that he pictures in Smith.

Smith has clear parallels to Tolkien’s major fiction. In The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, Hobbiton, though imaginary in itself, suggests an English village in a pre-industrial but post-medieval time. In Smith, Wootton Major also suggests a pre-industrial English village (somewhat akin perhaps to Hardy’s Wessex villages), but the fact that it has no apparent church makes it as un-English and imaginary as Hobbiton. In all three texts, we depart from a place that feels familiar but is nevertheless imaginary; we journey into unknown, dangerous, enchanted country; then we return to our familiar ground: in effect, we visit imaginary worlds within imaginary worlds. And in all three texts, Tolkien labors to create the larger social, historical, and geographical context for his secondary worlds. Smith may have begun its life as a mere parable to illustrate a point in an essay, but within two years it developed into a subtle story that not only succeeds as a fairy tale but is rich with allusions to the history, geography, and culture that exist beyond the picture-frame of the story. The documents contained in the Extended Edition reveal, through several glimpses of the author at work over a two year period, that Tolkien brought to Smith all the power of his sub-creative art, and that, up until now, what we have seen in Smith is just “one small part of the country” (73).

Paul Edmund Thomas

Palo Alto, California

Notes

1 In his essay “On Fairy-stories,” Tolkien defined a fairy tale similarly: “a ‘fairy-story’ is one which touches on or uses Faërie.” He also argued, as he does here, that the word Fairy refers to “the realm or state in which fairies have their being” but which “contains many things besides elves and fays, and besides dwarfs, witches, trolls, giants, or dragons; it holds the seas, the sun, the moon, the sky; and the earth, and all things that are in it; tree and bird, water and stone, wine and bread, and ourselves, mortal men, when we are enchanted” (MC, 113-114).

Gateway to Sindarin, by David Salo. Salt Lake City: The University of Utah Press, 2004. xvi, 438 pp. $49.95 (hardcover) ISBN 0874808006.

This ambitious and helpful book pits itself against numerous predetermined and fundamental disadvantages. Through no fault of its own, the book is handicapped in that it attempts to generate a clear snapshot of an elusive entity that is, in more than one way, a moving target. The author’s choice of the word “Gateway” [Sindarin Annon] for the title, and for the cover graphic, shows a keen awareness of the necessary limitations on the project: it must constitute a beginning only.

First, it can be convincingly argued that, considering the development of Tolkien’s languages throughout Tolkien’s own life, there is not, was not, nor ever has there been, such a fixed entity as what Salo, in this book, calls Classical Sindarin, or what general readers of Lord of the Rings might call Third-Age Sindarin—namely, the Sindarin of the story which many readers perceive as the central one of Tolkien’s legendarium. Sindarin (or Gnomish, or Noldorin) maintained a protean elusiveness both (a) throughout its author’s life (as he tinkered, or Niggled if you will, with it), as well as (b) within the secondary, imagined world of Middle-earth, where it is presumed to have developed through time after the manner of languages in our primary world – although unlike, say, Tolkien’s Quenya or historical Latin, both of which are relatively easier to document and study, because of fixed preservation within ritual contexts, as well as survival in more numerous texts. (See page 14 of Salo’s book for a boldly conceived chart guessing at the mutual development, through time, of the various branches on the Eldarin-language family tree, including Quenya and various postulated incarnations of Sindarin, set within the frame of Tolkien’s narrative.) Nonetheless, it has not been the more-easily-documented Quenya that many linguistically-minded Tolkien enthusiasts (this reviewer included) have been instinctively, even emotionally, drawn to find out more about through the decades; instead, it has been specifically Third-Age Sindarin—as spoken, say, in Denethor’s Minas Tirith, or in Elrond’s Rivendell; in other words, David Salo’s “Classical Sindarin”—which has proven to be the elusive object of desire.

Presumably because of this unique appeal, Sindarin was one language that Iron Crown Enterprises, representing the designers of paper-based RPG scenarios under the MERP rubric (Middle-earth Role Playing, 1980s-1990s), specifically wanted available for use in the game. Accordingly, additional !Sindarin.1 phrases were generated for this purpose, using extrapolated vocabulary and paradigms beyond those already extant.2 More recently, and exponentially more noticeably in the world at large, Peter Jackson’s film production company expressed a need in the late nineties for “Elvish” (and other) texts for its Lord of the Rings movie scripts, resulting in the creation of a similarly tentative corpus of text for film dialogue. These texts had to be produced against a deadline, and therefore had to include invented or extrapolated elements where there were lacunae in what was currently known. Whether one calls the “language” thus generated (negatively) MovieElvish or (neutrally) Neo-Sindarin betrays one’s attitude toward such texts.3 David Salo, an academically-trained Indo-European linguist and the author of the book at hand, was, as this reviewer understands, a chief consultant on both of these necessarily tentative projects.

The second major difficulty, then, with Salo’s “snapshot” approach as found in the Gateway book lies in the necessary effects of deadlines like these, however routine as such time parameters might be in the development of commercial cultural products. Tolkien-related projects with planned dates of issue, such as RPG instruction and scenario manuals; feature films; commentary books; or any other commercial entertainment product, are by their very nature incompatible with the non-deadline-based, authorized release of Tolkien’s posthumous language papers by a team of scholars authorized by the Tolkien Estate in Vinyar Tengwar and related venues, which release is still in process and far from finished at this present time. Only time will tell, for instance, whether Salo’s guesses for “Classical Sindarin’s” missing pronouns, or for second-person verb endings,4 represent the accurate form;5 or one possible form among many; or are completely off the mark. Likewise, only time will tell whether such now-widely-known extrapolative additions to known Sindarin vocabulary as the gerund hannad for the act of thanking (see Footnote 3) were actually present in Tolkien’s Sindarin as conceived of by the author himself, or not.

Meantime, though, numerous Sindarin paradigm and vocabulary guesses, many of them Salo’s, have irrevocably permeated the worlds of Tolkien fandom and Tolkien studies—chiefly through the Peter Jackson Lord of the Rings film scripts at first, but now also through countless Internet sites involving Elvish-language speculation, extrapolation and discussion; role-playing; and fan fiction.6 More new Sindarin words and phrases are being spawned daily and being used—if not exactly in the organic manner in which words and phrases live and move and have their being in a real-world language, in something uncannily like it. (Thus !Neo-Sindarin versions of “Go kiss an orc!”, and other expressions more outré, coined who knows how or where, can be Googled for at any moment one might wish.) There is no question that !Neo-Sindarin is out there and thriving, a developing entity in the face of which David Salo’s well-grounded book in fact looks quite conservative. It is perhaps redundant to say that since the horse is definitely out of the barn, there’s no point locking the door at this point.

So much for the slipperiness of Sindarin in general. But the language turns out to be no less elusive in specific, when it comes down to extant (authorized) continuous texts (all 23 of them! [Appendix 1, 211-233]) and to words and names.

Good news first. As Salo’s book shows, existing Sindarin vocabulary is relatively rich in (concrete) nouns (and correspondingly poor in abstract ones), and to a lesser degree rich in adjectives. This follows largely from the generous available corpus of identifiably Sindarin proper names, usually composed of two elements,6 found in Tolkien’s various narratives: Gwaew + hîr: lord of the wind; Dagor + lâd: plain of battle; Thoron + gîl: eagle of the star; Parth, calen: green lawn. Salo lists and glosses all of these that he can attach a meaning to (Appendix 5, 337-394). (Sindarin-looking names for which he can find no interpretation have usually been left out [e.g., Denethor (339)], but are sometimes included in the list and marked “meaning uncertain” [e.g., Erestor (348)].)

The news gets a bit worse for verbs. In the twenty-three published units of text8 Salo reprints in Appendix 1, there are between forty and fifty inflected verbs, depending on how one counts.9 More can be extrapolated from The Etymologies and from Quenya, but even this expanded corpus is poor10 compared to the much larger corpora of nouns and adjectives.11 In addition, the some of the most basic verb paradigms are incomplete, as Salo points out in chapter 9.12

Worse yet, pronouns (chapter 8), as well as adverbs and other particles (chapters 10-13) constitute the most incomplete vocabulary lists of all. (On the other hand, there are almost enough prepositions to be useful, as well as various useful forms of the definite article.) These shortages constitute real drawbacks for the production of “natural” sentences. For instance, there is infamously no attested word for “Yes” (336), although one might conceivably produce an affirmative answer to a yes-or-no question by repeating the verb, as Latin (and modern Portuguese) or Celtic have routinely done.13 More problematically, there is only one attested interrogative pronoun: man (“who”) (109).

These shortcomings are of course intrinsic to the Sindarin corpus and not to Salo’s book. As regards the book, A Gateway to Sindarin is, in itself, entertaining and highly informative, if a bit quirky.14 Its potential audience is broad, and variably knowledgeable. How, one can imagine the author asking himself, can the book remain accessible to the newcomer without boring the lore-master? Efforts have clearly been made toward achieving such a balance.15 This reviewer (who occupies a position somewhere amidships) found that the best way to approach the book is at any point, whereupon one can ride it around continually like a merry-go-round until it begins to make sense: this method worked fine.

There are definitely some flaws involving cross-referencing, incompleteness of information, and consistency of terminology, such as the following, all of which would be easy enough to correct, or further explain,16 for a second edition. (A comprehensive index would be welcome as well.)

 What is called “soft mutation” of consonants in chapter 5 (73) is (not incorrectly, but) inconsistently called “lenition” later on, in chapter 7 (102).

 Similarly, the terms “umlaut” and “affection,” used in rotation for the same phenomenon, although this time better explained (82), are potentially confusing. In contrast, later on (90) the term “ablaut” appears solo. (I suppose we could call it Defection, or Infection, or Confection.)

 The lists of Eldarin consonant sounds in chapter 2 (19-25; sections 2.1, 2.7, 2.8, 2.9) would have been far more useful if (in more instances, whenever possible) actual Eldarin examples (as is done with celeb [19]), as well as English ones, had been included.

 Considering its tentativity, the listing of aen as a possible indefinite pronoun in chapter 8 (110) could helpfully be cross-referenced to its additional quotation in chapter 17 as part of a relative clause (199), but especially to Appendix 1 (225, 228), where it appears (as hapax legomenon) in its full, attested context (in the “King’s Letter”).

 The paradigm of the verb “to be” in chapter 9 (121) could helpfully be cross-referenced to section 17 in the Syntax chapter (203), where we find that the copula can be implied (i.e., is not always necessary).

 Obscure attested texts (e.g., guren bêd enni [231]) could be cross-referenced to an account of their source (in this case, Vinyar Tengwar 41, July 2000 [425]). (This reader was forever asking, “Is this a real sentence?” – while simultaneously reflecting on the ontological absurdity of such a question.)

 Appendix 3, which is an updating and expansion of “The Etymologies,” should be cross-referenced to the bibliographical entry on that document (420-422), as well as other updatings in a variety of venues, including this book itself (425-6, 436-8). (Publication deadlines probably foxed this.)

Further quibbles for this reviewer included Salo’s reluctance to admit to caprice or inconsistency as possible features of Tolkien’s languages (inconsistent long î-vowels [93]; failed [expected] lenitions: “There is no obvious pattern” [102]; unexplained variations in pronoun-verb combinations [112]); and the unquestioned assumption that word order in poetry is also normative for prose (100).17

These are, however, minor objections. The book is full of unexpected delights and insights, even when one doesn’t entirely agree with them, or has never thought of them in that way. For instance, this reviewer, having read The Lost Road (in which Quenya is used in the house of Elendil) a time or two, and having noted the Quenya names of the first Númenorean rulers, was taken aback at the idea of Sindarin as the daily speech of Númenor (10); but why not? The connections between right/north (89, 330) and left/south (326) were also new; but why not, in a conceptual universe where Cuiviénen is at one’s back, and Valinor ahead?

Perhaps most importantly, this book, functioning as a speech act in a long-term, multisided conversation too often marked by heat, maintains a sober and even charitable tone. Extrapolated forms are mostly so marked. Neo-Sindarin/MovieElvish extrapolated forms too tentative to document are not present. The contributions of much previous work is accounted for and acknowledged,18 including, surprisingly, not only two older books routinely savaged on the Internet,19 which are reviewed at length, with thoughtful suggestions for correction; but even certain “flawed ‘dictionaries’” (426) of the deep past, into which phrase I look and find my own reflection. (Elo! Alae!20)

Eglerio!

Sandra Ballif Straubhaar

The University of Texas at Austin

Austin, Texas

Works Cited

Grimm, Wilhelm. “Wiesbader Glossen,” Zeitschrift für deutsches Alterthum 6 (1848), 331-40.

Notes

1 ! is David Salo’s very handy marker for “unattested or speculative” (xv).

2 Such additions are generally not invented out of whole cloth, but using available sources, notably the list of Eldarin roots designated as “The Etymologies” found in The Lost Road, as well as the corrections to those lists found in Vinyar Tengwar 45 and 46 (November 2003 and July 2004 respectively); or from existing words in Quenya, which is constructed as having had a relationship through time to Sindarin rather like that of a (non-aging) uncle to a nephew.

3 An informative exercise: If you read the first few Google entries for the various Neo-Sindarin constructions clustered around the concept of “Thank you” (Hennaid, hannad and the MovieElvish Hannon le, “I thank you”), you can get a fairly balanced account of the different sides of the question.

4 Particularly at stake, for instance, are the fiercely-argued particle “aen,” which Salo construes as an impersonal pronoun; and the hypothetical second-person verb ending –ch (as in the !MovieElvish phrase, “Man cenich?” [“What do you see?”], extrapolated from the not-yet-canonical, and extremely controversial, “Man agorech?”, which may mean “What did you do?”). Salo promotes the first of these in the book, but is careful only to suggest the possibility of the second, and that without reference to this phrase. Hard experience may have taught him by now which mines not to step on.

5 Or, for that matter, whether the phrase “ the accurate form” has any meaning in Tolkien’s ever-morphing language systems, to which question many would answer, No.

6 Not to mention the “Otherkin” blogs and message boards where people convinced that they are (on some level) “really Elves” hang out.

7 Rather in the manner of many early Germanic names, e.g., Thor-steinn, Alf-red, Eg-bert. This easily-cracked onomastic system was in fact one of Sindarin’s chief attractions in the old (pre-Silmarillion) days, when The Lord of the Rings, in which the majority of character- and place-names are Sindarin, was the only text we had. One could triangulate, for instance, from Barad-dûr through Quenya halla to conclude that the name of Aragorn’s kinsman, Halbarad, meant “tall tower.” It was a heady and addictive game.

8 Some of which barely count as “texts.” Salo includes several “sentences” consisting of one imperative verb, and one of a noun phrase with understood copula (“[There is the] Prince of the Halflings” [224]).

9 I.e., depending on whether one counts past participles and gerunds; and whether one counts varying inflections of the same verb.

10 See, for instance, Appendix 4 (pp. 317-336), “An English-Sindarin Glossary,” where verbs, including some extrapolated ones, form approximately 9 % of the total entries.

11 The noun-to-verb ratio could be worse, as it certainly is in Hildegard von Bingen’s twelfth-century constructed language usually known as the Lingua ignota (Unknown Language), which consists of some nine hundred internally consistent, non-Indo-European concrete nouns, a handful of adjectives in the same mode, and—no verbs, no adverbs, no modifying particles of any kind. If one were to “use” the Lingua ignota to construct sentences, one would simply have to build the missing vocabulary out of whole cloth – without the use of a corresponding list of “Etymologies.” We do know that Hildegard used the Lingua ignota macaronically (with Latin) in her poetry, but otherwise the record is silent as to what she meant by it, or how she used it. Wilhelm Grimm commented that if this language really existed anywhere – which possibility he declined to either confirm or deny – it must be someplace warmer than, and presumably south of, Hildegard’s Rhineland home, since there were nouns in it for pelicans and peacocks, for parrots and fig trees. (Flauriz; zamzit; bilzenus; and giginuzibuz, respectively. This reviewer’s personal favorite word in the Lingua ignota is ornalzanzia, which Hildegard glosses in German as harsnur, in other words, a string to tie one’s hair back with.) (Grimm 322, 338-9)

12 See especially section 9.2, pp. 111-112. Salo’s descriptive language is quiet and professional here, diplomatically obscuring the several bathtubs’ worth of virtual blood that have been shed on all sides over this issue. Section 9.2 is also noteworthy for containing a good example of Salo’s favoring of the “clear snaphot” approach, attempting to explain the the im echant / echannen dichotomy, which may be simply a function of Tolkien having had different ideas at different times, rather than an illustration of a rule.

13 Amatne Catullus Lesbiam? Amat. [Does Catullus love Lesbia? Yes.] O correio chegou? Chegou. [Did the mail come? Yes.] Does this bus go to Machynlleth? It does. [Native Welsh-speaker speaking English]

14 E.g., in its fondness for Sanskrit terms for phonological change and word compounding, some of which are finally explained in passing to the potentially baffled reader on p. 173.

15 See, for example, the somewhat clunky definition of “root” at the opening of chapter 14 (154); few readers will actually need this.

16 Some of the following seeming inconsistencies may stem from reviewer ignorance, of course.

17 With reference to a verb and its objects in Gilraen’s linnod. But if rules for poetry and prose word order are in fact meant to be identical all the time in Salo’s Sindarin, one would expect MovieElvish “I thank you” to be *”Le hannon” (instead of “Hannon le”), after the pattern of “Fanuilos, le linnathon” in the Elbereth hymn.

18 Obviously not all; one would have to list hundreds of people, over a span of five decades, in a multiplicity of countries. Salo does thank some close associates by name in the Preface (xv).

19 Jim Allan, et al., An Introduction to Elvish (Somerset: Bran’s Head Books, 1978); and Ruth S. Noel, The Languages of Tolkien’s Middle-earth (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1980).

20 See Salo, p. 153.

Interrupted Music. The Making of Tolkien’s Mythology by Verlyn Flieger. Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 2005. xv, 172 pp. $18.00 (trade paperback) ISBN 0873388240.

Verlyn Flieger’s third book on Tolkien does several things that needed doing. Incorporating material published over the last few years, this book makes an argument with numerous new conclusions, and opens ways for “other minds and hands.” Flieger described her theme some years ago as “Tolkien and the idea of the book”; relying on trends in Tolkienist research that have come to the foreground in the last few years, the book is an inspiring combination of cultural and literary history, with an admirable command of Tolkien philology. What it gives us is a new way of looking at “The Silmarillion,” and a new approach to the vexed question of Tolkien’s “English mythology.” And as with all good books, it poses as many new questions as it answers, urges counterarguments or modifications.

Flieger’s basic idea is that “The Silmarillion” includes a metaphor (although probably accidental, 143) for the whole of Tolkien’s oeuvre: the unfinished music of the “Ainulindalë.” One of the book’s essential strengths is thus that it intends to approach the whole “Silmarillion” tradition. The work for other critical minds is, however, apparent as one reads on: the variants and fragments need further accounting for, further inquiry, in exactly their variance and their individual existence, as individual texts, related to each other and to the pattern Flieger observes, which, in turn needs to be seen as a theoretical construct as well. What Flieger undertakes, however, is perfectly well fulfilled in her treatment of the pattern and insightful contextualization.

The book is divided into three parts, each on different but well-tied up themes. The first part deals comprehensively (in four chapters, the last of which, “The Tradition,” is in my opinion the most important part of the book) with Tolkien’s idea of a “body of connected legend,” “dedicated to” England. The second part discusses the strategies of presentation he thought up over the years for this body; and the third explores the Celtic influence in Tolkien which in the meantime has received its full evaluation in Marjorie Burns’s Perilous Realms (2005). Flieger maintains a reader-friendly logic in the argument to connect these parts; and her sensitive, always readable style ensures easy comprehension for any reader of Tolkien, academic or otherwise. This, however, means that sometimes the argument or the terms she uses remain on a less abstract level than some readers might wish. The handling of myth, for example, which as a term naturally runs through the book, might elicit specifications: myth as embodying the “quest for meaning in an otherwise random universe” (11) sounds commonplace but is an excellent starting point to examine ways in which myths or mythmaking communities make their meanings; myth as always produced by specific cultures (therefore showing a specific point of view, 45) and being many-voiced (54) are suggestions that are not pursued much further (but then, Flieger’s focus is admittedly not one of cultural or religious history). But the hint that myth is a “certain kind of literature” (15, even if it occurs only in “[literature] of myth and fairy tale”) seems more problematic: the whole argument, in fact, urges that myth is not literature, and that in the final analysis Tolkien succeeds in writing mythology (if he succeeds at all) exactly because he writes the culture that uses stories in a certain way.

The four chapters of Part 1 give a comprehensive survey of Tolkien’s “English” ambition, his concept of the linkage of language, story and the human mind; the models, both personal and literary (one could say philological), that he imitates in the corpus; the strategies of authorization and point of view, and the overall cultural historical fiction that Tolkien creates in providing a “tradition” for his stories. Today’s theoreticians will of course recognize the theologically based Cartesian cogito in Tolkien’s claim (summarized by Flieger) that “Language, story, and human imagination are inborn faculties” (23); and even though this is untenable, in talking about what would be called the “discourses of culture” today, Tolkien is still challenging, since it is exactly these that constitute a subject that then integrates into language, story, and the making of meaning. “On Fairy-stories” is anyway indispensable, and Flieger’s claim that it is both a “rationale” of what he was doing and a “creative manifesto” (26) does full justice to this important essay, especially (in what follows) to its emphasis on the individual variant “as it is served up by its author or teller.” Lönnrot and medieval Arthuriana as Tolkien’s (personal and philological) models are the convincing next step (although one might ask where the “large and cosmogonic” is to be found in Arthuriana, cf. 35), and the chapter on point of view brings up the question of interpretation (sadly not pressed too far): the late “Athrabeth Finrod ah Andreth” is an excellent illustration of how Tolkien gave his characters “a point of view shaped by history, background, and identity” (49). The cultural discourses shaping the subject are explicitly thematized again. “All versions of a story are particular interpretations deriving from particular cultural stances and particular times” (50) is a good summary; more work is needed on those stances and processes.

Chapter 4, “The Tradition,” is an admirable synthesis of Tolkien’s philological (and explicitly textual) concept of one side of the presentation of his stories. Orality, manuscript textuality and printed edition, speakers, storytellers, authors and translators appear to authorize the final (never finished) product, in a welcome summary of what came up at conferences recently. Flieger also observes in a note that Tolkien’s storytellers are nearly all males (149n3). Tolkien’s fiction, as Flieger shows, is very emphatically textual, with the “idea of the book” in its center; in this chapter she contextualizes this in discussions of orality and textual criticism (a theoretical contextualization, supplied provocatively by Bernard Cerquiglini’s In Praise of the Variant, could elaborate aspects of edition and textual criticism), and points out that Tolkien’s fiction distinguishes between “story” and “narrative” (one would say “story” and “plot”): “a story only exists when it is being told” (72), hence the need for tellers and preservers for credibility. The claim that the concept of The Lord of the Rings as a cumulative text by Bilbo, Frodo and Sam “falls apart” (79), however, can be contested: the distribution of knowledge and authority that troubles Flieger can find their explanation in reports, compilation, and the authors’ use of literary discourse to write the stories of other tellers. But Tolkien’s self-referentiality, a concept that has enjoyed some critical attention lately, is thus very effectively reflected on, and the “nesting of text within text within text” (111) recalls “feints within feints within feints” in Frank Herbert’s Dune (1965).

In the second part, Flieger expands her horizon and looks at Tolkien’s presentation strategy. To take in the whole corpus, this necessarily has to be a diachronic discussion of the different frame narratives; and after reviewing the abandoned Eriol/Aelfwine frames, the discussion moves on to an energizing new field: how Tolkien apparently intended to use science fiction (The Lost Road and The Notion Club Papers) for the vehicle of presentation—although how far science fiction is a distinct “narrative mode” (91) remains a question. This part ingeniously works toward showing that “to the earlier-conceived historical and geographical connection [Middle-earth as the “past” of England] would be added a psychological and psychic one” (107) which would make “the ‘Englishness’ a genetic […] element of the story” (115). The argument is convincing, and has the enormous advantage of finding the real function of these two unfinished pieces in the Tolkien corpus. But one cannot help feeling that in a way The Lord of the Rings as “the de facto frame through which readers would view the entire mythology” (118) (reinforced by Tolkien in a 1966 interview, cited in 115n1) is better—this way the fiction stands alone, with only Tolkien’s translator/editor pose connecting it to “primary reality.” “On Fairy-stories,” expressing a preference for fairy stories “unframed” into the primary world, is still a strong argument for seeing Middle-earth as self-consciously fictitious. It’s like the New Testament: not just the chosen “English,” but all peoples.

The third part, on Tolkien’s Celtic motifs, makes further connections between literary history and Tolkien’s presentation of his myths. The Otherworld, the westward voyage, the drowned lands of Celtic legend in this part flesh out the conception of the unfinished science fiction narratives; but the claim that “the mythic memory is always present in the human consciousness, and under the right circumstances […] might ‘go off with a crash’ […], might reenact itself and produce a disturbance in the real primary world” (130) shows exactly why we are better off with a self-conscious fiction of The Lord of the Rings as a presentation frame instead of an outdated, mystical Jungian paradigm. Tolkien’s lack of time or effort to finish the science fiction frame in fact saved him from becoming as hopelessly dated as Jung, and made him only more interesting for the postmodern reader and critic. The book, accordingly, closes with a short chapter of summary (partly on The Lord of the Rings as frame by default) and an Afterword; and one is left to wonder whether the sudden “romanticization” of the closing sentence, “There is, finally, no accounting for genius” (144), is really an appropriate closure for this very progressive book.

The book’s style and argument are exemplarily clear and comprehensible, helped by the nice layout and few typographical or other errors. “Noldoran” for “Noldorin” (14) or “barbaritie” for “barbarities” (31) are not especially disturbing; “Randall” Helms (80) and Norris “Lacey” (159) are more so. The more usual plural of guslar is guslari (cf. guslars, 110); and as a Finno-Ugric speaker myself, I am not sure what “Polynesian” Samoyeds (22) are. To say that Beowulf is a “Swede” (30), however, would have elicited disagreement even from Tolkien himself, and surely he would also have asked exactly what is “mythic” in Pearl (cf. 30). He would also have said that the lack of the apostrophe in the mock Middle English “Frodos Dreme” (cf. 82) is meaningful in the editorial fiction of The Adventures of Tom Bombadil, and needs no correction. But these admittedly minor things naturally are dwarfed by the significance of the book’s argument; one could only wish that that curse of scholarly publishing, endnotes, were not inflicting it. The notes are, in fact, very useful and concise, containing important further points; and the bibliography of the book is also helpful (even if somewhat restricted).

Apart from such scruples, the reader is invited to make counterarguments at some places. Even in the light of Tolkien’s well-known abhorrence of the Norman conquest, the Normans solely cannot be blamed for “the ouster of a presumed pre-conquest mythology” (31); Tolkien’s own Roman Church had done its share of ousting pagan Anglo-Saxon mythology centuries before. The Old English Beowulf, might be a self-referential poem: but surely the claim that the “poem refers to itself” (73) is exaggerated, since Hrothgar’s minstrel certainly does not sing Beowulf itself (not in a way in which The Lord of the Rings discusses its own fictitious genesis). One is also tempted to ask why “Findegil’s coda apparently ends” after the philological description of the exemplar of his work (68), when there is no indication of any end, and a more natural scribal colophon would simply be Findegil’s self-naming and date (the rest of the description of the exemplar is very much in the style of the speaker of the prologue). In an Arthurian comparison, Flieger finds nothing “forbidden [or] illicit” (38) in the love of Beren and Lúthien; but it is in fact exactly the (implicitly) forbidden nature of the relationship that leads to Beren’s quest—not only to establish the relationship officially, but also to bring to light (ironically) Thingol’s “racist” stance in making the forbiddance explicit, and reverse it by his success.

But the things that needed doing, most of all the systematic discussion of Tolkien’s preoccupation with the idea of the book, prove to readers that Verlyn Flieger is not only one of the good established Tolkien critics. In this book, following up her own work on The Silmarillion (which had itself been groundbreaking) and The Notion Club Papers (and in fact, another thing that needed doing was a good explanation of the place and function of these and The Lost Road), she has reestablished herself as a critic whose work can be built on. This work, in addition to expanding the discussion on the importance of philology in Tolkien (championed by Tom Shippey), synthesizes the material for further research, very much in line with recent trends, on cultural and narrative discourses in Tolkien, the importance and functioning of the individual subject who produces meanings, and the further theoretical implications of the unfinished, fragmented textual complex that is the “Silmarillion” tradition.

Gergely Nagy

University of Szeged

Hungary

“J. R. R. Tolkien Special Issue,” Mfs: Modern Fiction Studies, 50 no. 4 (Winter 2004), guest edited by Shaun F. D. Hughes. Published by The Johns Hopkins University Press for the Department of English, Purdue University. ISSN 0026-7724.

The Tolkien Issue of Mfs, edited by Shaun F.D. Hughes, opens with his introduction comparing the dismissal of Tolkien’s work by modernists with its popularity, shown by sales, translations, and film adaptations. This issue asks whether thesis (popularity) and antithesis (critical dismissal) can be resolved by postmodernism. Hughes overlooks the body of Tolkien scholarship by medievalists whose primary field of study has been ignored by modernists who tend to dismiss the literature and culture of the “Dark Ages.” Tolkien struggled with the same disciplinary bias as a university professor in the curriculum debates of his time. Perhaps Hughes intends to criticize modernist criticism rather than imply it is the only, instead of the dominent, field of literary criticism

The first section, “Fairy Tale and Myth,” contains two essays: “The Qualities of a Tolkienian Fairy-Story” by Clyde B. Northrup and “Stolen Language, Cosmic Models: Myth and Mythology in Tolkien” by Margaret Hiley. Northrup is concerned with the question of what critical tools should be used in contemporary scholarship on fantastic literature. He calls for applying Tolkien’s theory from “On Fairy-stories” to Tolkien’s work and to other works that “follow and/or imitate the pattern established by Tolkien in his lecture” (836). Northrup argues that gaps in Todorov’s structuralist approach, notably the exclusion of “secondary world” fantasies such as The Lord of the Rings can be solved by use of Tolkien’s theory, specifically his concepts of sub-creation, recovery (which Northrup wishes to distinguish from the formalist concept of defamiliarization), escape, and eucatastrophe. Northrup’s essay does not make clear how Tolkien’s concepts could be applied beyond the formalist methodology of close reading. Hiley’s essay considers Tolkien’s use of mythology against modernist use of myth, drawing on scholarship by Lévi-Strauss, Barthes, and de Saussure. Hiley argues for the need to move beyond the thematic analysis of myths in literature to consider how Tolkien, in The Silmarillion and The Lord of the Rings, creates a new whole from the fragments of earlier work, using linguistic and syntactic methods. Hiley’s insistence on referring to mythology/religious beliefs from the Middle Ages as “ancient” and her categorizing of the Christian myth as “true myth” weakens some parts of her argument, but her ambitious move to situate Tolkien’s work in the context of the modernist aesthetic opens possibilities for stylistic discussion.

The next section, “The Lord of the Rings and Race,” includes two postcolonial essays. “Why is the Only Good Orc a Dead Orc? The Dark Face of Racism Examined in Tolkien’s World” by Anderson Rearick III and “Beyond Black and White: Race and Postmodernism in The Lord of the Ring films” by Sue Kim. Rearick’s essay engages with charges that Tolkien or his work or both are racist. The analysis of “race” in Tolkien must involve, as Rearick points out, at least the following: distinguishing between the film and the novel; considering the author’s beliefs and life carefully rather than assuming all born in certain periods are racists); drawing on appropriate scholarship to analyze the complex range range of historical interactions between cultures in the past and present, and analyzing the narrative’s complex constructions of and criticisms of power. Kim’s complex essay is an excellent example of just such a postcolonial approach. She begins with a discussion of racial coding in the film but soon moves to embed her analysis of it in the historical context of New Zealand, especially treatment of the Maori, a number of whom worked as stunt players on the set and thus played the Orcs, and in the postmodern realities of global late capitalism, translational labor forces and economic issues, including growing reliance upon nonunion labor for increasingly technological and digitized work such as was involved in the special effects the film demanded. Kim’s work is a good model of the extent to which the postmodern sense that there is no way to separate “reality” from “language about reality” leads not to a refusal to engage but to a willingness to discuss the complex and contradictory meanings of texts within multiple contexts, political, aesthetic, economic, and epistemologic.

The third section, “Queering The Lord of the Rings” is the strongest unit with three essays that work well together to develop a variety of queer readings. “Gazing Upon Sauron: Hobbits, Elves, and the Queering of the Postcolonial Optic” by Jes Battis enacts a strong double and triple-voiced postmodernist reading of colonialism and queerness. Battis focuses more on the novel but acknowledges the film’s inevitable result of dispersing Tolkien’s narrative. By denying the texts any single or essentialist meaning, by reading from theory to “literature” and doubling back to read from literature to “theory,” Battis analyzes the extent to which all the “races” of Middle-earth can be situated within postcolonial and queer narratives, proving the extent to which a narrative dismissed by some modernist critics as shallow, simplistic or racist connects with and comments upon major cultural movements in terms of colonialism and postcolonialism. “On Fairy Stories” by Valerie Rohy is a queer reading that works from a psychoanalytical perspective. Beginning with the contradictory response to Tolkien’s work in which some critics have declared the The Lord of the Rings to be completely lacking in sex, sexuality, romantic love, and courtship while others have raised the issue of homosexuality in the all-male Fellowship, Rohy argues that what is lacking in narrative terms is the heteronormative pattern of courtship, love, marriage and reproduction. While one reason for that lack can be traced to the epic conventions, she also points out that absence of heteronormative sexuality is not absence of sexuality. Rohy’s reading of the Ring in Lacanian terms (as opposed to standard Freudian readings), of the way in which desire, lust, longing, and sexuality is warped by the Ring, which is the central point of nothingness in the novel is a strong one, as is her analysis of Frodo and Sam’s relationship in a shifting lens of “homosexuality” in which she reads their relationship against the heteronormative social narrative of the marriage plot which has warped both heterosexuality and homosexuality to serve its own purposes. The only weakness in Battis and Rohy’s essays is the failure to reference an earlier queer reading of the novel by David M. Craig, “‘Queer Lodgings’: Gender and Sexuality in The Lord of the Rings,” published in Mallorn no. 38 (January 2001). “‘Oh . . . oh . . . Frodo!’: Readings of Male Intimacy in The Lord of the Rings” by Anna Smol, like Kim’s essay, goes beyond the traditional approach of literary studies to embed the work within historical contexts. The context include the relationships between men during World War I and the changes in masculinity in the years following the war, as well as the readings of intimacy between men shown in Jackson’s film and in fan fiction written primarily by women, many of whom may have shared Rohy’s own initial response to Frodo and Sam’s relationship. Smol, using historical methodology, situates the male intimacy in the novel within the British male friendships before and during World War I, and the novel as a whole within the context of social attitudes prevalent during the Victorian and Edwardian periods which categorized medieval literature as being children’s literature. Smol draws on Craig’s work to consider the homosocial elements in the novel, as well as Paul Fussell’s work on World War I and II literatures. She then considers the multiple narratives that have arisen in the wake of Tolkien’s novel. These narratives, Jackson’s film and the fan fiction written about Frodo and Sam by fans of novel and film, present another range of historically situated perspectives on male intimacy. She argues that while the film reduces the intimacy between Frodo and Sam to hearty friendship, focusing on the image of the extended hand, it nevertheless caused some discomfort among some straight male critics and viewers. Many women were able to embrace the idea of male intimacy, as the stories about both the fictional characters and the actors on queer friendly websites show, leading Smol to argue that such sites show how “the queering of traditional masculinity is primarily the domain of women” (970).

The last two sections are a book review and a bibliographic checklist. Shaun Hughes’s detailed review covers seven books of Tolkien scholarship, three of them not written in English. The works reviewed are Tolkien, les Univers d’un Magicien (2001) by Nicholas Bonnal; Tolkien and the Invention of Myth: A Reader (2004), edited by Jane Chance; War and the Works of J. R. R. Tolkien (2004) by Janet Brennan Croft; Recovery and Transcendence for the Contemporary Mythmaker: The Spiritual Dimension in the Works of J. R. R. Tolkien (2000) by Christopher Garbowski; Tolkien and the Great War: The Threshold of Middle-earth (2003) by John Garth; Tolkien og Hringurinn (2003) by Ármann Jakobsson; and Jungfrauen im Nachthemd—Blonde Krieger aus dem Western: Eine Motivpsychologische-kritische Analyse von J. R. R. Tolkiens Mythologie und Weltbild (2003) by Guido Schwarz. Richard C. West provides “A Tolkien Checklist: Selected Criticism 1981-2004” as an update to his second edition of Tolkien Criticism: An Annotated Checklist (1981). The sections cover “Review Articles,” “Companions and Guides,” “Monographs and Books,” “Collections of Essays,” “Special Issues,” and general “Essays and Articles.” Thorough annotations and commentary by West are provided.

Does the issue explain Tolkien’s popularity? It does not and cannot because literary scholars have not developed the tools with which to explain the popularity or unpopularity of texts. Scholars who profess the evaluative nature of traditional literary studies focus on identifying the best works of literature. Scholars who work within the contemporary range of theories grouped under the rubric of postmodernism, from high deconstructionist to postcolonial or other identity theories (sexuality, queerness, feminist, etc.), are no better equipped to consider why a work is popular. The issue does show the extent, unacknowledged by many, to which academic criticism is affected by forces outside the academy and by differences within the academy. Some earlier and relevant scholarship is ignored although there are citations of Tom Shippey, Jane Chance, and Verlyn Flieger, arguably the three best-known scholars working on Tolkien in English. The failure to cite David Craig’s early work on queerness and The Lord of the Rings by Rearick, Battis, and Rohy may reflect a too-easy dismissal of all earlier work. Other weak points are tendencies by Northrup and Hiley to cite general reference works on literary or linguistic terminology which may be necessary for interdisciplinary collections, but both writers tend toward too great a reliance on summary as well. Overall, I would recommend the Tolkien Issue for scholars interested in how critical theories intersect with canon building as well as for Tolkienists and scholars of the fantastic.

The “Call for Papers” is worth noting since it calls for “theoretically informed and historically contextualized essays” on any aspect of Tolkien’s work, including the posthumous legendarium as well as films based on his fiction. The question asked was “whether postmodern and postcolonial theory better position us to come to terms with a body of fiction that refuses to go away and that may be even more influential than it was fifty years ago” (CFP). The language used in this Call for Papers with its undefined “us” and sense of agency given the “body of fiction that refuses to go away” in conjunction with the absence of essays by any of the major Tolkien scholars who have published in earlier years confirms one of the most valuable aspects of this journal: the extent to which it shows disciplinary and generational attitudes involved in “canon-building” and how different theories and methodologies will result in a fascinating range of critical readings of the same work.

Robin Anne Reid

Texas A&M University-Commerce

Commerce, Texas

The Lord of the Rings: A Reader’s Companion, by Wayne G. Hammond and Christina Scull. London: HarperCollins, 2005. lxxxii, 894 pp. £18.99 (hardcover) ISBN 000720308X; £7.99 (mass market paperback) ISBN 000720907X. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2005. lxxxii, 894 pp., $30 (hardcover) ISBN 0618642676.

Since at least 1960, when Martin Gardner published The Annotated Alice, textual scholars have been preparing annotated editions of major literary works. Tolkien has not been immune: Douglas A. Anderson’s The Annotated Hobbit has become the standard text, and Hammond and Scull’s scholarly editions of both Farmer Giles of Ham and Roverandom contain explanatory endnotes that function as textual annotations.

Now it is the turn of The Lord of the Rings, for the Reader’s Companion may be simply described as an Annotated Lord of the Rings that for reasons of space omits the text of the work being discussed.

This omission immediately raises the problem of keying the annotations to the text. Each entry gives boldface keywords, plus page references to two standard HarperCollins/Houghton Mifflin paginations of The Lord of the Rings: the one-volume pagination created for the 50th anniversary edition in 2004, and the old pagination descending from the original Allen and Unwin edition of 1954-55. For the ease of readers without either of those editions, the opening words of each cited paragraph are also given, indented before the first entry taken from that paragraph. Marking these further in some way might have marginally increased clarity, but actual use of the Companion with other editions of The Lord of the Rings shows this system workable.

The vital ingredients of a successful annotated edition are a literary work densely packed with words and short passages worthy of specific relevant commentary, and a scholar with the dedication and the abilities as a polymath to do justice to these points. As an annotated Lord of the Rings, the Reader’s Companion passes both these tests admirably. At nine hundred pages of small type, it approaches in length the text it comments on. (The photo-reduced HarperCollins softcover edition has the same pagination as the hardcover.) Annotations are thickly strewn: five-sixths of the pages of the 50th anniversary edition have at least one entry, and several pages, especially in the Prologue, have as many as a dozen. Entries range in length from brief glosses of unusual words to a five-page essay on the background and significance of Galadriel (314-319), by itself a major essay on the subject. Most entries are specifically related to the quoted passages, with a few digressions into more general points, for instance in some entries regarding the character of Sam. The first mention of a character or concept is often the prompt for a long entry on its general nature, but even then the entry tends to discuss the meaning of the name and how Tolkien developed the character, not his literary function in the plot. This does create a large block of detail in the entries for the Prologue and opening chapters, which are the most heavily annotated. (The annotations for Chapter One are 23 pages long, but some later chapters are disposed of in 2-4 pages.) But Hammond and Scull mitigate this by some skillful division of material: thus, the word orc is discussed where the word first appears in the Prologue (24-26), while the nature and fate of Orcs is left for their first clear on-stage appearance in Book III (375-377). General discussion of Bombadil is divided among four notes in two chapters, covering his exterior origin including the full text of the original 1934 publication of the poem “The Adventures of Tom Bombadil” (124-128), Tom Shippey’s observations on his character (129-130), Tolkien’s own comments on his meaning (132-134), and his place in the sub-creation (139).

The types of notes in an annotated edition should depend on the character of the work annotated. The Lord of the Rings is, for instance, not as rich in literarily allusive phrases as the Alice books are, though it has more than one might think; while Tolkien’s sub-creation is certainly more thorough and consistent than Carroll’s, though the chess game in Through the Looking-Glass is rigorous enough. The annotations in the Reader’s Companion reflect diverse aspects of Tolkien’s work, but have in common an approach of objective consensus scholarship. No attempt is made to ferret out a hidden “true meaning” of the work; the approach is always the solidly conservative one of explicating the author’s known or reasonably presumable intent.

The first function of the Companion is textual. Unlike The Annotated Hobbit, the Companion does not include a complete variorum edition of the published text. Where The Hobbit’s variorum consists mostly of major revisions, The Lord of the Rings has comparatively little of this and much more correction of typographical problems. Yet although not every textual change that has ever been made in the published text is listed or discussed here, almost all significant changes are, and even many insignificant ones, down to questions of consistency in capitalization. Even some now-corrected simple typographical errors are discussed, such as the mystifying term “bride-piece” (for “bride-price”) that Lúthien’s Silmaril was said to be (176-177). Each entry is given full context: whether the change was made by Tolkien and, if not, how it is justified; when and why it was made; when and how typographical errors, of both pre- and post-publication origin, entered the text. The drafts published in The History of The Lord of the Rings are often referred to where earlier conceptions might shed light on the nature or significance of the final text.

One textual aspect is recorded fully: the changes supervised by Hammond and Scull themselves for the 2004 50th anniversary edition. An appendix lists all these changes, plus additional corrections made for the 2005 reprints. Even some textual changes that were not made are discussed: the poem Eärendilinwe was originally intended to be given in a different version, but it has not been changed for fear of seeming presumptuous. The full text of that other version is given here (210-13), instead of making the reader reconstruct it from bits and pieces as presented in The Treason of Isengard. This example, like many other changes made and changes not made, is based on Christopher Tolkien’s discoveries of possible drafting errors in his study of the manuscripts. Many of the notes, and much of the lengthy introduction, explain Hammond and Scull’s decisions to include or omit corrections of these possible errors in the 2004 text. The Companion thus serves as, among other things, a badly-needed gloss on the 2004 textual revisions. The introduction also lays out in admirable detail how and exactly when Tolkien went about writing the book, but says little otherwise on the post-publication history of the text. Some of this is discussed in the notes on individual changes, but the fullest history is given in Hammond and Anderson’s J. R. R. Tolkien: A Descriptive Bibliography.

A second function of the Companion is sub-creational. The detail and complexity of the story, and the fullness of the imaginary world, permit The Lord of the Rings to use more explanatory captioning than most books do. For instance, calendar day entries for each textual reference to the passing of a day: these rely, usually without citation, on Appendix B and some unpublished chronologies. A similarly large number of entries, and a special introduction on the subject, discuss the phases of the moon. The Companion ties together events mentioned in the text at various removes from each other, often though not always with cross-references. Thus, one entry (374) informs the reader that Gimli was right when he guessed that the old man he first saw in Fangorn was Saruman, not Gandalf, and the note cites an unpublished chronology confirming this, as well as Gandalf’s later statement to the same effect. There is no note at that later statement, though, one of many aspects suggesting that the Companion is best read straight through rather than used as a reference source. But a thorough index helps address that potential problem.

Many sub-creational questions are of simple explication. On more controversial questions, mysteries that have perplexed many detail-oriented readers—e.g. the identity and origin of Bombadil, why Gandalf and Celeborn call Treebeard the eldest, and whether Balrogs have wings—Hammond and Scull come to briskly dismissive conclusions. The last of the general notes on the origin and nature of Bombadil explains that sub-creationally he is an intentional enigma (139); we are told that Celeborn was being courteous and Gandalf was being rhetorical (391-92); and a mere three-sentence note states that Balrogs’ wings “can generally be interpreted as figurative” (296). These answers should satisfy most readers, though the unsatisfied may under-rate the Companion’s authority and usefulness.

A number of entries cover internal textual references, ranging from allusions to matters covered in the Appendices to cases where characters quote themselves or each other, or refer obscurely to earlier events.

The Companion also has definitional and onomastic functions. Definitions, usually based on the Oxford English Dictionary, are given for unusual words and unusual uses of common words. Thorough discussions are given of the meaning and significance of most, but not all, names. Here the cited authority is most often “Nomenclature of The Lord of the Rings,” Tolkien’s own guide to translators. Previously published in 1975 in the small-press critical anthology A Tolkien Compass, the “Nomenclature” is more sensibly reprinted here, in an enlarged and corrected text. But its presence in full does not prevent Hammond and Scull from citing it at length in the Companion’s entries as well.They also cite, on a variety of subjects, the Appendices, the History of Middle-earth series, Tolkien’s letters published and unpublished, various unpublished authorial drafts and notes including an unpublished annotated index of place names, and Christopher Tolkien’s unpublished opinions especially on questions of correcting the text.

All of the above functions are capable of approaching objectivity in selection and presentation. Other functions have more subjective elements.

Source notes are not so much on general themes and styles as on particular points of wording. Many of the characters’ proverbs, for instance, are altered versions of primary-world ones. As with borrowed mythological names, even without Tolkien’s imprimatur one can be confident that the resemblances here are intentional. The potential problem comes with various remarkable parallels of wording or of plot with history or with other works of fiction. Many entire books have been built by enterprising authors determined to dig out such extracurricular parallels with The Lord of the Rings. Although these usually say more about the would-be scholar than about Tolkien, the practice is harmless unless presented as the secret true meaning of the work, which regrettably it often is. Hammond and Scull are careful to avoid riding such hobby-horses, though not all of their parallels give confidence as intentional. Some sources which Tolkien could have read and been influenced by, in all probably he did and was: e.g., the Red Arrow and the name Wormtongue appear in William Morris (400, 540). “Surely,” we are told, Sam’s finding Frodo in Cirith Ungol by singing was inspired by a legend of Richard Lionheart similarly being located in captivity by his minstrel Blondel (603-604), and the parallel is striking enough to be worth pointing out even without a claim of influence. Claimed echoes of nursery rhymes (e.g. 301) and Shakespeare (a number of these, e.g. 307) introduced with similar phrases (“surely,” “seems to echo”) are plausible if less significant. A claim that Denethor’s disregard of stewards becoming kings is Tolkien’s dig at the Carolingians, not the Stewarts of Scotland, is less convincing, but Hammond and Scull present this as the belief of two cited scholars, not as their own conclusion (470-471).

Literary interpretations present the most problems of inherent subjectivity, plus the additional problem of often being hard to tie to specific points in the text. Many annotated editions avoid them altogether; those which include them often seem digressive. Hammond and Scull avoid these problems by offering literary annotations lightly and selectively. Not every point that critics have found significant is annotated, but Tolkien’s published letters are quoted on any particular matter he elucidated. Useful and illuminating citations from a number of amateur critics demonstrate their value to Tolkien studies. A very large number of citations come from the most fundamental and penetrating book-length studies of Tolkien, by authors such as Tom Shippey, Verlyn Flieger, Paul H. Kocher, and Marjorie Burns. A very few more speculative entries are introduced with cautionary notes such as “Some readers have inferred” (664). The more eccentric studies are avoided altogether; in contrast to the case of sub-creational misreadings, no attempt is made to refute their points. Occasionally Hammond and Scull advance an interpretive point of their own, for instance discussing the Road as a literary motif (96) or observing that Merry is shown as being more responsible than Pippin (118).

Tolkien’s own influence—references to his work in novels by others, dramatizations or adaptations of his work—is not covered by the Companion, but entries note each passage read by Tolkien in published recordings.

Despite the length of the book and of some of the individual entries, the Companion’s approach is succinct and plain. The tone is serious and assumes that Tolkien’s work is worth the explanatory effort. This leads to occasional dissonance in entries carefully explaining light hobbit wordplay, but is generally appropriate to the subject. Most importantly, aside from a few typographical errors mostly arising in the compilation of the entries, the book is meticulously accurate. A work of this kind would be useless if it could not be relied upon, but Hammond and Scull maintain the reputation for scholarly meticulousness that they have established in earlier works.

David Bratman

San Jose, California

Perilous Realms: Celtic and Norse in Tolkien’s Middle-earth, by Marjorie Burns. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2005. xii, 225 pp. $55.00 (hardcover) ISBN 0802038719; $27.95 (trade paperback) ISBN 0802038069.

Source studies, and especially hunting for medieval sources, have been a favorite approach in Tolkien criticism. From Tom Shippey’s seminal study The Road to Middle-earth (1982) to numerous articles and books of varying quality and merit, scholars have been exploring Tolkien’s sources, with special emphasis on medieval texts, sometimes providing worthy contributions that allow a deeper understanding of Tolkien’s work, and sometimes playing the source-hunting game only superficially and adding little to Tolkien studies. However, despite its title, Marjorie Burns’s Perilous Realms: Celtic and Norse in Tolkien’s Middle-earth is not the source-study the reader might expect. This general, all-encompassing title initially suggests that the book is an attempt at a synthesis of current and past research on Tolkien’s sources in medieval Celtic and Norse texts, and a well-structured and organized presentation of this material into a book that can become one of the definitive textbooks on Tolkien and his sources. However, Burns’s book is rather a study of Tolkien’s characters, focusing on how Norse and Celtic material influenced the process of their creation and development.

Marjorie Burns has revised and extended in this book a number of previous articles that have appeared in conference proceedings and journals, and has also added two more main chapters. The feel of the book, then, is more that of a collection of articles than of a monograph on the subject she is dealing with. As implied above, the book does not concentrate so much on motifs and storylines that Tolkien used from his Norse and Celtic sources, but more on Tolkien’s characterization, and how his characters draw their depth and complexity from their roots in figures of Northern myth. The book’s primary references and examples come from Tolkien’s most widely known works, namely The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, with only occasional references to The Silmarillion, Tolkien’s shorter works, and the twelve volumes of The History of Middle-earth.

At the same time the terms ‘Norse’ and ‘Celtic’ are understood in a broader sense than the medieval texts usually associated with them. Burns’s non-Tolkienean primary sources range from the Norse Eddas and sagas and from medieval Welsh and Irish literature to the much wider Arthurian literature (including much later re-workings) and texts more or less contemporary with Tolkien by authors such as William Morris and Rider Haggard. It seems, then, that Burns uses the terms Celtic and Norse in their more romantic or popular sense, to denote a certain atmosphere, which may not in fact be true for the original medieval texts in these languages. The lack of a definition of these two terms and of a discussion of their use in the book initially perplexes the reader.

The first chapter provides some necessary introductory background to the thesis of the book, by discussing the “fusion” of Teutonic and Celtic in Tolkien’s representation of “Northernness,” and by examining issues pertaining to the English sense of identity (in terms of its Celtic and Teutonic past), as well as Tolkien’s own reaction to the tension of these two strands of “British” tradition. The discussion of historical details and ideological implications is sometimes simplified, but the chapter provides a comprehensive overview of the conflicts and ideas around the terms “Celtic” and “Teutonic” in Britain of Tolkien’s time.

Chapter 2 concentrates on Beorn, and explains the ambiguity of this character as a blend of Norse and English elements, English being understood as late Victorian English. By this main example Burns attempts to show the merging of traditions that Tolkien valued equally, resulting in the creation of multifaceted and intricate characters. Chapter 3 explores how Tolkien transfers his readers gradually into the world of Middle-earth by having his characters crossing passages, doors, and natural barriers such as water. Burns argues these means of entrance into Middle-earth are modeled upon the tradition of the journey to the otherworld: in Norse material it is a fight against physical barriers, often including monsters, and in Celtic it is a much smoother transition to a parallel spiritual world. Especially in terms of the latter comparison, Burns succeeds in showing that the water barriers, the timelessness and the underground connotations of many Elvish realms in Middle-earth, such as Rivendell, Mirkwood and Lothlórien, come from ideas of the Celtic otherworld.

Chapter 4 is an excellent parallel discussion of The Hobbit and Morris’s Icelandic Journals, especially in terms of the journeys of the heroes of both books through the landscape of Iceland and Middle-earth respectively. Burns shows convincingly that Morris’s journey North and East, the geology and “active” landscape of Iceland, as well as names and specific characters and animals from Morris’s Icelandic Journals, found their way into The Hobbit, and gave it much of its “Northern” atmosphere.

In Chapter 5, Burns claims that Tolkien’s characterization sometimes functions in such a way that he creates “negative” versions of positive characters. Her argument is that the source of both the “positive” and ‘negative’ character is often a sole, but ambiguous, figure in myth or literature. Within this framework, she discusses Gandalf, and his corrupted version in Saruman and Sauron, and shows that all three characters share elements of Odin. In the same way she explores how Galadriel and Shelob both originate in the positive and negative characteristics respectively of the Celtic Morrígan and her later counterparts, like Morgan le Fey of the Arthurian romances and even Ayesha from Rider Haggard’s She. The romanticized idea of the alluring yet dangerous Celtic goddess prototype is also used to examine, albeit briefly, other female figures in Tolkien’s work, like Melian (and her negative, Ungoliant), as well as the Corrigan from “The Lay of Aotrou and Itroun”, and the Queen of Faery in Smith of Wootton Major.

Chapters 6 and 7 seem not to be directly linked with the themes of the book explored up to this point. The former addresses the issue of the lack of balance between male and female characters in The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, as well as how Tolkien treats femininity and his main female characters in these two books. The latter concentrates on food imagery in the same two books, giving an insightful analysis of the function of eating, devouring, and the fear of being eaten in advancing the plot and in allowing Tolkien to explore moral issues. Although much as these two chapters make a valuable contribution to Tolkien criticism, the reader remains confused as to how they fit with the contents of the rest of the book. The lack of references to Celtic or Norse sources or parallels in these two chapters makes this discrepancy even more obvious.

Overall, the book is nonetheless thought-provoking and well researched. Its major strength is that it manages to show the balance of Norse and Celtic in Tolkien’s work, where previous scholarly attention has concentrated on the former. The book is also a masterful contribution to the analysis of Tolkien’s characterization, since it reveals important facets of Tolkien’s techniques and principles in creating and developing his characters. It is also to the book’s credit that this is done without taking the tiresome and often negative approach of “defending” Tolkien.

The book is very well presented, including an index and a full bibliography and it is written in a simple but elegant style. In terms of readership, the impression gained from the book it that it is addressed to a wide reading public, not to a strictly academic readership, since Burns makes a point of using accessible language and avoiding difficult terminology, and also chooses to leave aside such complex issues as, for example, the validity and historical background of the terms “Celt” and “Celtic” (which is part of the “Celticity” debate that has been going on for two decades in academic circles). At the same time, however, in some parts of the book the reader feels that simple stereotypes associated with the terms Norse and Celtic are reproduced. This is because it is only in a very few instances that the author explains that while these ideas were still considered valid by academics in Tolkien’s time, they have long since been challenged and they are now only part of unsophisticated popular imagination. On the whole, however, the book is a worthy contribution to Tolkien studies, and an enjoyable read for every Tolkien enthusiast. Perhaps a title that reflected its contents more accurately would have served it better, but that will not diminish the role it will certainly play in the continuing development of Tolkien criticism.

Dimitra Fimi

Cardiff University

Cardiff, Wales

Reconsidering Tolkien, edited by Thomas Honegger. Zurich: Walking Tree Publishers, 2005. 209 pp. $20.75 (trade paperback) ISBN 3905703009.

This volume of essays consists primarily of papers presented at a special Tolkien session during the 2004 European Society for the Study of English conference. There is no introductory editorial discussing the title or theme of the volume or its intended audience, but the essays mostly deal with language and metalinguistics in some way—the concept and origin of language in Middle-earth, language as symbol or motif, language as both carrier and subject of knowledge and magic, and so on—at an academic level.

Marion Gymnich leads off with an admirably clear overview of the metalinguistic features of The Lord of the Rings. That Tolkien’s use of both invented languages and standard metalinguistic concepts (such as language variation over time and between communities, or the association of language and magic) lend both authenticity and a sense of “otherness” to his work, can be assumed as a given, but the more detailed metalinguistic concepts she discusses are less obvious. The extensive use of Tolkien’s invented languages in the Peter Jackson films is seen as one of their strengths, conveying the characteristics of the different races of Middle-earth with minimal exposition. However, the films are not as good at depicting the metalinguistic features of chronological, social, and regional variation and what they imply. Her essay includes an interesting sidelight on Tolkien’s use of certain child-like linguistic features in Gollum’s speech patterns.

“Tolkien as Philo-Logist,” contributed by Eduardo Segura and Guillermo Peris, attempts to show that the coherent nature of Tolkien’s subcreated world is directly related to his philo-logy, or love of language, and that his intent to create myth, where words and events can be polysemic, or have many meanings, precludes allegory. However, the essay is not quite concrete enough to convey all of this clearly and precisely; perhaps the subject is too large for a brief article.

In his essay, Thomas Honegger postulates that academics with a background in medieval studies may be better equipped to approach Tolkien’s work critically than those whose area of study is Tolkien’s contemporaries. The ideal critic would be one who shared Tolkien’s own academic background in medieval languages, literatures, and cultures and was therefore familiar with his sources. Honegger makes a good case for “interpretatio mediaevalia” as a way of understanding a work so unlike other twentieth century literature. The convincing explanation he gives for the origin and meaning of the voices Niggle overhears discussing his case, for example, show that the specialized knowledge of the medievalist can shed important light on such questions. Unfortunately, the essay ends somewhat abruptly, but it is to be hoped that Honegger will continue to work in this vein and help those without a medievalist’s background to better understand Tolkien’s creation.

Paul E. Kerry contributes an essay on The Lord of the Rings as history. One intriguing observation he makes is that the structure of the individual appendices owes a great deal to medieval models of historical writing, which not only positions the work more as history than as fiction, but also gives it that sense of taking place in the deep past which Tolkien found so appealing in his essay “On Fairy-stories.”

Natasa Tucev offers a Jungian reading of Frodo’s character using the archetype of the shadow, focusing on his wounds by knife, sting, and tooth. Like many Jungian readings of Tolkien, it is quite densely packed and seems forced at times, but does open up some interesting new avenues to explore in the relationship between Frodo and his shadow Gollum.

Jean-Christophe Dufau’s article suffers from a somewhat incoherent start; the opening sentence talks about the “skyward stare” beginning the quest for self-knowledge, but in the next sentence he abandons this motif entirely and turns to the place of the tree in the life of the elves. (Unless one lives in a forest, the view skyward is not equivalent to looking up at the branches of a tree!) However, the essay becomes more focused as Dufau goes on to investigate the motifs of tree, labyrinth, and town, and their reflections in linguistic structures, as metaphors for the personal and spiritual development of the characters. There is an interesting reading of Gandalf’s actions at Moria gate, where he tries to untangle the clue written above the carven trees. In spite of its length, the essay only really touches on the possibilities of examining Tolkien’s works through these motifs, and one would hope the author is at work on a longer piece in which he can spend more time unraveling this tangle.

Dirk Vanderbeke contributes an intriguing critique on scientific knowledge in the “closed world” of Middle-earth. The primary Middle-earth cultures all look back with longing to a Golden Age, when much knowledge now lost was still known to men, elves, and dwarves. Language and wisdom have declined together, and innovative applications of the known but shrinking body of knowledge are usually shown to be misguided at best, evil at worst. This theme of a perfect past and long decline ultimately reveals a closed universe and pessimistic view of human potential, wisdom, and capability, which devalues scientific knowledge in favor of pre-scientific forms of knowing. This limits the usefulness of The Lord of the Rings as a guide for living in the real world and addressing real-world problems. This essay does not address the question of its usefulness as a spiritual guide to the internal world of the reader, however, and it might be useful to examine the internal quest to see if it exhibits the same themes of perfect past marred by loss of knowledge, paired with a mistrust of innovation. This essay could have been strengthened by reference to Tolkien’s Letters, where he frequently articulates his views on science, technology, and magic more clearly than in his fiction.

Martin Simonson, in his essay “The Lord of the Rings in the Wake of the Great War,” attempts to place Tolkien in the literary context of his contemporaries. He compares Tolkien to the modernists; writers who, as the essayist points out, mainly did not serve in the war and generally took an anti-historicist approach to the use of time and literary reference in their works, creating a sort of jumbled collage. Their writings are both highly self-referential and full of references to preceding literature of all periods; without footnotes, the reader unfamiliar with these works is soon lost in a private secondary world fully accessible only to the author. In contrast, while the reader’s experience of The Lord of the Rings is enhanced by knowledge of The Hobbit and The Silmarillion and medieval literature, Tolkien consistently contextualizes his references, integrating the history and literature of Middle-earth into the story and making his secondary creation accessible to the reader from the first reading. Simonson also outlines a valuable approach to the question of irony in The Lord of the Rings. Internally, the story does not display the sort of intentional irony exhibited in the writing of the post-war poets and memoirists and the modernists; the irony resides in the reader’s interaction with the story and application of events in the story to his primary world.

Like Simonson, Connie Veugen also refers to Northrop Frye in her analysis of Aragorn as seen in different media. She starts with a précis of Aragorn’s history as given in the Appendices, which Veugen points out must be taken into consideration when adapting the character for other media, and an examination of the hero-story in world mythology. She then proceeds to a close analysis of one particular scene (the meeting at the inn at Bree) in a radio adaptation (Brian Sibley, 1981), an animated movie (Ralph Bakshi, 1978), a live action movie (Peter Jackson, 2000), and the Vivendi computer game based on the book. She takes into the account the limitations of different media–in the radio play, for example, every piece of information about Aragorn must be conveyed by dialogue, vocal style, sound effects, and accompanying music, while in an animated feature using costly hand-drawn animation techniques, faithfulness to the original is limited by the necessary compression of the story and simplification of illustration. Veugen’s critique of this scene in the Jackson film points out the very obvious differences between Tolkien’s hero of romance (in Frye’s terms) and Jackson’s Hamlet-like conflicted action hero, whom Frodo follows simply because he feels he has no choice. In the Vivendi computer game, Veugen draws attention to a fundamental split between the Aragorn character in the “cut scenes” (scenes that play without interaction with the player), in which he is closer to the high-romance hero of the book, and the interactive sequences , where he is purely a game warrior. The present writer’s classroom experience has demonstrated that Jackson’s Aragorn, while visually the closest to Tolkien’s conception, unfortunately also dominates her students’ perception of his character and role in the story, even for those who are also familiar with the book.

As with Honegger’s Translating Tolkien (2004), this collection suffers from a light editorial hand in places; many of the essays could have used some tightening or clarification, and there are several minor typographical errors. An index would have been highly desirable, particularly since the titles and abstracts of the essays do not always do justice to their content. For the reader interested in issues of language and metalinguistics, this is an intriguing group of essays that could well lead to further insights and research. The references to European scholarship on Tolkien, often unavailable in indexes available to American academics, are a valuable resource in themselves.

Janet Brennan Croft

The University of Oklahoma

Norman, Oklahoma

The Science of Middle-earth, by Henry Gee. Foreword by David Brin. Cold Spring Harbor, NY: Cold Spring Press, 2004. 255 pp. $14.00 (trade paperback) ISBN 1593600232.

By now, it should come as no particular surprise to anyone that the genres of science fiction and fantasy have a strong following in the scientific community. The Science of Middle-earth marks the latest in a recent spate of publishing to use a popular story as a springboard to advance the public discussion of science. As a zoologist and author of several books on vertebrate evolution, and an editor of Nature, Gee uses his considerable store of scientific knowledge in his approach to Middle-earth. His premise is that this place is presented as an intact world and therefore subject to the same scientific scrutiny as any other ecosystem. He blends scientific knowledge with theory and imagination to extrapolate what could be: how Fëanor might have used materials now only conjectured to exist to grow the palantíri, what physiological traits would be necessary for dragons to fly, and how string theory might explain something of how the Ring functions. Such extrapolations, of course, lie at the very heart of science–and likewise at the heart of fantasy. Playing upon this intrinsic connection, the author applies a number of scientific disciplines to explain and explore the wonders of Middle-earth.

The book is laid out as a collection of loosely connected essays applying scientific principles to the phenomena of Middle-earth, framed by a gentle but firm rebuke of the literary establishment on the one hand and the scientific community on the other. There are no overt section headings, but the essays generally fall into three broad groups: the relation between Tolkien and science, the creatures of Middle-earth, and, finally, the science of Middle-earth itself.

The first five chapters deal primarily with the interaction between Tolkien and science, a deliberately ambiguous phrase that refers both to Tolkien’s relationship with the science of his day and his subsequent effect on the science of the present day. Using evidence from Tolkien’s own writings, the first five chapters establish that Tolkien was not anti-science, but instead worried about the misapplication of science—a concern not alien to the scientific community. Certainly he was familiar with most of the prevailing scientific theories of his day. Given that Tolkien was a philologist, arguably the most scientific branch of linguistics, such a connection seems logical. The connection is further deepened when Tolkien’s impact on modern science is discussed—most notably in the area of nomenclature, a development that surely would have delighted Tolkien.

The second section deals primarily with the evolutionary questions raised by the more mythical creatures of Middle-earth: the orcs, ents, balrogs, and dragons. Rather than dismissing these creatures as mere fantasy, the author exercises his considerable knowledge of evolutionary biology to speculate on what physiological and biomechanical adaptations would be necessary for such creatures to exist, and in what ways the laws of physics would constrain them. Two chapters discuss the problems of orkish origins and reproduction, one discusses the botanical diversity of Middle-earth and the impact of deforestation on the ents, and another weighs the scientific evidence to conclude that balrogs probably do not have wings. These chapters are necessarily more speculative than those preceding them, and they tend to concentrate rather more on the science than on Middle-earth per se.

The last ten chapters, the third and final section of the book, delve into the actual science of Middle-earth, the way the peoples of Middle-earth might have used and understood science. For the most part, the chapters fluctuate between Elvish physiology and Elvish technology, with one chapter dealing with the megafauna of Middle-earth. In a highly innovative approach, Gee applies the Third Law of Arthur C. Clarke—“any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic”—to contend that the Elves possessed scientific knowledge well beyond our own. The author makes a convincing argument that Elvish technology is difficult to see because, unlike ours, it does not interfere with natural processes but integrates with it. And this is where Gee locates the intersection between science and fantasy, in the indisputable sense of wonder and possibility that stimulates both.

Based on his credentials, it is not surprising that the author’s science is impeccable and his explanations both accurate and clear. That is not to say there is not the occasional obscurity or blurring of scientific debate—for instance, cladistics is the dominant theory of evolutionary patterns, though it is not quite as unchallenged as Gee makes it seem—but for the most part even the most complex theories are relatively straightforward and understandable. Given that the author obviously put so much time and energy into the scientific end, it is mildly surprising that he did not put more effort into reading extant Tolkien criticism. He seems to have relied almost exclusively on T.A. Shippey’s books, overlooking other scholars including Verlyn Flieger (particularly in her book A Question of Time) who have noted Tolkien’s familiarity with the science of his day. The loose structure of this collection of essays also means that transitions between chapters can be somewhat abrupt, and the threads between them are sometimes obscure. Finally, some of the evidence seems more dependent upon Peter Jackson’s movies rather than Tolkien’s own texts, which seems a puzzling inconsistency in light of his careful presentation using evidence gleaned from Tolkien’s own writings.

Overall, this book provides some remarkable new insights for scholars and fans alike. Far from seeking to provide definitive answers to the phenomena of Middle-earth, this book instead invites conjecture and debate. Although written for a general audience, the author clearly believes his topic is worthy of intellectual analysis and that his audience has the intellect to understand it. His unique position as author, scientist, and fan converge to create unique insights, some of breathtaking power and beauty. Furthermore, this book insists that science and fantasy exist in a symbiotic relationship, each supporting and nourishing the other. Both, after all, require a desire to explore the implications of existence, to delight in possibility, and to engage the imagination. Though most of the science of Middle-earth must remain, by its very nature, speculative, readers will almost certainly leave this book with an increased respect for Tolkien, science, and the wonders of Middle-earth.

Amy Amendt-Raduege

Marquette University

Milwaukee, Wisconsin

Tolkien, les racines du légendaire, edited by Michaël Devaux. Geneva: Ad Solem, 2003. 416 pp. €31.00 (trade paperback) ISBN 2884820272. La Feuille de la Compagnie: Cahier d’études tolkiennes 2.

Tolkien, trente ans après (1973-2003), edited by Vincent Ferré. Paris: Christian Bourgois, 2004. 394 pp. €22.00 (trade paperback) ISBN 2267017385.

After many decades of apparently evincing little interest in the works of Tolkien, French scholars have produced a veritable flurry of published material during the last five years. In addition to the two volumes under review one might mention the substantial contributions of Ferré (2001), Caldecott et al. (2002), Ducreux (2003–a reprint of her doctoral dissertation from 1995), and Ridoux (2004), not to mention a considerable number of more popular works. There is also a growing body of secondary material on Tolkien that is being translated from English, including a 2003 translation of Lin Carter’s 1969 standby, Tolkien: A Look Behind “The Lord of the Rings.” A revised translation of The Lord of the Rings into French should be available in 2006 and the painstaking process of translating The History of Middle-earth is also underway. The first two volumes, Le Livre des Contes purdues, appeared between 1995-1998 translated by Tolkien’s grandson, Adam, and volume three is slated to appear in 2006.

Tolkien, les racines du légendaire is the second volume of Tolkien studies entitled somewhat modestly as La Feuille de la Compagnie [“The Broadsheet of the Society”] published by La Compagnie de la Comté [“The Shire Society”], an organization founded in 1996 whose goal is promote understanding of the work of Tolkien for a French-speaking audience (one should also note that the German Tolkien Association has just published the first volume of its yearbook under the title Hither Shore, which contains the proceedings of the Society’s 2004 meeting in Cologne). The first volume of La Feuille de la Compagnie appeared in 2001 at a modest 152 pages and like the volume under review was divided into sections entitled: “Dossiers,” “Articles,” and “Comptes rendus” [“Reviews”].

However, the first item in the present volume is a section “Inédit” [“Unedited”] (19-81) which contains an annotated translation done by Michaël Devaux of the complete letter to Milton Waldman written in 1951 in which Tolkien outlines the concept of his Legendarium and the history of the Three Ages (published in part, Letters, 143-161). Included is the English text of the section omitted from Letters which is a summary of the narrative of The Lord of the Rings. Wayne G. Hammond and Christina Scull have also edited this omitted section and it now appears in their The Lord of the Rings: A Reader’s Companion (742-749).

One of the concerns of both of the volumes under review is to consider the “archaeology” of Tolkien studies in France: why were they so slow in getting off the ground; who were the pioneers; how did the interest develop despite the lack of adequate translations of Tolkien’s major works. One of the first steps in this direction was the contribution Edouard Kloczko made to his collection, Tolkien en France, under the title “Tolkien et la critique française: une bibliographie” (161-69). The earliest essay there on The Lord of the Rings dates from 1967. Michaël Devaux opens up the section “Dossiers” [“Documents”] (85-146) with a much earlier witness to an interest in Tolkien and in doing so uncovers a hitherto overlooked link between Tolkien and one of the more prominent Catholic theologians of the second half of the twentieth century. Father Louis Bouyer (1913-2004) had been a protestant minister until 1939 when he converted to Catholicism. He eventually established himself as one of the foremost contemporary authorities on the Eucharist. At the Institute Catholique de Paris he ran into opposition from his colleagues, not helped by his somewhat hasty temper, chief among them Father Jean Daniélou (1904-1974). (Daniélou was later a Cardinal whose death was not entirely free from scandal.) Father Bouyer immigrated to the United States in 1962 where he taught at, among other places, the University of Notre Dame and the University of San Francisco. He was a prolific writer not only of theological works but also of fiction which he published under various pseudonyms, In 1958 Bouyer published an enthusiastic six page review of The Lord of the Rings in a publication called La Tour Saint-Joseph under the title “Une nouvelle epopee” [“A New Epic”]. Not only that, throughout his career in both in both fiction and non-fiction he continued to mention Tolkien and always favorably (Kloczko mentions one of these works from 1986 under “Marginalia,” 168). Devaux reports that although Bouyer indicates that he and Tolkien were friends no correspondence between them survives (89) but Bouyer did visit Tolkien at least once at 76 Sandfield Road, Headington, in the same garage/study where Humphrey Carpenter found himself in 1967 (Tolkien, 3-6). Devaux prints the 1958 article and all the other printed references to Tolkien from Bouyer’s works that he has come across and provides them with useful annotations. This discovery of the friendship between Tolkien and Bouyer is a major event, and will have important implications for those who are concerned with expounding the Catholic aspects of Tolkien’s works as they attempt to determine what it was in Tolkien’s work that appealed to this major Catholic theologian who is claimed both by the modernist and conservative camps.

Michaël Devaux is also responsible for two other contributions in “Dossiers.” The first (147-156) shows that the reference to “Numinor” by Jacques Bergier (on whose importance in French Tolkien studies see below) as a “Celtic center” in a book from 1960—and for which Kloczko had excoriated him in a “Marginalia” entry (168)—was in fact not at all a reference to Tolkien but rather to the appropriation of the word in the writings of C. S. Lewis. The second (181-188) is a series of tables showing the correspondences between the draft chapters of The Lord of the Rings published in vols. 6-9 and 12 of The History of Middle-earth and those of the published novel. The other entry in this section (157-180) by Philippe Garnier follows the fortunes of Eriol/Ælfwine as the Legendarium evolves from a single Age to three.

The third section, “Articles,” contains five contributions, including a translation of Verlyn Flieger’s “Naming the Unnamable” (273-282). Michaël Devaux leads off again with a very detailed article on aspects of what might be called Tolkienien angelology (191-245), specifically the nature of the corporeal nature of the Valar and the Maiar. Drawing upon Augustinian distinctions of “flesh” (caro) and “body” (corpus) and their phenomenological re-inscription by Husserl as Leib and Körper, he investigates principally the corporeality of the Maiar whose physical manifestations in the Legendarium range from positive figures such as Thingol’s wife, Melian, and Gandalf to epitomes of evil such as Sauron and the Balrog(s). Part of the problem rises from Tolkien’s evolving conceptions and the fact that along the way both the Maiar and the Valar have been described as “angels.” The Ainur as offspring of the thought of Ilúvatar must be creatures of spirit, but those Ainur who chose to come to Arda partook of the material nature of creation as the Valar and took visible physical form as a garment rather than as a physical transformation (for example, the Valar neither reproduce nor eat and drink, 215). Lesser ranking members of the Valar had the permission of Ilúvatar to become incarnate in the bodies of his Children (Elves and Humans) and endure all their physical comforts and discomforts. Corporeality in and of itself is not evil, as the examples of Melian and Gandalf demonstrate, but those who turn away from good sacrifice their spiritual nature as their physicality increases. Melkor, though a Valar has so made his visible form material that he suffers physical wounds to it. Yet after his defeat he passes out of time and space (that is Arda) back to the spiritual realm of Ilúvatar. Sauron is able to reconstitute himself as a physical being after he “passes away” or is “killed” at the end of the Second Age only with great difficulty and only because of the Ring of Power. When that is destroyed so is Sauron; his physical form collapses and what is left of his spirit attenuates and is dispersed forever by the wind. The same fate awaits the lesser Maiar, Saruman. The above only summarizes in outline what is argued with great erudition and subtlety. Devaux’s article is a must read for those interested in the development and evolution of these ideas and their relationship to theological and philosophical arguments. Those who do not have access to French editions of Tolkien will appreciate that references are made to both English and French versions.

Among the other articles, Irène Fernandez looks at the “truth of myth” in Tolkien’s work (247-272), Philippe Garnier investigates at the various devices (individuals and books) which were used to frame the narratives of the Legendarium and The Lord of the Rings (283-311), while in a fascinating contribution, Sébastien Mallet looks at the other Ring that appears in the Legendarium, the Ring of Barahir. Forged in Valinor it belonged to Finrod who gave it to Barahir, Beren’s father, as a pledge of support. Rescued by Beren after Barahir’s death it passed through his descendants to Elros at the end of the First Age. It remained in the hands of the Faithful of Númenor and escaped the destruction of that island when Elendil the Faithful fled to Middle-earth. From Elendil it passed down to Arvedui the last king of the North-kingdom. Before he parted on his ill-fated journey to reach the south, he gave the ring to the chief of the Lossoth as a parting gift, for although the ring had no intrinsic value, he explained, yet his kin would pay a great ransom for it. This appears to have happened because the Ring of Barahir is listed among the heirlooms of the House of Isildur in Rivendell. Elrond gives Aragorn the ring when he reveals to him his true name. That evening Aragorn has an experience similar to that of his ancestor Beren when he sees a woman walking in the forest. This is his first meeting with Arwen. He will not see her again for thirty years, but when they do meet they fall in love. As they plight their troth on Cerin Amroth, Aragorn gives her the Ring of Barahir as his pledge. In accepting the ring Arwen not only re-inscribes Finrod’s original pledge of an alliance between Elves and Humans, also but also accepts the Gift of Ilúvatar, that is, death. It is not clear what happens to the ring after that, whether she passed it on to Eldarion or whether she still had it on her when she ended her days on the same hill of Cerin Amroth where she had pledged herself to Aragorn those many years before. Not only does Mallet guide us through this narrative which exists scattered in many places at the very edge of the reader’s conscience (this ring is not even mentioned as such in Christopher Tolkien’s complete index to The History of Middle-earth), but he shows how the Ring of Barahir provides a counter-discourse to the One Ring which is at the very center of narrative attention in The Lord of the Rings. The One Ring (or the Silmarils) create in the possessor the desire to possess, but the lesson of the ring of Barahir is that the one who has it should give it away, either to protect it or to see it used in achieving some higher good. As Mallet concludes his essay: “[e]n lisant le légendaire de Tolkien chacun passe l’anneau de Barahir à son doigt” [“in reading Tolkien’s Legendarium everyone puts the Ring of Barahir on their finger”] (359).

The volume concludes with a bibliographic essay on recent publications (363-370), a translation of Douglas Anderson’s review of The History of Middle-earth 6-9 which appeared in the Swedish Tolkien journal, Arda (371-381), as well as a substantial review of Peter Jackson’s film version of The Fellowship of the Ring (393-411) which is for the most part positive.

This second number of La Feuille de la Compagnie is presented in accordance with the highest standards of scholarship and presentation. It speaks to the sophistication and high quality of contemporary French Tolkien research on Tolkien. The editor and contributors are to be congratulated on their achievement and one can only look forward to future numbers.

Tolkien, trente ans après is a collection seventeen essays commemorating the thirtieth anniversary of Tolkien’s death and the thirtieth anniversary of the French translation of The Lord of the Rings. It is from the same publishing house that is responsible for Tolkien’s works appearing in French. The opening essay by Vincent Ferré on the reception of Tolkien in France 1973-2003 (35) is also an “archaeological” study. It is adapted from a piece which had already appeared in English (Ferré et al., 2003), but it is more detailed about Tolkien’s French reception both positive and negative and omits the section dealing with the French translation itself. Ferré follows this essay with one of the highpoints of the volume, his fascinating interview (37-46) with Christian Bourgois (Tolkien’s French publisher) recounting the sheer happenstance that resulted in his signing a contract with Allen and Unwin in 1970 for the French rights. Bourgois was very much influenced by the enthusiasm for Tolkien of one of his authors, Jacques Bergier (1912-1978), who had included him in a volume of studies on little known contemporary writers of both fiction and science fiction (Admirations, 1970). The Lord of the Rings appeared in three volumes translated by Francis Ledoux in 1972-1973, but this translation did not include the appendices which had to wait until 1986 for a French version. Yet despite that fact that The Lord of the Rings was virtually ignored in the media and by scholars, it continued to sell steadily, 30,000 copies 1992-1995, 100,000 copies 2001-2002. The interest in the book since the appearance of the films has helped to under-write a revised translation of The Lord of the Rings and to ensure the continued appearance of volumes of The History of Middle-earth in translation.

The volume contains four sections of essays, the first of which, “Confluences” [“Conjunctions”] opens with Jean-Philippe Qadri’s study (49-73) of the riddling game between Bilbo and Gollum in chapter 5 of The Hobbit. He argues that the answers to the riddles Gollum asks (mountain, wind, dark, fish, and time) in effect depict the condition Gollum finds himself in, while Bilbo’s riddles are in a sense a response to the ones Gollum has asked until by round five he runs out of inspiration (67-68). But it is then Bilbo puts his hand in his pocket and touches the ring. It is as if the ring now begins to influence its new owner, and even though Bilbo will not become a slave to the ring, he is certainly not unaffected by it as several scenes in The Lord of the Rings make clear. But Qadri also points out that the turning point in the game may have come in Bilbo’s riddle which concludes round three. While Gollum gives the “correct” answer, “eggs,” an equally correct answer would be “ring” as a “box without hinges, key, or lid” could also be a pocket, and the Ring the golden treasure hidden inside.

Charles Delattre analyses what he calls “the cycle of the ring.” He begins with looking at the episode involving Galdriel’s mirror (75-102). The basin when filled with water acts as an eye into time and space. Sam sees visions which seem to presage his and Frodo’s journey on the stairs of Cirith Ungol, followed by the industrialization of the shire under Saruman’s influence. Frodo’s visions are even vaguer until he makes ready to leave. The mirror goes dark and Frodo finds himself staring at the eye of Sauron, the pupil in the center a pit of nothingness. Delattre likens this to the well in the mines of Moria into which Pippin will drop a stone—and awaken the Balrog. He also sees Sauron and Frodo eye to eye, each as it were, searching for the other, like Narcissus searching for his reflection. It is at this point the ring becomes very heavy as if it wants to throw itself into the mirror, attempting to repeat the cycle that got it lost in the first place when it slipped off Isildur’s finger into the Anduin. This time it would not be picked up by a fish, but by Sauron. But Galadriel warns Frodo not to touch the water and the moment is passed. The ring is not able to control its fate on this occasion and the cycle becomes much more convoluted before the ring is returned not to Sauron, but to its place of origin in the Cracks of Doom. This scene with Galadriel’s mirror is also read as an example of Tolkien’s narrative technique which succeeds in part because it is always threatening to abrogate the expected flow of story causing the reader both excitement as well as anxiety. In the following essays, Paul Airiau studies the fall of Gandalf in Moria (103-115) and Laurent Alibert looks at Indo-European influence in Arda and the limitations of such an approach (117-135). His point of departure is Frédérique Munier’s Dumézilien analysis first published in 1987 of the song Aragorn and Legolas sing at the funeral of Boromir at the beginning of book III of The Lord of the Rings. While Alibert finds numerous traces of what he calls “indo-european thought” (133) in The Lord of the Rings, these are entirely accidental as many of them predate the appearance of the work of Georges Dumézil who first theorized upon these matters.

The second section, titled appropriately, “The Tree and its Branches,” opens with the translation of Thomas Honegger’s “The Westron Turned into Modern English” (139-160). The diagram on page 151 showing the connection between the various human languages in Arda is now complemented by a similar detailed diagram showing the development of the Elvish languages by David Salo on page 14 of his grammar of Sindarin. Michaël Devaux proposes a methodological approach to the texts in the History of Middle-earth (161-188). He proposes the following categories. A “primordial” [originel] text is one that remain constant since the first version; that which comes and goes in various versions is “originary.” An “original” [original] text is one that occurs only in one version, while a “fundamental” one is a collective representation of all versions contradictions and all. Devaux shows how this schema might work in an analysis of the “Ainulindalë,” and while the distinctions appear useful, it remains to be seen to what extent they are taken up by other scholars. The final essay in this section by Jérôme Bouron explores the connections between “Leaf by Niggle” and Tolkien’s literary production (189-204).

The third section, “The Black Shadow,” contains translations of Tom Shippey’s “Orcs, Wraiths, Wrights” (107-232) and Verlyn Flieger’s “Frodo and Aragorn” (253-278). The other two essays are one by Fabienne Claire Caland on the frontiers of evil in The Lord of the Rings (233-252) and another by Guido Semprini on Tolkien and racism (279-301). Caland shows how evil spreads from Mordor like a contagion in the Giradian sense. It escapes from its confines and its frontiers are ever advancing signaled by the spread of the Shadow all of which is part of Sauron’s strategy to cower his opponents. A recent example of an uninformed analysis of Tolkien and race can be found in Isabelle Smadja’s 2002 volume on Tolkien which appeared in the series “Sociology Today.” She concludes, after a superficial survey of The Lord of the Rings, that it is a work “developpant des thèses racists, misogynes, d’un conservatisme peu avenant” [“developing racist, misogynistic arguments of a little pleasing conservatism”] (125). Furthermore it is a book that promotes violence and justifies finding pleasure in the games of war (128). It is against voices like this, no less vocal in France than elsewhere, that Semprini’s essay addresses itself. Through a careful reading of The Lord of the Rings and other works by Tolkien he refutes these vapid accusations of Smadja and others. Rather than being a work of racism, he argues convincingly, The Lord of the Rings is one that promotes racial harmony. One might add also that instead of being a work that glorifies violence and war, The Lord of the Rings and the Legendarium emphasize that violence and war solve nothing, leading only to more of the same. Tolkien was a veteran of the 1916 Battle of the Somme and was someone who had no illusions whatsoever about the “glories of war.”

The final section of the volume deals with Tolkien and the arts and opens with essays on the film adaptation of The Lord of the Rings, the first by Hervé Aubron entitled “Powers of Grayness and Lost Childhood: Back and Forth between Tolkien and his Adaptation by Peter Jackson” (305-323), the second by Jean Cléder, “The Fellowship of the Ring of J. R. R. Tolkien and P. Jackson: A Failed Performance?” (325-342). Both explore what they see as different aspects of failure in Jackson’s attempt to bring The Lord of the Rings to the screen, but both recognize the enormity of the task facing him. The volume concludes with an interview with John Howe conducted by Vincent Ferré (343-356) and an essay and bibliography by Anne Besson (357-379) on Tolkien’s influence on contemporary fantasy fiction series, “trilogies” as they used to be called, although some authors have found three volumes far too confining.

This too is a very useful volume. If it does not quite evoke the same excitement as Tolkien, les racines du légendaire, yet it has a number of important and provocative essays, and both volumes together promise that in the coming years French research and criticism on Tolkien will play a major role in shaping how we understand this author and his work.

Shaun F. D. Hughes

Purdue University

West Lafayette, Indiana

Works Cited

Anderson, Douglas A. “J. R. R. Tolkien: The History of the Lord of the Rings.” In Arda 1988-1991, edited by Anders Stenström. Uppsala: The Arda-Society, 1994: 128-135.

Bergier, Jacques. “J. R. R. Tolkien ou Le Seigneur des anneaux.” In Admirations. Paris: Christian Bourgois, 1970: 171-199.

Caldecott, Stratford, Didier Rance and Grégory Salari. Tolkien: Faërie et Christianisme. Geneva: Ad Solem, 2002.

Carpenter, Humphrey. Tolkien: A Biography. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1977.

Carter, Lin. Tolkien: Le maître des Anneaux. [Paris]: Le Pré aux Clercs, 2005. First published as: Tolkien: A Look Behind “The Lord of the Rings.” New York: Ballantine, 1969.

Devaux, Michaël, et al. La Feuille de la Compagnie 1. Paris: L’Œil du Sphinx, 2001.

Ducreux, Françoise. L’Espace imaginaire dans les œuvres de J. R. R. Tolkien: The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, The Silmarillion, Unfinished Tales. Lille: Atelier National de Reproduction des Thèses, 2003.

Ferré, Vincent. Tolkien: Sur les ravages de la terre du milieu. Paris: Christian Bourgois, 2001.

———, Daniel Lauzon, and David Riggs. “Traduire Tolkien en français: On the Translation of J. R. R. Tolkien’s Works into French and their Reception in France.” In Tolkien in Translation, ed. Thomas Honegger. Zurich: Walking Tree, 2003.

Flieger, Verlyn. “Frodo and Aragorn: The Concept of the Hero.” In Tolkien: New Critical Perspectives, ed. Neil D. Isaacs and Rose A. Zimbardo. Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky, 1981: 40-62. Reprinted in Understanding The Lord of the Rings: The Best of Tolkien Criticism, ed. Rose A. Zimbardo and Neil D. Isaacs. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2004: 122-145, 262-263.

———.“Naming the Unnamable: The Neo-Platonic ‘One’ in Tolkien’s Silmarillion.” In Diakonia: Studies in Honor of Robert T. Meyer, ed. Thomas Halton and Joseph P. Williman. Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1986: 127-132.

Hither Shore: Interdisciplinary Journal on Modern Fantasy Literature. Düsseldorf: Scriptorium Oxoniae, 2004). Jahrbuch der Deutschen Tolkien Gesellschaft 1 (2004).

Hammond, Wayne G. and Christina Scull. The Lord of the Rings: A Reader’s Companion. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2005.

Honegger, Thomas. “The Westron Turned into Modern English: The Translator and Tolkien’s Web of Languages.” In Translating Tolkien: Text and Film, ed. Thomas Honegger. Zurich: Walking Tree, 2004: 1-20.

Kloczko, Edouard, ed. Tolkien en France. Argenteuil: Arda, 1998.

Munier, Frédérique. “Une interpretation trifonctionnelle d’un poème de J. R. R. Tolkien.” In Kloczko, ed.: 77-103. First published: Études indo-européennes 21-24 (1987): 191-212.

Ridoux, Charles. Tolkien: Le chant du monde. Amiens: Encrage, 2004.

Salo, David. A Gateway to Sindarin: A Grammar of an Elvish Language from J. R. R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2004.

Shippey, Tom. “Orcs, Wraiths, Wights: Tolkien’s Images of Evil.” In J. R. R. Tolkien and His Literary Resonances: Views of Middle-earth, ed. George Clark and Daniel Timmons. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2000: 183-198.

Smadja, Isabelle. Le Seigneur des anneaux ou la tentation du mal. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 2002.

Tolkien, Christopher. The History of Middle-earth Index. London: HarperCollins, 2002.

Tolkien, J. R. R. Le Livre des Contes perdues. Trans., Adam Tolkien. Two volumes. Paris: Christian Bourgois, 1995, 1998. One volume edition, 2001.

Tolkien and the Invention of Myth: A Reader, edited by Jane Chance. Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky, 2004. xx, 340 pp. $35.00 (hardcover) ISBN 0813123011.

This volume is the second in a series of three essay collections with the first Tolkien the Medievalist (2003) and the third Tolkien’s Modern Middle Ages (2005). This second collection is divided into five sections and contains eighteen essays, Jane Chance’s introduction (1–16), together with a bibliography (305–319), a contributor’s list (321–325), and an index (327–340). Four contributions originally appearing in journals during the 1980s and early 1990s have been newly revised for this collection. Ten others emerged from papers delivered in 2002 in sessions devoted to “Tolkien and the Emergence of Myth” at the 37th International Congress on Medieval Studies in Kalamazoo, Michigan. John R. Holmes’s essay grew out of a paper delivered the following year at the Medieval Congress at which five sessions were devoted to “Tolkien and the Discourses of Medieval Culture.” Tom Shippey presented an earlier incarnation of his essay in a lecture at Rice University in 1996; as did Michael D. C. Drout at Bucknell University in 2003.

The first section “Backgrounds: Folklore, Religion, Magic and Language” opens with Michaela Baltasar’s “J. R. R. Tolkien: A Rediscovery of Myth.” In her essay, Baltasar stresses a theme treated by other contributors to this collection—Tolkien’s belief in the creative, generative potency of language. Citing both Tolkien’s “Beowulf” lecture and his essay “On Fairy-stories” she considers The Lord of the Rings in the context of competing theories of myth held by two of Tolkien’s distinguished predecessors—Friedrich Max Müller and Andrew Lang. Tolkien opposed both the methodologies and goals of these scholars, taking issue with their understanding of myth’s fundamental nature and its function. He objected to treating myth as a means to an end, valuable only to the extent that it illuminated something other than itself. For Müller the philologist, a myth’s value resided in its power to explain surviving linguistic elements now bereft of their original cultural contexts. For Lang the folklorist, a myth’s value lay in the insights it offered into ancient, remote cultures. Baltasar believes Tolkien intended The Lord of the Rings to demonstrate myth’s true nature and proper function. Within his fictive world myth is alive and present, something characters can experience directly. It is as Baltasar asserts “born of language.” Further, a spiritual yearning catalyzes myth-making, especially the human desire to recover the wholeness and felicity enjoyed before man’s fall from grace. Tolkien’s assertion that spiritual needs impelled the creation of myth was at odds with the view of Andrew Lang who held that religious meaning is seldom detected in mythology.

In her essay “Light from an Invisible Lamp: Natural Religion in The Lord of the Rings,” Catherine Madsen seeks to account for the power of The Lord of the Rings to evoke what she calls “religious feeling” while it resists explicitly referencing Roman Catholic teaching and traditional practices to do so. Insofar as the Free Peoples of Middle-earth follow a religion, Madsen suggests that they practice a form of “natural religion,” a faith by which men can attain a knowledge of God, and moral standards for themselves through the exercise of reason and close contemplation of their world without the aid of divine revelation. As characters contemplate the landscape and inhabitants of Middle-earth in these special “moments of attention” they gain spiritual strength and renewed hope and, she argues, perform what Tolkien describes as the activity of “Recovery” in his essay “On Fairy-stories.” Further, she discovers a parallel between the characters’ work of Recovery in these “moments” and the philosophy of “Elementalism” developed by the novelist, poet and essayist John Cowper Powys. In his A Philosophy of Solitude (1933), Powys argues that the solitary individual’s meditation on natural landscape features can reveal spiritual truths, opening his/her capacity for pity and kindness, virtues of the greatest importance to both writers. Much less persuasive is her speculation about Tolkien’s personal dissatisfaction with Catholicism because she seems to project her own unhappiness with contemporary Christianity onto the historical author.

Asserting that “language can re-create material reality,” Mary E. Zimmer continues the linguistic theme in her appealing essay, “Creating and Re-creating Worlds with Words,” as she explores the nature of verbal magic in The Lord of the Rings. Adopting the terminology of Ernst Cassirer, she examines two types—“word magic” in the form of incantations and two types of “name magic”—the frequent taboo against uttering proper names and the alteration of a person’s name to signal an essential change in that individual. She proposes that the assumption underlying both types of magic in our primary world (as identified by Cassirer) is detectable in Middle-earth as well. The idea that language can influence and alter material reality underlies both worlds, primary and secondary. The “world of things” and the “world of names” are not separate ones but are part of the same reality, the same continuum. Consequently, a chain of causality links things and language together in Middle-earth, a notion Zimmer finds consistent with the Christian-Neoplatonic principles underlying Tolkien’s fictive world. Words brought Middle-earth itself into being in The Silmarillion. Analogously, incantatory words spoken by Tom Bombadil and Gandalf describe an event they want to taken place in Middle-earth. Gandalf asserts that Saruman’s staff “is broken” and it breaks instantly.

Proper names possess special potency in The Lord of the Rings; Zimmer argues that the “true name” has the same relationship to language as the Divine Idea has to the created intelligible form in the Christian-Neoplatonic cosmos. Consequently, it is the cause of the referent. She offers analyses of names that bear important resemblances to their referents or possessors and thus “manifest [in the material world] what they signify.” Turning to Entish names, she further considers the way these names can express the possessors’ entire life histories. She explores the notion that an understanding of a name’s etymology grants special knowledge of the referent and explains the reluctance of many in Middle-earth to reveal their true names. Further, if a true name has causal power, magic worked by uttering that name would be potent indeed and provides reason enough for placing a taboo on speaking that name aloud. Zimmer notes that Sauron has no fewer than “twenty-two pseudonyms.”

In the concluding essay in this section, David Lyle Jeffrey also examines names in his “Tolkien as Philologist.” Jeffrey uses personal names to illustrate the power of language to perform the work of “Recovery.” He reminds us that in Appendix F of The Lord of the Rings Tolkien distinguishes between those names that may be translated and those that may not. And for the former Tolkien provides guidance—such as etymologies and annotations—for those who wish to do so. Those in the latter category—he analyses the elements contained in Aragorn and Arwen—offer special insight into Tolkien’s understanding of language. Jeffrey proposes a persuasive analogy between the medieval author’s understanding of the act of writing and Tolkien’s concept of sub-creation. The medieval author understood allegory as “a theory of history (in which men and events signify, as do words)”; for Tolkien, the activity of “Recovery” also offers an instance of a very similar theory of history. Jeffrey cites St. Augustine’s teaching about the nature of language and literature: if “history is a kind of continuous unfolding of God’s Word in time” then literary works are contemporary glosses on that first divine text. For the medieval writer, Jeffrey argues, writing is a kind of sub-creation. The act of writing repeats in history the very first patterns established at Creation. For the philologist Tolkien, language is an especially potent mode of recovering traces of the past, even penetrating to that very first, earliest stratum. He believed that behind surviving words and tales lay their tellers’ histories. Accordingly, Jeffrey includes an “Appendix: Speculative Notes to Some of the Names,” where he offers his readers etymologies, many of which differ from those proposed by other scholars.

The volume’s second section “Tolkien and Ancient Greek and Classical and Medieval Latin” opens with Gergely Nagy’s “Saving the Myths: The Re-creation of Mythology in Plato and Tolkien.” Nagy pursues a number of intriguing parallels between Plato and Tolkien as myth-makers. Both writers share a similar understanding of the nature of myth; both adopt myth as a central rhetorical strategy in their works. Nagy outlines their efforts to position themselves in relation to their respective mythological traditions, traditions they could not ignore. Plato critiqued the long tradition of orally-transmitted Greek mythology, characterizing it as inexact, unsystematic and fundamentally fluid, features that rendered it an unsuitable form of discourse for educating the young. Yet he retained myth in his philosophical corpus by writing his own. Nagy sees Plato’s use of written myth for philosophical exploration and Tolkien’s discipline of philology as equally text-based in nature. He suggests that philology’s textually grounded assumptions and methods governed Tolkien’s own “relation to myth.” He reminds us that Tolkien’s “own mythological stories are presented as texts, written accounts, translations . . . of other texts.”

Further, philology’s method operates backwards, moving from surviving fragments towards a distant original as does Tolkien’s mode of myth-making. Both men seek to reclaim a past that has been lost. For Plato, the philosopher works to regain a knowledge of the ideal Forms, once possessed by the Soul but lost when the Soul enters its body on earth. Their goals, Nagy argues, are parallel. The ideal Forms are “functionally in the same place” for Plato as past myth is for Tolkien. He suggests in addition that they share a very similar notion of the function of writing. For Plato, it is a form of notation, recording an activity—the “process of philosophy.” Tolkien appears to view writing the same way; in his case it is a recording of the work of reclamation or recovery, an assertion that Nagy supports with several examples. In the works of both authors, the many myths they write generate contexts for themselves, implying that they are the products of authentic traditions. This illusion of a rich and ancient tradition—what Nagy terms “the depth effect”—is one of Tolkien’s most spectacular achievements.

Sandra Ballif Straubhaar argues convincingly in her essay “Myth, Late Roman History, and Multiculturalism in Tolkien’s Middle-earth” that in creating dynastic marriages between the realms of Gondor and Rohan (Valacar to Vidumavi, and later, Faramir to Éowyn ) Tolkien echoes a cultural trend observable in the late Roman empire—the Romans’ gradual acceptance of mixed marriages with barbarian tribes on their empire’s distant borders. She makes a persuasive case for the direct influence of the writings of Tacitus on Tolkien’s characterization of both the men of Gondor and the Rohirrim. The Germanic tribes described by Tacitus and the Riders of the Mark described by Faramir and Aragorn share the virtues of bravery and loyalty as well as clear pale complexions. Both the northern tribes and the Riders are illiterate peoples who preserve their culture through oral recitation in contrast to the learned, text-based sophistication of Rome and Gondor. In praising the barbarians’ evident virtues, Tacitus obliquely criticized the decadence of his fellow Romans, especially their self-indulgence and sexual conduct. He implies that some of his contemporaries would do well to practice these virtues and thereby recover their former glory.

Similarly, both Faramir and Aragorn admire the Rohirrim’s fearless physical vigor, highlighting Gondor’s loss of fertility, attenuated energies and absorption in arcane subjects. Straubhaar traces Gondor’s growing social acceptance of mixed marriages by contrasting the resistance to Vinitharya’s (Eldacar’s) assumption of the throne because of his mixed parentage (he is the son of Valacar of Gondor and Vidumavi of Rhovanion, ancestors of the Rohirrim) with their celebration of the union between Faramir and Éowyn many years later. It is hoped that their marriage will help to heal Gondor and restore its vitality. She notes a further linguistic link between the people of Rhovanion and the Goths, showing that Tolkien drew several names from the accounts of early medieval historians. Vinitharya (Eldacar) is mentioned by both Cassiodorus and Jordanes. A version of the name Vidugavia (father of Vidumavi ) appears in the work of Cassiodorus, Jordanes and Procopius. Staubhaar’s essay is a sound, well-researched contribution to the contemporary discussion of Tolkien’s multicultural Middle-earth.

In “From Catastrophe to Eucatastrophe: J. R. R. Tolkien’s Transformation of Ovid’s Mythic Pyramus and Thisbe into Beren and Lúthien,” Jen Stevens finds numerous parallels between Tolkien’s tale of Beren and Lúthien in The Silmarillion and Ovid’s tale of Pyramus and Thisbe in his Metamorphoses. While acknowledging Tolkien’s preference for the mythologies of northern Europe, Stevens argues that Tolkien’s early classical education would have introduced him to this Ovidian story which remains a foundational work in the literary history of western Europe. She speculates that, for the young Tolkien, the classical lovers’ frustrations and sufferings may have resonated with those of his own courtship of Edith Bratt. Stevens proposes that we will refine our understanding of the unique aspects of Tolkien’s mythology by noting the ways in which it often departs from “both the substance and spirit” of classical mythology. These departures prove more instructive than the clear parallels in plot structure. In fashioning a heroine who is an active autonomous agent, Tolkien may have taken a cue from the character of Ovid’s Thisbe. Stevens observes quite rightly that Thisbe herself is an active, eager lover quite different from many women in the Metamorphoses who flee the unwanted ardor of their male pursuers. And just as Thisbe is more active than many other females, so Lúthien is more active than Thisbe. Despite parental prohibition, Thisbe steals out to meet her lover; Lúthien escapes to seek Beren. Yet Thisbe flees when she comes upon her first obstacle, while Lúthien confronts and overcomes an entire series of challenges with steady resolve. The latter employs her gifts strategically, using her hair as a ladder and her power of illusion to disguise her own and Beren’s identities from enemies. While Thisbe’s voice is persuasive—the gods and both sets of parents accede to her piteous requests—Lúthien’s possesses magical authority when she “entrances Morgoth with song.” Further, Stevens finds two quite different conceptions of fate at work in these tales that highlight the role of agency. The fate of the Ovidian lovers appears “inescapable” and “predetermined” by remote gods. By contrast, a confluence of individuals’ choices—such as sworn oaths and promises—forms the web in which Tolkien’s lovers appear entangled at times only to prevail in the end.

In the next essay, “Providence, Fate, and Chance: Boethian Philosophy in The Lord of the Rings,” Kathleen E. Dubs examines the concepts of providence, fate, chance and free will in The Lord of the Rings in light of their presentation by Boethius in his Consolation of Philosophy. She suggests that his work would have appealed to Tolkien because, although he was undoubtedly a Christian, Boethius chose to demonstrate the existence of a benevolent providence without reference to Christian revelation. Tolkien himself, of course, wished to create something else—a mythology—without explicit reference to Christianity. Dubs notes that previous scholars who examined these four concepts in The Lord of the Rings have found their often-complicated relationships to one another “perhaps even contradictory.” She proposes that Tolkien’s use of these key terms is consistent with Boethius’ teaching. Accordingly, after explicating passages in the Consolation that define the nature of each and that illuminate the ways in which each differs from the other, she then turns to conversations in The Lord of the Rings containing one or more of them, and identified by earlier critics as especially problematic. Dubs demonstrates that the apparent contradictions disappear when we apply Boethius’ definitions to these terms in Tolkien’s world. Dubs presents Boethius’ thought to readers with commendable clarity (no easy feat) and offers convincing readings of passages with which earlier scholars have struggled.

Tom Shippey’s “Tolkien and the Appeal of the Pagan: Edda and Kalevala” begins section three, “Tolkien and Old Norse.” Shippey sets himself the task of discovering the elusive ingredient, the “flavour” that “rooted works” possess, a quality greatly prized by Tolkien and one with which he sought to imbue his own fiction. Shippey considers two of Tolkien’s models that had this “rooted” quality—Snorri Sturluson’s Prose Edda and Elias Lönnrot’s Kalevala. Both texts are grounded firmly in pagan myths, viewed retrospectively by their Christian writers across the centuries. After surveying important ways in which the two works differ—the Edda is a kind of summary, an “epitome” like The Silmarillion while the Kalevala is “edited anthology”—Shippey then searches each in turn for features that might contribute to that crucial “flavour.” One candidate is the thoroughly novel (indeed startling) view of the world to which the Edda exposed its European readership. Shippey cites Snorri’s unfamiliar, humorous treatment of grave issues such as apocalypse, aging and death and his penchant for understatement such as downplaying exhibitions of intense emotion. He further notes that Tolkien wished to preserve the distinctively Norse conception of heroism in his own fiction. Together these qualities create a logically consistent philosophy and an aesthetic style. Turning to the Kalevala, Shippey believes that its power to evoke pity in its readers and its sympathy for the suffering of females appealed to Tolkien. The orphaned state of the hero Kullervo, he speculates, may also have resonated with him. He finds a further parallel between the social alienation expressed by the poet at the conclusion of the Kalevala and that expressed by characters such as Niggle and Smith of Wootton Major. The pervasive sorrow and the dignified acceptance of inevitable loss so apparent in The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion may well have been inspired by their presence in the Kalevala. While all of these elements may account for the “flavour” Tolkien esteemed in these earlier works, Shippey stresses that the most crucial one may be the impression they offer of mythology as having been created by the energies of “many minds” over generations and not those of a single author.

In her essay “Norse and Christian Gods: The Integrative Theology of J. R. R. Tolkien,” Marjorie J. Burns demonstrates that Tolkien drew on the Norse pantheon, especially on the gods and goddesses of Asgard, when shaping his own cosmogony. Like others in this collection, she finds a similarity in the challenge facing Snorri Sturluson and Tolkien as Christians who both wished to present pagan mythology in a manner palatable to their fellow believers. She examines several passages from the Edda in which Snorri encourages readers to cherish and honor their pagan mythological inheritance while admonishing them not to accept the old stories as true and certainly not to venerate the Norse deities. Since his audience followed a monotheistic faith, Tolkien needed to craft a solution for the resistance he expected them to feel towards an array of gods. Accordingly, he designed a godhead that was at once singular and multiple. On one level was Eru/Ilúvatar, the One, and on another co-existing level were the Ainur, the Ones, the offspring of his thought, some of whom became the Valar.

Burns offers a very thorough comparison of the Norse pantheon with Tolkien’s seven Valar and their queens, illuminating his creative technique. She finds no simple one to one correspondence between the two groups, but rather, reveals the ways in which he selected among the functions and attributes of the Norse deities and reassigned them among his own creations. Thor’s hot temper is found in Tulkas the Valiant and his athleticism in Oromë, hunter of monsters and “fell beasts.” Manwë inherits many of Odin’s associations—with birds, with poetry—and his title of Allfather. Yet Tolkien siphons off Odin’s blacker aspects—his association with wolves, with inciting warfare—and gives them to Melkor (who also inherits the functions of Loki). His Valar exhibit exalted morals (Melkor excepted) and their physicality is attenuated. The female Valar are almost untouched by sexuality, certainly from the unabashed earthy appetites of their Norse inspirations. They foster, protect and exhibit a concern for Elves, Men and other races. Burns’ study enables readers not only to trace the evolution of Tolkien’s terminology for these figures over time—from Gods to gods to Holy Ones—but also the evolution of their characterization.

In “The Twilight of the Elves: Ragnarök and the End of the Third Age,” Andy Dimond sees the War of the Ring as a recasting of the Norse myth of Ragnarök that effects the transition between the Third and Fourth Ages of Middle-earth. In The Lord of the Rings he finds specific references to the Voluspa, the oldest surviving source for the myth, and several shared themes. One of the most crucial of these common themes is the transient nature of the created world, a perception deeply felt in both works. Dimond also finds a similar “fatalism” pervading both narratives, as well as evidence of deterioration and “decline” before the last battles. Among the motifs Dimond notes marking the War of the Ring and the final apocalyptic battle are the disappearance of the Sun and the appearance of evil wolves. He also proposes that the edition of the Edda manuscript Tolkien used, the Hauksbok, was a relatively late one that contained additional verses implying that the apocalyptic battle was followed by the advent of Christ. He speculates as well that Tolkien may have read Rasmus Bjorn Anderson’s late nineteenth-century Norse Mythology which offers an allegorical reading of Ragnarök describing Iceland’s transition from paganism to Christianity. If so, then in an analogous fashion, Tolkien used the War of the Ring to demarcate the mythological pagan Ages of Middle-earth from the Fourth Age that will see the coming of Christianity among Men. The passing of the Elves into the West parallels the death of the Gods at Ragnarök according to Dimond. And the survival of some of the Races (such as Hobbits and Dwarves) mirrors the survival of a few of the Gods in the aftermath of Ragnarök.

In this section’s final essay, “Gathered Round Northern Fires: The Imaginative Impact of the Kolbítar,” Andrew Lazo investigates the influence of the Old Norse reading group, the Kolbítar, on the academic and artistic development of both Tolkien and C. S. Lewis. Tolkien founded the group in 1926 for the purpose of translating the Eddas and the sagas when he was teaching at Oxford. The group’s meetings between 1926 and 1933 transformed both men’s earlier attraction to Norse material (fed by Andrew Lang’s retellings and William Morris’s translations, for example) into an academic pursuit. Lazo sees the Kolbítar years as transitional in that both men begin as protégés of senior scholars whom Tolkien invited to join the group—C. T. Onions and George S. Gordon in particular—and emerge at the end of the experience as mentors in their own right for other academics. Lazo also charts their shifting leadership roles—in the Kolbítar Tolkien was Lewis’s teacher while later, in the Inklings, C. S. Lewis would have the leading position. This essay is chiefly valuable for its detailed account of the homosocial world of clubs and societies to which Tolkien and Lewis belonged and the politics of academic advancement at Oxford. Lazo’s two Appendices would be very useful indeed to anyone studying this world. It has little new to offer about their friendship or their influence on one another.

Section four “Tolkien and Old English” begins with Michael D. C. Drout’s “A Mythology for Anglo-Saxon England.” Drout offers an extremely clear, thought-provoking exploration of the interplay between Tolkien’s pseudo-history and his scholarship on aspects of Anglo-Saxon culture and literature. While Tolkien was well aware his pseudo-history was not factually true, it nevertheless held an aesthetic allure for him and an undeniable explanatory power. It could dispel particular mysteries (both historical and literary) that have exercised the scholarly acumen of many academics. Who was the Beowulf poet? Why would an Anglo-Saxon poet compose a tale about a Geatish hero? And who were the Geats? For these reasons, Drout argues, traces of this pseudo-history are still discernable in the “structural substratum” of Tolkien’s fictive world—in names, in narrative structures—and in parallels between his world and the early periods of Anglo-Saxon and Germanic cultures. Drout’s argument has the additional advantage of accounting for what he terms Tolkien’s “convoluted and unconvincing” remarks in Appendix F. There Tolkien counsels that readers should not equate the Common Speech with Modern English, nor the speech of the Rohirrim with Old English.

In an early translation of Beowulf (dating from his time at Leeds) Tolkien identified the hero’s tribe with the Goths. Equating the Geats with the Goths, Drout explains, would resolve a number of riddles. The Goths built a great empire and maintained it for a considerable period. They were renowned for fighting on horseback. If they were great horse warriors, this cultural feature would explain the names of the legendary leaders who led the Jutes’ migration to England—both the names “Hengest” and “Horsa” mean “horse.” The Beowulf poet’s interest in celebrating an ancestral Geatish hero becomes evident. The historical record, however, does not support this appealing identification and Tolkien later abandoned it in his academic work; it does not appear in his subsequent prose translations of the poem. And yet, the identification did endure in his pseudo-history, as Drout demonstrates. Tolkien gives Gothic names to the people of Rhovanion as Christopher Tolkien and contributor Sandra Ballif Straubhaar note. These names encourage us to equate the people of Rhovanion with the Goths. By identifying the Rohirrim with the Anglo-Saxons and their forbearers with the Goths, Tolkien could forge many links within his “mythological history.” Drout points out that in the pseudo-history the half brother of Hengest and Horsa, a gifted poet named Heorrenda, composed Beowulf and collected the legendary materials of Arda in his “Golden Book of Heorrenda.” And yet, as the publication of The Lord of the Rings drew near, Drout proposes that Tolkien expressly obscured many connections between his Middle-earth and the continental prehistory of the Anglo-Saxons. He suggests that Tolkien’s remarks in Appendix F should be understood in this context.

In the next essay, “Oaths and Oath Breaking: Analogues of Old English Comitatus in Tolkien’s Myth,” John R. Holmes argues very plausibly that a particular kind of semantic displacement—the oath—is one of a number of tools Tolkien uses to endow his Middle-earth with an aura of great antiquity. He proposes that Tolkien mirrors the moral status oaths had in Anglo-Saxon society and poetry in the cultures of Middle-earth. Since the genuinely heroic age was one in which heroes were oath-keepers, the varying attitudes of Tolkien’s figures towards oath-keeping and oath-breaking offer a way of charting moral decline at the close of the Third Age. He briefly reviews the function of the oath in Germanic society (as conveyed by Tacitus) and consults Archbishop Wulfstan’s sermon Sermo Lupi ad Anglos of 1014 to assess the importance of oath-breaking in Anglo-Saxon society. It is among the gravest of transgressions since the Archbishop lists it together with grievous sins such as the “selling of men, attacks on kindred [and] manslaughter” that have drawn down God’s wrath upon the English nation. He offers some very telling analyses of characters’ attitudes towards oaths, noting quite rightly for example, that both Pippin and Merry “honor” the oaths they have sworn to Denethor and Théoden respectively more than the two kings appear to do since they both wish to release the Hobbits from their obligations. Their reverence for their oaths marks them as especially “old-fashioned.” Holmes gives a delicious reading of Gollum’s mental maneuverings as he struggles with the oath he has sworn on the Precious. It is instructive, Holmes insists, that even Gollum is most reluctant to break his oath. Only a deft linguistic maneuver—changing the referent for the word “master” in his original oath—allows him the freedom to work his evil at least in his own mind. Further, Holmes raises the interesting suggestion that, under certain circumstances, it may be acceptable (and perhaps wise) to establish “limits to oaths” observing that Elrond rejects the proposal that members of the Fellowship swear an oath, thinking to protect the weakest of the Company.

Alexandra Bolintineanu, in “‘On the Borders of Old Stories’: Enacting the Past in Beowulf and The Lord of the Rings,” finds that the “inset narratives” containing ancient legends in Beowulf and in The Lord of the Rings have a very similar function in both works. She explores the functional interplay between the principal story and these embedded narratives, describing it as a kind of “conversation.” She outlines three types of interaction. In both poem and novel, these legendary narratives provide instruction, especially direction for moral conduct, “right” choices, in the narrative present. Characters can choose to enact these exempla from the past by heeding the guidance they offer. These embedded tales can also provide solace and inspire hope as Sam intends when, for Frodo’s benefit, he recalls Beren’s triumph in seizing the Silmaril from the Iron Crown. Characters themselves also generate new legends in the present to be experienced by future generations as Sam and Aragorn have occasion to note. And finally, the choices, actions and sufferings of characters in the principal story are ennobled and lent gravitas when they enact or repeat “universal patterns” detectable in Middle-earth’s long history. Bolintineanu cites patterns such as legendary acts of heroic self-sacrifice and the transience of the created world.

Verlyn Flieger’s “A Mythology for Finland: Tolkien and Lönnrot as Mythmakers” opens the fifth and final section, “Tolkien and Finnish.” Flieger devotes her essay to answering the question: what provoked the young Tolkien to create a mythology for England at that particular juncture in history? She proposes that a cultural trend motivated him, “the folklore movement” of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, a movement Finland dominated. Lönnrot himself provided a model for Tolkien with his decades-long efforts to collect the materials which were to become the Kalevala. The figure of Lönnrot himself was at least as compelling for Tolkien as his Kalevala, Flieger suggests. Tolkien’s great project differed from Lönnrot’s in that his mythology for England would be a fictional creation with links to his nation’s history. She speculates that Tolkien may have seen an analogy between the travails Finland’s language and mythology suffered under the Swedish and Russian domination, and those endured by England’s language and mythology under the Normans. Flieger makes a further attractive suggestion, proposing that Tolkien took note of the artistic community’s response to the Kalevala which expressed itself in a range of media. Just as artists produced many interpretations of episodes from Finland’s national epic, Tolkien expressed the hope that his mythology for England would rouse other artists to respond to his life’s work.

Richard C. West begins his essay, “Setting the Rocket Off in Story: The Kalevala as the Germ of Tolkien’s Legendarium,” from a biographical perspective, recounting Tolkien’s discovery of the Finnish language and noting its influence on Quenya, with which it shares some vocabulary and some parallel grammatical features. He argues that Tolkien did not simply imitate the Kalevala and William Morris’s prose romances in his own mythology. Instead, these works were absorbed into what West terms “his mind-set.” His goal in reworking the story of Kullervo in the Kalevala was not simply to iron out the numerous inconsistencies in the original. West reveals significant differences between the two works. While the figure of Kullervo certainly inspired Tolkien’s hero Túrin, the former is a bit obtuse and the latter is not. West finds that Túrin’s greater intelligence (among other changes) heightens the tale’s tragedy. And further, he believes Tolkien interrogates the very nature of heroism through his protagonist Túrin.

In this collection’s concluding essay, “J. R. R. Tolkien and the Kalevala: Some Thoughts on the Finnish Origins of Tom Bombadil and Treebeard,” David Elton Gay speculates that the relationship between the “Finnish tradition” and the 1849 edition of the Kalevala was not grasped altogether correctly by Tolkien himself, and that misconceptions remain among Tolkien scholars today. In his endnotes, Gay has thoughtfully provided resources for non-Finnish speakers who wish to study the Finnish influence on Tolkien’s fiction further. The central section of his essay analyzes the influence of the Kalevala’s Väinämöinen on Tom Bombadil and Treebeard. Gay proposes that Väinämöinen may have provided a model for the particular kind of power Tom displays. Väinämöinen witnessed the creation of the world although he was not its maker, and he shares this odd status of being coexistent with creation with Tom who recalls “the first raindrop.” The power Väinämöinen and Tom wield is founded on “their command of song and lore”; it does not derive from the possession of things or the subjugation of others. Their mastery over their respective domains depends of their deep knowledge of origins, those of the various races, creatures and indeed the very shapes of the lands themselves. Treebeard shares with Tom his intimate bond with his forested land, although he differs from the other two because he did not witness the shaping of the world. Rather, he is the most ancient of “mortal creatures.” Yet, Gay observes that Väinämöinen and Treebeard (while not easily provoked) share the potential for a fury of apocalyptic proportions if roused. Gay sees a parallel between the Ents’ devastation of Isengard and the catastrophic “upheaval” Väinämöinen unleashes through his song in the third poem of the Kalevala. An even closer parallel to the effects of Väinämöinen’s song, Gay suggests, is the collapse of Mordor with the convulsions of the land itself.

Tolkien and the Invention of Myth is a superb collection of essays that illuminates Tolkien’s own understanding of the nature and function of myth and his process of mythmaking. The efforts of these contributors help us to comprehend more fully Tolkien’s belief in the creative, generative potency of language—its power to bring worlds into being, to alter material reality and to perform the work of “Recovery.”

Margaret Sinex

Western Illinois University

Macomb, Illinois

Tolkien in Translation, edited by Thomas Honegger. Zurich: Walking Tree Publishers, 2003. 152 pp. €23.50 (trade paperback) ISBN 3952142468. Cormarë Series no. 4.

Translating Tolkien: Text and Film, edited by Thomas Honegger. Zurich: Walking Tree Publishers, 2004. 243 pp. €23.50 (trade paperback) ISBN 3952142492. Cormarë Series no. 6.

Traduttore traditore, say the Italians; or, to put it less cryptically, of necessity a translation is to some extent an act of betrayal. Or if it is not quite betrayal, deception, albeit a deception in which the reader is complicit: a text disguised as belonging to a different language and culture from that in which it is written. This has its dangers; for instance, in rendering the speech of a nineteenth century French aristocrat it is often difficult to avoid the opposed dangers of making him sound either like a bluff English squire or a Greenwich Village phony (with Proust, the latter is the main trap). Foreign translations of Byron tend to make him seem more refined than his style justifies. And so on.

Then there is the matter of adaptation, i.e. transferring something composed in one medium into another, usually from book to some sort of drama, as when Tchaikovsky takes Pushkin’s ironic short story The Queen of Spades and turns it into a melodramatic tragic opera in four acts, which is in fact a major work of art in its own right. We purists can get quite annoyed about this, as for example Boris Strugatskiy did over Tarkovsky’s rendition on film of Lem’s Solaris; again a major work of art, but of Tarkovsky far more than of Lem. If translation is betrayal or disguise, at least it is unavoidable; this sort of adaptation is much less so. As Tolkien himself said of A.A. Milne’s stage adaptation of The Wind in the Willows, “a perceptive admirer (as distinct from a great admirer) of the book would never have attempted to dramatize it.” (On Fairy-stories, MC 157) What he charitably refrained from saying is that adaptation is often an act of appropriation.

Tolkien in fact presents an extraordinary case, at least as far as translation is concerned. For a start, his writing is so bound up with England and the English language that there are always going to be serious problems with any attempt to present him to other cultures, even when the culture is as close as that of the U.S.A., where, for example, “The Last Homely House” has unfortunate overtones that would not immediately occur to British readers. It also becomes increasingly remote in time, so that even young generations of British readers probably would welcome a footnote to explain that when The Lord of The Rings was first published, a “farthing” was a coin still in circulation (just). When it comes to putting him into other languages, the possibilities of misunderstanding and misinterpretation multiply. For instance, the place-name “Shire” immediately causes difficulties, even before trading companies try to copyright it. It has no easy equivalent in any other language, and some approximations, like the German “Gau”, have acquired undesirable historical associations, in this case with Nazi use of the word. Worse still, in Russian there is not even a straightforward way of translating “Lord,” let alone “Shire,” “Farthing” or other such terms (Russian also does not distinguish between leg and foot, whence the hairy-legged hobbits of many a Russian illustration). In addition, there are such matters as the pseudo-translation from the Common Speech, and how that can be reflected in the “real” translation. So putting Tolkien into another language involves a number of peculiar hazards above and beyond what translators usually meet.

The first of these volumes begins by tackling the broader principles raised by the above issues in an article by Allan Turner entitled “A Theoretical Model for Tolkien Translation Criticism”. This title, together with the use of terms like “hermeneutic motion,” might well frighten off many people who have been exposed to academic literary theory using terminology which one expects is opaque even to the writer. This would be a pity, since Allan Turner is not only a highly intelligent and (dare one say) perceptive scholar—he writes comprehensible English. He stresses among other things the need for a translator to communicate with the target audience, taking into account the social context and any economic constraints, which, in the case of The Lord of the Rings, immediately focuses on whether the Appendices are to be translated in part or in full, or at all—a matter which concerns publishers not a little. Among the many matters Turner deals with sagely is how to cope with the “translation from the Westron” aspect of The Lord of the Rings, as mentioned above, and which is taken up by Thomas Honegger in the second of these two volumes. This is of particular concern in the relation of Westron to other languages, notably that of the Riddermark and of Dale, which are represented in the original respectively by Old English (or rather, Old Mercian) and Old Norse. Should, for example, a French translation make the Rohirrim speak medieval Latin, while the Dwarves speak in a Picard dialect, Picardy being traditionally a mining area of France? Honegger thinks not. As he puts it, the use of Old English and Old Norse is not accidental, but implies a specific cultural context.

Others may, however, think differently. There is in practice no one paradigm for translating Tolkien, and indeed in some languages there is more than one translation at least of The Lord of the Rings, and occasionally other works. This usually happens when an older translation is intended to be superseded by a more recent one reflecting advances in Tolkien scholarship, as in the case of Dutch, German, Hebrew and Swedish dealt with here (in the Dutch instance one translation is simply a revised update by the same translator). However, the language with the greatest and most contrasted number of translations is Russian, a very special case, dealt with in the first of these volumes by Mark Hooker in a neat paraphrase of his excellent Tolkien through Russian Eyes (2003). Each of the Russian translations has its own band of devoted supporters who regard all the others as heretical, and it is interesting that similar controversy obtains even in the less confusing world of the Hebrew and German translations, where passions rise and hasty words get spoken, as explained in the second volume by Danny Orbach and Rainer Nagel respectively. The Swedish translation by Ohlmarks has long been controversial, to put it no more strongly, and Anders Stenström (Beregond) guides us through the history of this and other translations into Swedish.

Other languages do not necessarily involve such animosity, but do raise interesting points. Vincent Ferré’s name is deservedly well-known to students of French Tolkien studies, and in the first volume he and two colleagues not only subject the French translation to some detailed criticism, but give a welcome historical account of Tolkien’s reception in France. Also in the first volume, Sandra Bayona looks at socio-economic speech indicators in Spanish translation (“Begging your pardon, Con la perdón de usted”). In the second volume, Rainer Nagel deals with the treatment of proper names in German, and Mark Hooker reveals a previously little-known Dutch “samizdat” (not officially published) translation. Most of the translation discussion is of The Lord of the Rings, but Beregond does mention The Hobbit (Bilbo = Bimbo!!), and Nils Ivar Agøy has an article in the first volume on translating The Silmarillion into Norwegian. More exotically, the first volume also contains a study by Arden Smith of Esperanto translations, and the second a distinctly tongue-in-cheek set of suggestions by Richard Sturch towards a putative translation into Latin.

So much for translation. The second volume contains 119 pages by various hands not just on adaptation of Tolkien, but mainly concerning one particular adaptation: Peter Jackson’s films. Attitudes to these vary according to contributor, but the overall tone is summed up by the title of Vincent Ferré’s article: “Tolkien, Our Judge of Peter Jackson.” In fact, Ferré is broadly complimentary about Jackson, partly thanks to an invidious comparison with Bakshi, but all the same finding positive virtues in much of Jackson’s treatment (though even he doesn’t think much of Howard Shore’s music). Anthony Burdge and Jessica Burke give Jackson a much rougher ride in “Humiliated Heroes,” examining the screen treatment of such major characters as Gandalf, Faramir and above all Frodo, and concluding that Jackson, together with his screenwriters, “demoralizes and diminishes each of Tolkien’s characters,” and incidentally noting the screenwriters’ justification not only for omitting Bombadil, but for turning Faramir’s character round. Similarly, Øystein Høgset sets out the principal theories of adaptation, and regretfully concludes: “Even though Peter Jackson has chosen to adapt just the core elements of Tolkien’s work, his depiction misrepresents the spirit of the original . . .” James Dunning, in “The Professor and the Director” is more ambivalent (“So render unto Jackson that which is Jackson’s, and unto Tolkien that which is Tolkien’s”), but still has plenty of detail to query.

There is however one particularly controversial feature of Jackson’s adaptation, namely the use of “Elvish”, especially that written not by Tolkien himself, but by David Salo for the films in brilliant if controversial translations of Tolkien’s verses into Quenya, Sindarin, Khuzdul, Black Speech, and Old English, as well as brief verses in these languages actually composed by Salo, or at least translated by him from originals written in English by Jackson’s screenwriters. Most of these translations/inventions are set to music, and Alexandra Velten’s detailed study of the soundtrack lyrics of Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings deals at length with this whole added layer of derived text and translation. You don’t have to have linguistic skills to appreciate this chapter, but it certainly helps. Velten demonstrates the undeniable ingenuity of the process, while skirting round the question of whether the procedure is justifiable.

So in the matter of Jackson’s adaptation, verdicts are mixed. Still, it is good to have discussion of adaptation in with the material on translations, partly because translation can involve some adaptation. Some of this may be inevitable, as when dealing with names of people and places: for example, Russian translators have problems with the name “Durin,” because in transliteration it looks far too like the Russian for “fool”. Other adaptations are less excusable. It is well known that Ohlmarks in Swedish tended to add unjustified interpretations to his translations, and some Russian translators go farther than Ohlmarks in this regard. For example, Murav’ev and Kistyakovskiy make minor but important changes to “The Scouring of the Shire” so as to make close parallels with Stalin’s purges of 1937-1938. Further still, Bobyr’ introduces completely new elements, notoriously the Silver Crown of the Lords of Westernesse, which bestows omniscience on a sufficiently prepared wearer, while reducing the unprepared to ashes. Less extreme, but still interesting, is the Hebrew translation that makes the Black Numenorean kings “Malchei Ha’arelim”—Kings of the Uncircumcised, which throws an unexpected light on some customs of Westernesse. At this stage we are getting beyond translation and dangerously close to the borders of betrayal.

There is too much here to do a detailed appraisal of each contribution. In general, however, I can say that I really enjoyed reading them all, even when I did not entirely agree with the writer. The articles demonstrate a high level of scholarship, while still managing to be relatively jargon-free and eminently readable. I think that these two collections are a major contribution to Tolkien studies, and would sit well on the shelves of anybody who takes Tolkien seriously—as is usually the case with this publisher’s productions.

David Doughan

London, England

Tolkien on Film: Essays on Peter Jackson’s “The Lord of the Rings”, edited by Janet Brennan Croft. Altadena, CA: The Mythopoeic Press, 2004. ix, 323 pp. $19.95 (trade paperback) ISBN 1887726098.

There are many academic or quasi-academic books on various aspects of Peter Jackson’s film of The Lord of the Rings in the works, and Tolkien on Film is, as far as I know, the first to see print. Indeed, its timing does not escape charges of opportunism. Although all the authors take as definitive the extended-edition DVD versions of the first two parts of the film trilogy, the volume itself went into press before they could view the extended version of The Return of the King. Surely lacking 50 minutes of the artwork under discussion is not an insignificant problem.

Would a scholarly book on a major work of literature be published before said work of literature is complete? Not likely. Apparently, though, the fact that the work of art that is putatively at the center of this collection is a film (one which several of the authors dislike) rather than a book leads to a somewhat more casual treatment. Most of the authors are literary scholars rather than film scholars, and as a result, despite its title, this anthology contains few essays that are actually about Jackson’s film as such.

“Adaptation studies,” essays comparing films and the literary works upon which they are based, gained some currency in the 1960s and 1970s, when cinema studies barely existed and film courses were often taught in departments of literature. Since then, however, cinema studies has gained its own graduate programs and become a discipline, albeit a relatively small one. I am sure that teaching and work involving adaptation still goes on in departments of languages and literature, but I think it would not occur to most film scholars to ask whether the changes made when deriving a film from a book are valid. (I may seem overly touchy about this difference in approach, but I would ask the authors to imagine how they would feel if a group of film scholars started writing anthologies about, say, Dickens’ novels without any training in literary studies.) A different title would have helped to signal what sort of approach this anthology takes. Even so, some of the essays here are more like lists of complaints than like the classic adaptation studies I recall from my university days.

That said, several of the pieces in Tolkien on Film are quite interesting and enlightening, but the frequent denigration of Jackson’s work forces one to wonder about the intended audience. Whatever the intention, much of that audience will inevitably be the legion of the film’s fans who will buy just about anything connected to it, and they are likely to be disappointed by at least parts of the anthology.

The fan who enthusiastically launches into this book to learn more about Jackson’s work will be mightily puzzled to encounter the opening essay, designed, according to the volume’s editor, to examine “the place of Jackson’s trilogy in the history of film” (vii). J. E. Smyth’s “The Three Ages of Imperial Cinema from the Death of Gordon to The Return of the King” spends the first 18 of its 20 pages on the depiction of British imperialism in the 1939 English film Four Feathers and in David Lean’s Lawrence of Arabia. Both exhibit, Smyth argues, sympathy for the conquered peoples while being told from the viewpoint of the conquerors. Jackson’s film occupies the final two pages, hinting that an existing essay has been expanded for inclusion here. More importantly, however, Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings is the opposite of the imperialist films with which Smyth groups it. She assumes that the imperialist is Aragorn, but surely it is Sauron who fills that role in The Lord of the Rings. He is the aggressor who has conquered civilizations to the east and south and conscripted their armies. He has caused the retreat of the western regions’ races into guarded enclaves, the desperate Quest upon which the Fellowship embarks, and the exile of the royalty of Gondor. Unlike the two other examples with which Smyth attempts to link it, The Lord of the Rings shows imperialism from the viewpoint of peoples who unite to defend themselves.

A more helpful introductory piece would have been a summary—however brief—of how Jackson’s film came to be made or how it fits into the fantasy genre. Instead the book proceeds to essays divided into four sections: “Adaptation and Revision,” “Heroes and Leaders,” “A Woman’s Part,” and “Fan Fiction.” Despite the titles, all but the last section deal largely with adaptation.

The first two essays in the “Adaptation and Revision” section, by David Bratman and Janet Brennan Croft, adhere to what seems to be a new—and one hopes short-lived—genre of essays among Tolkien scholars: the catalogue of changes that the scriptwriters made in adapting the novel, more often than not with adverse commentary thereon. Naturally anyone may complain about the adaptation, but surely one such essay would suffice for an anthology that actually strove to deal with a variety of aspects of the film. Since Tolkien scholars tend to object to the same changes, however, such essays have already become repetitive (e.g., Anthony S. Burdge and Jessica Burke’s “Humiliated Heroes: Peter Jackson’s Interpretation of The Lord of the Rings.”) How many times do we need to read about the distortions of Faramir’s character—especially when anyone familiar with the book and film will be well aware of them and anyone familiar only with the film is unlikely to care? The repetition is particularly obvious given that such alterations have long been documented on the Internet, as in Ancalagon the Black’s entertaining “The Complete List of Film Changes.”

These two essays are followed by a more approving analysis by a professional novelist, Diana Paxson. She makes some cogent observations about both book and film by treating the scriptwriters’ changes as revision rather than adaptation. Paxson is one of the few authors who suggests that the film has some virtues of its own, plausibly characterizing the beacons sequence as “truly wonderful” (96).

The next section, “Heroes and Leaders,” to some extent follows the pattern of the adaptation studies that preceded it. Kayla McKinney Wiggins and Daniel Timmons both focus more narrowly on the figures of the heroes, but they use those figures to again go through the film commenting adversely on changes from the book—some of them the same as those noted in earlier essays.

Almost all the disapproving authors seem to assume that Jackson set out to capture as closely as possible the story, tone, and meaning of Tolkien’s novel and that he largely failed. Wiggins, for example, refers to Elrond’s “wholly nonsensical comment that Aragorn had turned from the path of leadership and chosen exile.” She attributes this treatment of Aragorn as a “conflicted modern hero” to Jackson’s “fundamental misreading of the novel in terms of theme, of characterization, and of genre” (113). But clearly the filmmakers deliberately gave Aragorn doubts about his suitability to be king precisely to make him appeal to modern audiences. Elrond’s line is thus far from nonsensical, being the statement of a crucial premise that will be carried forward consistently through the film. One may dislike the change, but to judge the line “nonsensical” in the context of the film or to suggest that Jackson misunderstood the book ignores the fact that the filmmakers did not always intend to reproduce the book faithfully. In numerous interviews the scriptwriters have discussed their rationales for many of the changes, none of which seems to be familiar to these authors. Indeed, the only research on the film that most of the authors cite involves listening to the commentary tracks and watching the supplements on the extended-version DVDs—another reason why the decision not to wait for that version of The Return of the King seems perverse.

Having little or no expertise in film, the authors criticize Jackson without being aware of the corporate forces and financial pressures that dictated some of the director’s choices. A few of them speculate that such forces and pressures might be significant, but they have not investigated them. In contrasting the nature of Frodo’s heroism in the book and in the film, Timmons writes, “Jackson’s reason for diverging so fundamentally from Tolkien’s text is not readily apparent, but one may guess: his Frodo has to appeal to the average moviegoer, who is used to frenetic melodrama and staged suspense” (146). Indeed, the films had to appeal to huge numbers of moviegoers, average or not, because the effects-heavy epic had to earn back its $320+ million budget—money which helped create the visual design so admired by a number of these authors. The vast majority of spectators would never have read the books, and many lived in countries where there is no tradition of teaching students to understand complex narratives.

Remarkably, Bratman assumes that New Line Cinema took a huge risk and gave Jackson unlimited creative freedom: “A studio devoted to the financial bottom line wouldn’t have allowed, let alone encouraged, Peter Jackson to make three films at once, let alone filming all three before getting any box-office feedback on the first one” (43). On this assumption, Bratman blames Jackson for being so contrary as to change the book despite having the freedom to make the film exactly as he wanted. In fact, New Line is quite devoted to the bottom line. No doubt its founder and president, Bob Shaye, took something of a risk by green-lighting three films at once, but he was confident that he would gain an extremely lucrative franchise, later telling Time: “It was so wonderfully presold. It was like Superman or Batman.” (Making all three films at once in New Zealand also probably lowered the film’s budget by $100 million or more.) Given the project’s production history, it seems apparent that such creative freedom as Jackson had resulted from factors like his location thousands of miles away from Hollywood, his highly supportive team, and his sheer stubbornness. He also earned a percentage of the film’s revenues, so he had considerable incentive to make The Lord of the Rings as widely appealing as he could.

I had expected that the four essays in the section “A Woman’s Part” to be at least two too many. Since the films expand the roles of the novel’s few major female characters, however, these authors tend to take Jackson’s work reasonably seriously, and they have written some thoughtful essays—though given how few such characters there are, we again encounter some repetition. Jane Chance’s “Tolkien’s Women (and Men): The Films and the Book” is the exception. Characterizing the novel, most peculiarly, as a postmodern anti-epic, Chance’s central question echoes the formulation of several of the book’s essays: “What has Jackson omitted from, added to, and changed in Tolkien’s text in a way that distorts the meaning of epic (or anti-epic)?” Again, the unsupported assumption is that Jackson intended, or should have intended, to reproduce all aspects of the novel exactly. Chance, one of two authors who use any terminology specific to film, consistently applies the phrase “establishing shot” incorrectly.

Cathy Akers-Jordan provides an interesting summary of how the character of Arwen in the film was derived from the book, including the quarrying of material from Appendix A. Victoria Gaydosik’s study, “‘Crimes against the Book’? The Transformation of Tolkien’s Arwen from Page to Screen and the Abandonment of the Psyche Archetype,” usefully discusses how Arwen has been changed from a passive figure to a more active warrior type in reaction to society’s changing views of women. Gaydosik concludes with a statement which, while not making any claims whatsoever for the quality of the film, seems to me a generous and sensible view of its relationship to the novel: “It has often been noted that Tolkien wanted to create an original mythology, and to the extent that myths are the stories that keep being told and retold and adapted to new techniques of telling, I think that Peter Jackson’s adaptation of Tolkien’s masterwork stands as a testimony to the novel’s enduring value while also helping to guarantee its survival and extending its influence to new generations of enthusiasts” (229).

Maureen Thum’s intriguing essay, “The ‘Sub-Subcreation’ of Galadriel, Arwen, and Éowyn: Women of Power in Tolkien’s and Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings,” avoids comparing film and novel by instead turning to Tolkien’s many drafts and incomplete manuscripts to show that strong and unusual heroines have been a constant in his work. Thum also has the distinction of being the only author to do a bit of filmic analysis, pointing accurately to techniques like backlighting, fill light, and voice-over.

The study of fan culture has seeped into the academy in the past decade and a half. The section “Fan Fiction,” consisting of Susan Booker’s “Tales around the Internet Campfire: Fan Fiction in Tolkien’s Universe” and Amy H. Sturgis’ “Make Mine ‘Movieverse’: How the Tolkien Fan Fiction Community Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Peter Jackson,” may well be the first published essays dealing entirely with The Lord of the Rings fanfiction (the form of the phrase usually employed on fan sites). This type of writing, where authors (the vast majority of whom are girls and women) use existing characters and situations from books, TV shows, and movies as the basis for new stories, has burgeoned with the Internet, with tens of thousands of series, stories, and poems in The Lord of the Rings fandom alone. Both essays reflect a considerable knowledge of the subject. Booker, a writer as well as reader of fanfiction, provides a novice’s guide to the various terms and acronyms, such as cross-overs (mixing fictional worlds, such as The Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter), Mary Sues (veiled depictions of the writer as a character, often in a romance with Legolas), OOC (Out Of Character), and PWP (Plot? What Plot?), as well as differentiating between het (heterosexual) and slash (same-sex pairings), the two basic types of erotic fanfiction. Sturgis takes the introductory survey further, examining some of the classics of The Lord of the Rings fanfiction and distinguishing between bookverse and movieverse (i.e., faithful to the universe—plots and characterizations—of the book or the film). She points out that fanfiction groups and archives often use frames from the film as illustrations, even when the authors are mainly basing their fiction on the books.

My reservation about both essays concerns the authors’ belief that by Googling such terms as “fan fiction” and “Lord of the Rings” and “slash,” and so on, they have come up with reasonably accurate statistics on how many Lord of the Rings fanfiction sites there are on the Internet. They claim to have further specified the number of gen (general, as opposed to romantic/erotic), het, slash, and RPS (real-person slash) sites. Surely these numbers are wildly unreliable. For one thing, a search that includes the word “slash” will turn up many sites containing phrases like “No slash allowed.” For another, any site with several pages containing those same terms will show up multiple times under variants of the same basic URL. Many “fics” are also posted on Yahoo! lists and Live Journals, and a search would not find them. All that we can safely say is that there are at least tens of thousands of Lord of the Rings fics on the Internet—quite enough to indicate that Booker and Sturgis are studying a significant phenomenon.

Given this diffuse collection of essays, we might ask again, who are its intended readers? Maybe the nay-saying authors are preaching to the converted, and yet people who dislike the films are unlikely to read a book about them. Editor Janet Brennan Croft’s essay hopes that, “the next director who tackles Tolkien will take note of the critics of the various film scripts” (78). Surely, though, the possibility of a remake of The Lord of the Rings—which will not happen any time soon—does not justify a volume of essays. Rather, we must suspect that the nay-sayers are aiming their essays at those people who have enjoyed the films enough to buy a book about them. They presumably are trying to convince these fans that they are misguided.

Bratman worries that the film will give young people the wrong impression of Tolkien’s novel and cause them not to read it. That seems unlikely. In 2001, Tolkien was eighth on Forbes’s list of the highest-earning dead celebrities, with an income of around $7 million. In 2003 and 2004, even though the Tolkien Estate gets no income from the films, he was number three, with $22 million and $23 million respectively. Film viewers are evidently not avoiding the novel. I suspect it’s more likely that some of those young people, loving Jackson’s film so much, will read essays criticizing it, perceive Tolkien devotees as killjoys, and decide not to read the novel. In effect, what the anti-Jackson authors are saying to the fans is, “Stop loving those films that you love so much, and start instead loving these books that I love so much.” They are trying to catch flies with vinegar. It might be more efficacious to say to Jackson’s fans (gritting one’s teeth if necessary), “All right, you love these films. Now if you read these wonderful books, you might also love them as much or even more.” I’ll bet many of them would. Many already have.

Kristin Thompson

University of Wisconsin-Madison

Madison, Wisconsin

Works Cited

Ancalagon the Black. “The Complete List of Film Changes.” Tolkien Online (1999 onward), http://www.tolkienonline.com/movies/changes_index.cfm.

Burdge, Anthony S. and Burke, Jessica. “Humiliated Heroes: Peter Jackson’s Interpretation of The Lord of the Rings.” In Translating Tolkien: Text and Film, edited by Thomas Honegger (Zurich: Walking Tree, 2004): 135-164.

Cagle, Jess. “Lure of the Ring,” Time (December 2, 2002): 89.

Translating Tolkien: Philological Elements in “The Lord of the Rings,” by Allan Turner. Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 2005. 216 pp. $43.95 (trade paperback) ISBN 3631535171. Duisburger Arbeiten zur Sprach– und Kulturwissenschaft no. 59.

Articles discussing the difficult business of translating Tolkien’s works, particularly The Lord of the Rings, have been appearing in publications of various Tolkien fan organizations for years, but few have made it into the mainstream academic press. Such articles have likewise tended to focus on specific languages or specific problems in translation. Even when collected together, as in the case of the 28-page booklet Translations of “The Hobbit” Reviewed, compiled by David Doughan in 1988, the material has provided little more than a grab-bag of translational curiosities. 2003 saw the publication of Tolkien in Translation, edited by Thomas Honegger, the first book-length collection of this sort, but this was in the same vein, though on a larger scale. Mark T. Hooker’s Tolkien through Russian Eyes (2003) is an even lengthier book (at 324 pages), devoted largely to the matter of translation, but like most of its article-length predecessors it discusses translations into only one language. Turner’s Translating Tolkien is thus the first book of its kind: the first single-author, book-length examination of the difficulties inherent in translating Tolkien into any other language.

In addition to taking a broader view of Tolkien translation, Turner also differs from his predecessors by developing a systematic approach to the problem, grounded in translation theory and literary criticism. Much of this was already set forth in Turner’s article in the Honegger volume, “A Theoretical Model for Tolkien Translation Criticism.” I am not a big fan of “theory” myself, since so much of it seems to obscure or disregard the author’s own intentions, but the approaches that Turner draws upon tend to reflect Tolkien’s own way of thinking. In the area of translation theory, Turner frequently refers to George Steiner’s “hermeneutic motion,” which he finds compatible with the views of Tolkien and his fellow Inkling, Owen Barfield. As for literary criticism, Tom Shippey’s “sympathetic” philological approach is the primary influence here, an influence that is keenly felt throughout the book.

After three chapters of theory, definitions, and background information, Turner begins analyzing data from the various translations. Most of the examples in the study are taken from the German and French versions of The Lord of the Rings, and judging from his detailed analyses, it would appear that Turner knows both of these languages very well. In places the Germanic data are supplemented by Dutch and Swedish examples, the Romance by Italian and Spanish. In addition to limiting the study to these two language groups, Turner also limits his scope to two main areas of investigation. The first of these is nomenclature, which has been the focus of most of the previous scholarship on Tolkien translation. The second is archaism, which has hitherto been largely ignored.

Turner first addresses the treatment Tolkien’s complex system of nomenclature, which is dependent upon the history of the English language and its specific relationship to other languages. Within a framework of pseudo-translation from a putative Westron original, Tolkien has rendered this Common Speech as Modern English, whereas the related language of the Rohirrim is given as Old English and alien elements used by the Breelanders (especially in place-names) have been given a Celtic form. Turner examines how names in these languages have been translated into Germanic languages, where a common cultural and linguistic heritage with English solves some of the difficulties, and contrasts this with the strategies used for translating them into the more distantly related Romance languages, where the interplay of familiar and unfamiliar elements necessarily breaks down. He also takes a close look at the normative effect caused by the translators’ use of Tolkien’s “Guide to the Names in The Lord of the Rings” and shows how a literal interpretation of the Guide’s strictures could in some cases cause infelicities in translation.

The next section of the book deals with the treatment of archaism, particularly in the German and French translations. Turner looks not only at Tolkien’s use of archaic words but also his avoidance of modern words, and examines how the vocabulary of the translations compares in this respect. He also examines how the translators have dealt with the archaic syntactic patterns and verse forms that Tolkien uses. One of Turner’s findings is that Tolkien’s frequent use of fronting (as in Weapons they have laid at your doors) cannot be replicated in French, and that it loses its effect in German, where fronting is still common in the modern language.

The scope of the study is deliberately limited, and Turner himself points out areas that he had to refrain from discussing, such as dialect and wordplay (43). Data from a wider variety of languages would have been interesting, but this would have required a great expenditure of effort and space and probably would not have provided significantly different conclusions in any event. The bibliography of previous work on Tolkien translations could have been expanded, but the missing items are not particularly relevant to Turner’s study: Doughan’s aforementioned collection of reviews of Hobbit translations has no relevance in a study of Lord of the Rings translations; GoodKnight’s bibliographies have been superseded by Hammond and Anderson; my own article on the translation of thou in the German Lord of the Rings deals with a subject that Turner deliberately excluded (136). Though these examples might seem to indicate unfamiliarity with the publications of such entities as the Tolkien Society and the Mythopoeic Society, I should note that Turner does in fact cite articles from such specialized Tolkien journals as Lembas and Vinyar Tengwar.

As for actual errors, these are pretty much limited to minor typos. Perhaps the most significant of these are a reference to “Barfield, 1967” on page 34, though no work by Barfield with that date is given in the bibliography, and the consistent omission of the final s in the title of my “Transitions in Translations” column (53, 212). I noticed none of the factual errors, usually of a linguistic nature, that one often finds in Tolkien scholarship. Turner knows his material, whether it is philological or strictly Tolkienian (or both, as when he correctly identifies Sindarin words as such).

Despite the seemingly restricted focus, Translating Tolkien is a valuable contribution to general Tolkien scholarship. This is not a book for the casual fan, but it should be of interest to all serious students of Tolkien, not only those who are interested in how his work has been translated (or mistranslated, as the case may be), but also those who are interested in his style of writing, what inspired it, and what made it distinctively Tolkien’s.

Arden R. Smith

Albany, California

Works Cited

Doughan, David, ed. Translations of “The Hobbit” Reviewed. London: Linguistic Fellowship of the Tolkien Society, 1988. Quettar Special Publication no. 2.

GoodKnight, Glen H. “J. R .R. Tolkien in Translation.” Mythlore 18.3 (1992): 61–69.

———. “Tolkien in Translation.” Mythlore 9.2 (1982): 22–27.

Hammond, Wayne G., with the assistance of Douglas A. Anderson. J. R. R. Tolkien: A Descriptive Bibliography. Winchester: St. Paul’s Bibliographies / New Castle, Delaware: Oak Knoll Books, 1993.

Honegger, Thomas, ed. Tolkien in Translation. Zurich: Walking Tree Publishers, 2003. Cormarë Series no. 4.

Hooker, Mark T. Tolkien through Russian Eyes. Zurich: Walking Tree Publishers, 2003. Cormarë Series no. 5.

Smith, Arden R. “Duzen and Ihrzen in the German Translation of The Lord of the Rings.” Mythlore 21.1 (1995): 33–40.

Tolkien, J. R. R. “Guide to the Names in The Lord of the Rings.” In A Tolkien Compass, ed. Jared Lobdell. La Salle, IL: Open Court, 1975: 153–201.

Unsung Heroes of “The Lord of the Rings”: From the Page to the Screen, by Lynnette R. Porter. Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers, 2005. xiv, 224 pp. $39.95 (hardcover) ISBN 0275985210.

It is not easy to say in a few words what this book is about. The main subject of this study appears to me to be the movie trilogy of The Lord of the Rings by Peter Jackson and the team he directed. To be sure, throughout there is considerable discussion of the original story by Tolkien, as a work of art in its own right and not just as source material, but Professor Porter’s primary interest here is in the transfer from the written word to the different medium of film, and her eye on Tolkien’s text focuses on what the filmmakers kept or changed. She says in her Introduction: “I do not consider Jackson’s works superior or inferior to the original books—they are simply different and will be discussed in light of their own merits” (xi). Hence her comparisons are descriptive, not judgmental.

There are procedural difficulties to this approach. The usual tack of those discussing the film version is to focus on that but with occasional asides as to what has been altered from its source. Instead Porter concentrates first on the written story by Tolkien, then on the movie adaptation, with mentions in either section of the differences between the two. This naturally causes some redundancy as similar points have to be repeated in different sections. Her citations from The Lord of the Rings are to the 1965 Ballantine publication rather than to the more definitive texts in later editions, nor does she refer to Tolkien’s drafts and revisions, but that is adequate since her study here is not primarily literary. She pays much more attention to the variants in the film adaptation, noting differences between the theatrical versions and the extended editions. She is well aware that film is a highly collaborative art and cites Peter Jackson as the auteur of the movies largely for convenience, while often noting the individual contributions of others (one section that I find particularly insightful is her discussion on pages 13-16 of how Howard Shore’s musical compositions enhance the performances of the actors in depicting the characters). In general she is successful in making it clear which of the many possible versions she is talking about at any given moment, something that could easily have degenerated into a muddle.

I must further note that the particular focus of this study is on the character development of seven figures, and even further on how each develops into what can be called a hero. The book is divided into chapters on “Merry as a Knowledgeable Hero,” “Pippin as Impulsive, Youthful Hero,” “Éowyn as Action Hero,” “Galadriel and Arwen as Inspirational Heroes,” “Legolas and Gimli as Intercultural Heroes,” with the final chapter on “The Changing Social Definitions of Heroes” summing up points that have been made throughout about what has been considered heroism at different times and in different cultures. The classic studies of the hero by Lord Raglan, Northrop Frye, and especially Joseph Campbell come into play. There is something of a cookie cutter approach here, as she applies the traditional criteria to one character after another, noting how some of these aspects fit while others do not. The upshot (that to our modern sensibilities a hero need not be of noble birth, nor necessarily male, and does great deeds because they are what is right in troubling circumstances rather than in seeking for glory) is nothing very new, but bears repeating. Perhaps, as Porter avers, such changes in attitudes toward the heroic are more readily accepted after the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 and the everyday heroes who ameliorated that horror, but these notions were changing prior to those events.

None of the seven characters on whom this book concentrates have been entirely “unsung,” of course, and Porter footnotes many instances. Her bibliography is extensive (though she misses a good essay on the heroic in Tolkien by David M. Miller that I think she would find relevant), and her overview of online resources is useful. There are a number of misprints, alas. While she makes good use of Brian Rosebury’s excellent study, he is consistently cited as “Roseburg,” for example, and the date appears as 2002 when publication was actually a year later. J. E. Tyler’s Tolkien Companion is sometimes given its correct title but sometimes is called Tolkien Compass. In general she shows a good grasp of available criticism in both academic and popular publications, but these little flaws are annoying.

The best feature of this book, I think, is that, contra the lamentably common view that Tolkien relied primarily on types for his characterization, Porter shows how well he thought out their individual personalities.

Richard C. West

University of Wisconsin-Madison

Madison, Wisconsin

Works Cited

Campbell, Joseph. The Hero with a Thousand Faces. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1949.

Frye, Northrop. Anatomy of Criticism: Four Essays. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1957.

Miller, David M. “Hobbits: Common Lens for Heroic Experience,” Orcrist, No. 3 [also Tolkien Journal, 4, No. 1, Whole No. 11] (Spring-Summer, 1969): 11-15.

Raglan, FitzRoy Richard Somerset, Baron. The Hero: A Study in Tradition, Myth, and Drama. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1937.

Rosebury, Brian. Tolkien: A Cultural Phenomenon. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003. [Second edition of his Tolkien: A Critical Assessment (1992)]

Tyler, J. E. A. The Tolkien Companion. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1976. [This is the first edition. Porter does not refer to later ones. The third edition was published in 2004.]

War and the Works of J.R.R. Tolkien, by Janet Brennan Croft. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2004. xi, 175pp. $64.95 (hardcover) ISBN 0313325928. Contributions to the Study of Science Fiction and Fantasy, No. 106.

Anyone familiar with Tolkien who reads the works of his contemporaries Robert Graves, Siegfried Sassoon and Edmund Blunden will be struck repeatedly by parallels. From its stoic, singing hobbits marching towards No Man’s Land, to its mounting sense of near-unendurable despair, The Lord of the Rings emerges as a close counterpart to the memoirs and fiction that are more generally recognized as Great War literature. It came out far too late to be understood in those terms, and was often mistaken for a Second World War allegory; but the First World War resonates in Middle-earth most clearly after Tolkien had discovered hobbits, those embodiments of rural Englishry from the decades leading up to 1914. A study of the book in these terms is therefore long overdue, and Janet Brennan Croft goes some way towards answering the need, while also attempting to cover the influence of the 1939–45 conflict and Tolkien’s treatment of war as a general theme and his depiction of battle tactics.

Presenting such a mass of parallels is problematic. Once the point has been established that Tolkien’s own experiences shaped his fantasy—that it was not “escapism” except in the muscular sense he defined in “On Fairy-stories”—there has to be some purpose to the exercise, and some pattern to be explored, or nothing will result but a catalogue. Croft seeks a solution by turning to The Great War and Modern Memory, Paul Fussell’s seminal 1975 anatomy of trench literature. As she observes, “it feels like there is a Tolkien-sized hole running through the whole book” (14), and parts of her own book might be profitably read as a supplement to Fussell.

Ticking Fussell’s boxes provides valuable insights, although it does make for a somewhat plodding structure. It is good to see the cry of the Minas Tirith cockerel identified as a moment of pastoral ecstasy, or to note that Sam and others depend on “the consolations of literature” (45) much as Great War soldiers did; but it was certainly not worth pursuing Fussell’s assertion that the number three was unusually prevalent in the military imaginations of the day. However, the chief drawback of borrowing Fussell’s monocle is that it makes us squint at the trench realities Tolkien knew. Croft is unable to provide much information about his experiences: she has drawn on J.C. Latter’s official history of the Lancashire Fusiliers, but not on battalion war diaries, officer service records, or the reminiscences of other soldiers engaged in the same actions. It is a singular piece of bad timing that my own biographical book, Tolkien and the Great War: The Threshold of Middle-earth, which absorbs all these sources, came out when War and the Works of J.R.R. Tolkien had doubtless already gone to press.

Croft is often at her best when she sets Fussell aside and observes the broader ramifications of war experience in Tolkien’s works: the “shell shock” trauma of Frodo and the chronic reappearance of displaced peoples and refugees, for example. Like others, she points out that the “dragons” attacking Gondolin in Tolkien’s 1916–17 story are versions of tanks, first unleashed on the Somme in September 1916. But she misses the crucial point that the refugees and the dragons exemplify Tolkien’s ambidextrousness as an artist: on one hand (like Sassoon and his cohorts) he could evoke the “very quality” of the sprawling, complex Great War through realism, as C.S. Lewis noted (14); on the other hand (like no one else on earth) he could capture the deeper patterns of the war in ways that were primarily unrealistic, through symbolism, nightmare, fantasy, myth. Croft covers the dragons and the Dead Marshes, but neglects most of Tolkien’s symbolist transformations of experience: his recurrent depictions of fear as a dark cloud reducing men to beasts (recalling his epitome of battle as “animal horror”), the giant spiders as harbingers of madness, the Eye of Sauron recreating the trench soldier’s fear of being seen, to name just three examples.

Taking Tolkien at face value on allegory, Croft states flatly that “none of his works are allegories of World War I or any other war,” and is not inclined to look for any reference to war that is not utterly literal. In a book purporting to deal with the arch-fantasist of the last century, this is a considerable oversight. The first error to arise is the notion that the war had little or no impact on anything Tolkien wrote between its outbreak and his return from the Somme. Yet it seems no coincidence that his first “Middle-earth” hero, Éarendel, who embodies the idea of escape from oppression that Tolkien later celebrated in “On Fairy-stories,” should have leapt into life just as his creator was defying universal blandishments to join Lord Kitchener’s volunteer army in September 1914. The nationalism behind the very idea of a mythology for England (established as the Lonely Isle of the mythology well before Tolkien’s June 1916 embarkation for France) is very much a thing of its time, as are the reaction against industrialism and the elegiac sense of irremediable loss that underlie the entire conception of elvendom. Perhaps the most visible object to slip under Croft’s radar is “The Wanderer’s Allegiance” (Lost Tales II, 295–7), an ambitious, non-fantasy poem of March 1916 that mourns Oxford’s war losses and contains the first of Tolkien’s keynote attacks on leaders who leave their people unprotected against aggressors.

Otherwise, Croft has cast her net wide for war references in Tolkien and come up with the Old Man of the Sea, blown up by a floating mine in Roverandom, or Chrysophylax ruining the countryside in Farmer Giles of Ham. Contrasting Gandalf at Khazad-dûm with Beorhtnoth at Maldon is a nice insight. It took a sharp pair of eyes to spot that the grip Gollum uses in combat with Sam at Shelob’s Lair is “described in detail” in a 1916 manual on bayonet fighting that Tolkien might well have been forced to study. Croft provides a useful summary of the critical literature on Tolkien and the First World War up to 2002 and skillfully marshals the expertise of a considerable number of writers from beyond Tolkienian scholarship: Auden, Bernard Bergonzi, Modris Eksteins, and others. She usefully adds Mervyn Peake and Anthony Burgess to Shippey’s canon of traumatized fantasists. One valuable passage links orcs with the demonization of the enemy in the Great War; all Croft’s impressive array of evidence lacks is Tolkien’s 1915–16 Qenya lexicon definition merging Germans, barbarians and monsters. (It may be added that nothing underlines the case better than contemporary propaganda posters depicting the bloodthirsty Hun raping Belgium.) Also of great interest is her comparison of Denethor and Sauron to the “château generals” who conducted the Great War in comfort from miles behind the front: here she relies not on Fussell but on the superb military historian John Keegan. And her use of “just war theory” to resolve apparent contradictions in Tolkien’s attitude to war is eminently persuasive.

Certain analogies are over-stretched: Merry’s Nazgûl-induced fear of drowning can scarcely be compared with the Great War motif of soldiers bathing; its Somme antecedent, surely, is the terror of crossing the battlefield when rain and shellfire had reduced it to a fatal swamp. There are also a few inaccuracies: Tolkien was never in Flanders, but in Picardy; and it is unlikely, despite the Tolkien Family Album, that he drew the map used by his entire division in the October 1916 assault on Regina Trench. Most distracting of all, Croft ignores what ought now to be the First Law of Tolkien criticism: ignore the movies! Too often, we are irrelevantly told that some element of the Peter Jackson films distorts Tolkien’s original.

This is an ambitious book, and such flaws suggest that Croft’s reach exceeds her grasp. A chapter on the Second World War seems half-hearted, focusing on Tolkien’s personal anxiety as a father of sons in military service but largely neglecting his exclamations (frequent and vituperative) on national and international affairs. Her survey of the leadership qualities of characters in The Lord of the Rings repeatedly likens Aragorn to Alexander; Lawrence of Arabia might have been a valuable contemporary model. She notes that the cursus honorum followed by Roman officers may be a model for Aragorn’s military training; but Tolkien’s eyes looked rather to the North, and it might also have been worth exploring how traditions of medieval knighthood still persisted in the ethos of the idealized British army officer during the Great War.

In reiterating out that Tolkien’s interest in the fairy-tale predisposed him to turn his war experiences into this particular art form, Croft is only half right. As she points out, Tolkien said that his “taste for fairy-stories was wakened by philology on the threshold of manhood, and quickened to full life by war” (“On Fairy-stories,” MC 135). However, what little we have seen of Tolkien’s pre-war creative output includes only one “fairy” item (the 1910 poem “Wood-sunshine”)—but a preponderance of symbolist mysticism. His interest in the Kalevala, medieval literature, Romanticism, and latter-day adventure stories must have been at least as important as fairy-stories in predisposing Tolkien to write in the high, heroic vein.

These are key points, because it is the survival of such modes in Tolkien that distinguishes him most clearly from the followers of Graves, who used close-up realism and savage irony to depict the ordinary man-at-war as little more than a passive victim. Tolkien portrayed the ironies of war, of course, in the story of Túrin Turambar; but Túrin does Sisyphean battle against ironic circumstance and ultimately snatches a partial victory from the jaws of total defeat. It would have been worth observing that the “eucatastrophic” moments in The Lord of the Rings reverse the ironic downturns that so dominate most First World War writing. Croft concludes that Tolkien’s use of the “high diction” that Graves and his followers eschewed (“steed,” “strife,” “foe” and so on) was a feature of his urge to escape, “a deliberate distancing from the everyday and mundane,” and furthermore states that “Middle-earth could not exist without it” (23). Again, she perceives only part of the picture: Tolkien also felt that abandoning the old language with its accumulated “memory of good and evil” (“On Translating Beowulf,” MC 55) was folly, especially in an era of cataclysm and moral chaos.

At its best, however, Croft’s book is a welcome addition to the debate on the interface between Tolkien’s art and the modern world, enlarging our view of the influence of his war experiences, and reminding us that therein lies a major factor in his contemporary appeal. Her most salient point cannot be sufficiently emphasized: that The Lord of the Rings, and indeed Tolkien’s entire legendarium, was the equivalent of the “talking cure” that the more progressive psychologists used to help soldiers recover from war trauma. This is far from a shameful admission: the same must also hold for a large portion of the world’s war literature. Christopher Tolkien, on military service during the Second World War, was once advised by his father, “You are inside a very great story! ... I think if you could begin to write ... you would find it a great relief” (Letters, 78). Here, as ever, J.R.R. Tolkien wrote from experience.

John Garth

London, England

Works Cited

Fussell, Paul. The Great War and Modern Memory. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1975.

Garth, John. Tolkien and the Great War: The Threshold of Middle-earth. London: HarperCollins, 2003.

Lewis, C.S. “The Dethronement of Power,” in Tolkien and the Critics, edited by Neil D. Isaacs and Rose A. Zimbardo. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1968. [Originally published in Time & Tide, 22 October 1955]

Book Notes

Some recent reissues of older books, in revised forms or with new matter added, deserve brief notice and commentary.

Patrick Curry’s 1997 Defending Middle-earth: Tolkien, Myth and Modernity, was reissued in the United States in 2004 by Houghton Mifflin in a trade paperback format (ISBN 061847885X). This edition includes a new nine page “Afterword” by the author.

Houghton Mifflin has also published in the U.S. a volume edited by Rose A. Zimbardo and Neil D. Isaacs titled Understanding The Lord of the Rings: The Best of Tolkien Criticism. This appeared in 2004 in hardcover (ISBN 061842251X), and in 2005 in trade paperback (ISBN 0618422536). A collection of fifteen essays, including one written in the form of an introduction by one of the editors (Isaacs), this is predominately a reprint collection, with seven essays coming from the same editors’ 1968 reprint anthology Tolkien and the Critics, and five essays from their similar 1981 collection, Tolkien: New Critical Perspectives, to which has been added a chapter from the 2001 revised edition of Jane Chance’s Tolkien’s Art (originally published in 1979), and the concluding essay, specially commissioned for this volume, “Another Road to Middle-earth: Jackson’s Movie Trilogy” by Tom Shippey. Thus the only new material to be found in this book is Isaacs’s introduction (which is in terms of content an extension to his two previous introductory essays of 1968 and 1981) and Shippey’s essay on the movies. The bulk of this volume is composed of material dating originally from 1955 to 1981.

Tom Shippey’s seminal Road to Middle-earth has now appeared in the United Kingdom in a yet another version, this one revised and expanded beyond the 2003 U.S. edition. Published in trade paperback by HarperCollins in 2005 (ISBN 0261102753), this new edition—labeled the Third Edition but technically the Fourth—adds an Appendix C “Peter Jackson’s Film Versions” that is based on Shippey’s essay “Another Road to Middle-earth” published in the volume edited by Zimbardo and Isaacs noted above.

Lobdell’s short 1981 book of criticism, England and Always: Tolkien’s World of the Rings, was revised and expanded in 2004 as The World of the Rings: Language, Religion, and Adventure in Tolkien. Published by Open Court, this appeared as a trade paperback (ISBN 0812695690).

A second edition of Root and Branch, edited by Thomas Honegger and originally published in 1999, appeared in trade paperback in 2005 from Walking Tree Publishers (ISBN 3905703017). One essay (by Andreas Bigger) from the original edition has been dropped, while two other essays, those by Honegger and Christina Ljungberg Stücklin, have been revised for this new edition.

The first issue of a new journal, Hither Shore: Interdisciplinary Journal on Modern Fantasy Literature, appeared in 2004, the yearbook of the German Tolkien society. This trade paperback (ISBN 3000157867) contains Tolkien criticism and book reviews. It is written predominately in German, but there are some items in English, and some editorial matter in both languages.

Finally, though it only occasionally discusses Tolkien directly, readers may find useful, as background study to Tolkien, Tom Shippey’s new anthology The Shadow-Walkers: Jacob Grimm’s Mythology of the Monstrous, a collection of eleven essays on mythological creatures including elves, dwarves, trolls, giants and dragons, as originally detailed in Jacob Grimm’s compendious Deutsche Mythologie, best known in English in J. S. Stallybrass’s four volume translation titled Teutonic Mythology (1882-1888). This anthology appeared in late 2005 in hardcover from the Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies (ISBN 0866983341).

Douglas A. Anderson

The Year’s Work in Tolkien Studies 2003

David Bratman

Responses to the flood of interest in Tolkien generated by the Lord of the Rings films of Peter Jackson continued to develop in 2003. Fewer direct appreciative articles on Tolkien were published in general magazines. Instead, books directly capitalizing on the wave began to appear. There were three new books on Tolkien for children. There were books marketed as introductory guides to Tolkien which failed to provide introductory guidance. There were books loaded with useless bullet-pointed lists. There was the first sign of books treating Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings and Jackson’s films as interchangeable. But more significant criticism carried on. This was, for instance, the year that Tolkien translation studies came into their own.

The outstanding work of Tolkien scholarship published in 2003, and winner of the Mythopoeic Scholarship Award the following year, is Tolkien and the Great War by John Garth. Covering Tolkien’s adolescence and young adulthood through his service in World War I, this was the first originally researched biography of Tolkien, if only a partial biography, to appear since Humphrey Carpenter’s standard work in 1977. Some of the best books on Tolkien from 2003 are updated revisions of older books: The Road to Middle-earth by Tom Shippey and Tolkien: A Cultural Phenomenon by Brian Rosebury. Following Gandalf by Matthew T. Dickerson, Tolkien in the Land of Heroes by Anne C. Petty, Secret Fire by Stratford Caldecott, and Tolkien Through Russian Eyes by Mark T. Hooker are new full-length studies of significant merit. The People’s Guide to J.R.R. Tolkien edited by Erica Challis, despite its too-promising title and scattered coverage, is a notable book for general readers.

The outstanding collection of original essays about Tolkien of the year is Tolkien the Medievalist, edited by Jane Chance (London: Routledge, 2003), an uneven but highly ambitious book. It is the first of, to date, three Tolkien-related volumes to emerge from the International Congress on Medieval Studies. The papers mostly discuss Tolkien’s mediation of medieval literary and theological concepts in a modern context in The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion. The individual papers from each are discussed below. Essays by Christine Chism and Gergely Nagy, among others, are particularly outstanding. Chance’s “Introduction” (1-12) summarizes the papers and argues for the need for scholarly investigation of Tolkien’s medieval inspiration.

Another volume whose papers are discussed individually below is The Lord of the Rings and Philosophy: One Book to Rule Them All, edited by Gregory Bassham and Eric Bronson (Chicago: Open Court, 2003). This belies its subtitle and some equally cute headings by being a serious collection of diligent but brief and relentlessly superficial essays on philosophical topics. While not breaking any new ground or offering profound insights, it demonstrates, more than do some other volumes in its “Popular Culture and Philosophy” series for their subjects, the presence of serious philosophical issues in the work it examines. Concerning Hobbits and Other Matters: Tolkien Across the Disciplines, ed. Tim Schindler (St. Paul: Dept. of English, University of St. Thomas, 2001) is a privately published Tolkien symposium proceedings not previously considered here.

Mythlore published no articles on Tolkien in 2003. The full journal issues devoted entirely to Tolkien covered here are The Tolkien Society’s Mallorn, issue 41, and the Elvish Linguistic Fellowship’s Parma Eldalamberon, issue 14.

This chapter covers 2003 publications and some 2001-02 publications omitted from last year’s survey. Dates of journals are given when not 2003.

Works by Tolkien

The two newly published works by Tolkien from 2003 are both linguistic in nature. Early Qenya & Valmaric (Cupertino, 2003) is Parma Eldalamberon 14, the fourth volume of a chronological survey of Tolkien’s major linguistic texts with detailed commentary by their editors. “Early Qenya Fragments” edited by Patrick Wynne and Christopher Gilson (3-34) analyzes some short lists of names and verb forms that Tolkien attached to his notebooks for The Book of Lost Tales and the Qenya Lexicon, probably in the late 1910s. “Early Qenya Grammar” edited by Carl F. Hostetter and Bill Welden (35-86) consists of a complete Qenya grammar and phonology in manuscript, and an incomplete expanded revision in typescript, both dating from the early 1920s. “The Valmaric Script” edited by Arden R. Smith (87-134) reproduces alphabet tables and other writings of a precursor to the Tengwar, including a short excerpt from Beowulf in the script. These documents are datable to the period 1922-25. The two 1920s works are contemporary with “The Lay of the Children of Húrin” in The Lays of Beleriand.

“Addenda and Corrigenda to the Etymologies,” by Carl F. Hostetter and Patrick H. Wynne, appears in two parts occupying two issues of the journal Vingyar Tengwar published in 2003-04: part one in issue 45: 3-38 (A-NEI), and part two in issue 46: 2-34 (NEL-Y and appendices). This was the long-awaited cataloging of the omitted variants and alternate readings, as well as the correction of simple typographical and editorial errors, from the 1937-38 Etymologies of Eldarin roots published by Christopher Tolkien in The Lost Road and Other Writings in 1987. The Etymologies are essential to any study of the internal development of Tolkien’s Elvish languages, so the “Addenda and Corrigenda” is likewise essential.

General Works and Reference

Tolkien: A Look Behind The Lord of the Rings by the late Lin Carter, first published in 1969, has been “revised and updated” (London: Gollancz, 2003). The reviser, Adam Roberts, is named on the jacket and copyright page but not on the title page. This project would seem to call for a massive overhaul of Carter’s thoroughly amateur and outdated text, written without benefit of vast amounts of subsequently published source material. However, Roberts’s editorial hand has been light, and none of the additions are marked in any way, being written in Carter’s authorial voice rather than his own. Some factual errors and time-bound statements are corrected or updated, but as many are not. Roberts leaves uncut pages of fumbling speculation by Carter on source and cosmological questions before providing since-revealed answers that contradict them. The only substantial additions are a page describing The Silmarillion inserted into a chapter still titled “Tolkien Today” despite this being a reference to Tolkien being alive at the time, a few pages on post-Tolkien fantasists added to the epilogue, showing an idiosyncrasy in taste equal to Carter’s own, and a few selective additions to Carter’s already selective bibliography.

Roberts is also author, under the byline “A.R.R.R. Roberts,” of the Hobbit parody The Soddit (London: Gollancz, 2003). Literary criticism of parodies is beyond the scope of this survey, but The Soddit is notable among parodies for following its own plot imperatives in often surprisingly serious-minded directions instead of merely using the original as a template for comic set-pieces.

J.R.R. Tolkien: His Life and Works by Stanley P. Baldwin (New York: Spark Notes, 2003) is an entry in the “Library of Great Authors,” a Barnes and Noble house series in the style of Cliffs Notes. The bulk of the book consists of detailed plot summaries, chapter by chapter, of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, together with fairly discursive analyses of each chapter’s literary significance. Baldwin awkwardly attempts to link his subject to the primary world, for instance by comparing the Council of Elrond with the United Nations (92). The general effect is of overweening portentousness.

The Rough Guide to The Lord of the Rings, unattributed on the title page but with some credits on the verso (Paul Simpson, Helen Rodiss, Michaela Bushell, text editors; Angie Errigo, writer) (London: Rough Guides, 2003), opens with fairly useful material on Tolkien and the background of his work. However, the photos from Jackson’s films which illustrate these chapters herald the book’s principal function as a publicity flyer for the films. Much of the text is devoted to detail on the films, their making, and their memorabilia. A chapter on characters indiscriminately mixes book and films, and is followed by a notably unreliable chapter on Middle-earth geography. A list of parts of the book deemed skippable consists of seven poems whose crime consists of holding up the action (102).

Understanding The Lord of the Rings by Ted Hodges (San Diego: Lucent Books, 2003) is an entry in the publisher’s “Understanding Great Literature” series for children. Glosses are given for so many “hard words” appearing in quotations that the book seems aimed at an audience that could not possibly understand the work being discussed. The biographical chapter is better structured and balanced than in most such books. Other chapters on sources and themes are less successful, giving the impression that hunting down these is the point of reading the novel. A very selective chapter on characters concentrates on summarizing what happens to them after the end of the story.

A set of DVD documentaries under the collective heading “Secrets of Middle-earth,” individually titled Inside Tolkien’s The Hobbit, Inside Tolkien’s The Fellowship of the Ring, Inside Tolkien’s The Two Towers, and Inside Tolkien’s The Return of the King (each West Long Branch, N.J.: Kultur, 2003), discuss his work. Inside Tolkien’s The Hobbit, written and narrated by Bob Carruthers, is a general introduction to Tolkien as the author of The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Father Christmas Letters, with clips from his 1952 audiotape readings, his 1968 television interview, and old interviews with his children John and Priscilla, as well as with Rayner Unwin, Humphrey Carpenter, and Tom Shippey. The three other films, written by Robert DiNapoli and narrated by Graham McTavish, include some of the same clips but primarily proceed through the plot of their three namesake volumes, stopping for often insightful commentary on literary points from DiNapoli, Carruthers, Patrick Curry, and David Doughan. Choice of topics seems to be based randomly on the subjects discussed in interviews; other topics such as the treachery of Boromir are passed over noticeably. Mispronunciations exceed factual errors. The Jackson films go largely unreferenced. Visuals are primarily from Hildebrandt Brothers illustrations.

Biographical

Tolkien and the Great War: The Threshold of Middle-earth by John Garth (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2003) focuses less on Tolkien’s World War I service than on his literarily oriented friendship with his schoolfellows of the TCBS, a relationship which extended into their war service and the deaths of two of the group. Thus, though this is nominally a book about the war, Tolkien does not enter the army until chapter five. Garth’s thesis, that Tolkien’s creative imagination emerged and matured in these crucibles of friendship and war, is demonstrated by original research in the unpublished letters exchanged among the TCBS and in a close reading of the stories and poems in The Book of Lost Tales, which Tolkien began writing during this period. Garth explores these points much more thoroughly than Humphrey Carpenter could in his biography. Biographical and critical detail are profuse throughout this book, as Garth traces Tolkien’s precise movements and recorded thoughts, presenting analyses of the relevance of the poems he wrote along the way. Narrative and interpretation are not always clear or precise, but the scholarship is thorough. This study is definitive within its expressed limitations of Tolkien’s roots and beginnings as an author.

Tolkien and C.S. Lewis: The Gift of Friendship by Colin Duriez (Mahwah, N.J.: HiddenSpring, 2003) is not a study of the men’s friendship but a joint biography, alternating sections on the two even in their most intertwined years. Duriez provides little original research, but uses both primary and secondary sources to tell his story. He skates over weak spots (e.g. that little is known of the early years of the Inklings) and difficult points (especially the causes of the friendship fading), and provides fictionalized vignettes of the subjects’ shared lives. The ideal audience of this soft-minded book is casual fans of the two authors who warm to the thought of them being pals together.

J.R.R. Tolkien: A Biography by Leslie Ellen Jones (Westport: Greenwood Press, 2003), part of a “Greenwood Biographies” series, is primarily a simple biography of Tolkien for older children, presenting the basic material in sprightly and colloquial language, for instance describing Sir Gawain’s quest as a “set-up” (58). Jones shows some skill at integrating background exposition into the narrative, particularly concerning the Oxford educational system. Factual errors are few but glaring, starting with the claim that Mabel Tolkien had been a missionary in Zanzibar (2). For The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, Jones provides some literary analysis, concentrating with the latter book on the nature of evil and the use of paired characters.

J.R.R. Tolkien: Creator of Languages and Legends by Doris Lynch (New York: Franklin Watts, 2003), part of a “Great Life Stories” series, is also a biography of Tolkien for older children. It concentrates largely on Tolkien’s childhood, drawing on interviews with Tolkien as well as Carpenter’s biography. Lynch adds much societal context, including details of the diseases from which Tolkien’s parents died. The sections on Tolkien’s adulthood primarily concern the writing, publication, and reception of his fiction. Several inaccurate references to posthumously published material suggest Lynch’s lack of familiarity with it. Other factual errors are small and not particularly notable. Apart from biographical discussion of the development of Tolkien’s interest in myth and language, there is no critical commentary.

“‘An Industrious Little Devil’: E.V. Gordon as Friend and Collaborator with Tolkien” (Chance 15-25) is Douglas A. Anderson’s article outlining the life and work of this Anglo-Saxon scholar who was Tolkien’s colleague at Leeds in 1922-26. After their joint edition of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight in 1925, they planned further collaborative textual projects which were never completed. Gordon’s work for planned collaborative editions of Pearl and The Seafarer was only published after his early death in 1938. This may contain some influence and suggestions from Tolkien. Some of Gordon’s other works may have influenced elements of The Hobbit and “The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth.” Discussion of their joint poetical work in Songs for the Philologists leads to speculation on what Gordon may have known or thought about Tolkien’s creative writing. Anderson concludes that even the industrious Gordon could not get Tolkien down to work on scholarly projects.

John S. Ryan in “J.R.R. Tolkien’s Formal Lecturing and Teaching at the University of Oxford, 1925-1959” (Seven 19 (2002): 45-62) lists lecture courses given by Tolkien while holding his two Oxford professorships, embedding the topics in a context of the duties of his offices and the overlapping interests of other faculty. The listing is classified rather than chronological, and is not complete. An appendix lists graduate students supervised by Tolkien with their thesis topics. The relationship of Tolkien’s research interests to his creative work is briefly considered.

Appreciations and Journalism

The People’s Guide to J.R.R. Tolkien, edited by Erica Challis (Cold Spring Harbor, N.Y.: Cold Spring Press, 2003) is not a guidebook nor an introductory study, but a collection of several dozen short, informal essays by five writers using the bylines Tehanu, Turgon, Anwyn, Quickbeam, and Ostadan. Nearly all are reprinted from their jointly-edited web site, TheOneRing.net. Although the web site was set up in anticipation of the Peter Jackson films, the essays are largely about Tolkien’s works, with a few film reviews and studio visits in one section. The essays are primarily guides to appreciation of The Lord of the Rings, concentrating on moral lessons such as the nature of evil, cultural issues such as the role of women, and comparative studies. Internal analysis of the sub-creation is mostly restricted to a question-and-answer section at the end. Coverage is not intended to be complete. All five authors write loosely and informally, displaying passionate advocacy for Tolkien’s ideas and their own interpretations of them. Very unusually for a work of this kind, this book is of almost impeccable factual accuracy.

John Garth contributes a short appreciative article, “Triumph of the Tolkien Magic” (London Evening Standard, Dec. 12, 2003), arguing that Tolkien’s work should be judged by older storytelling traditions and not by the standards of modernism, but warning that the Jackson films’ elaborations falsify the book.

Ken Gelder in “Epic Fantasy and Global Terrorism” (Overland 173: 21-27) cites various commentators who have enlisted The Lord of the Rings as a moral argument either for or against the war on terrorism, noting parallels drawn between today’s West and Tolkien’s heroes. The article concludes with the observation that Tolkien recognizes the potential for evil inside the good, which much anti-terrorist rhetoric does not. Gelder locates the Shire “just outside of Oxford” and sees the posthumous volumes as an endless continuation of the storyline (24).

In “The Ring and the Rings: Wagner vs. Tolkien” (The New Yorker Dec. 22, 2003: 22-29), classical music columnist Alex Ross insists that the One Ring is a direct copy of Richard Wagner’s Ring of the Nibelung and that Tolkien was therefore secretly a Wagner fan like himself. He has apparently not read Christine Chism’s essay, discussed below. Ross finds the Jackson films superior to the book and praises Jackson’s composer Howard Shore for copying Wagner also.

Two articles that may be put in this category are not themselves appreciations but discuss Tolkien’s audience. “Whose Lord of the Rings Is It, Anyway?: Tolkien and His Audience” by Wayne G. Hammond (Canadian C.S. Lewis Journal (2002): 59-65) reviews Tolkien’s ideas of whom he was writing for at the different stages of his creative career. His early mythology had only occasional and fragmented readership, but his children were a regular audience for stories told to them. Publication of The Hobbit brought a wider audience to which Tolkien felt a sense of responsibility: it was for them that he completed The Lord of the Rings and revised his books in later years. But Hammond concludes that Tolkien’s popularity is not so much a case of Tolkien reaching out for an audience as of the readers reaching in and embracing Tolkien’s vision.

“‘Reading Lord of the Rings: The Final Attempt’: An Analysis of a Web Community” by Janet Brennan Croft and Jay Shorten (Mallorn 41: 26-33) is a reader-response study of Tolkien appreciation caught in the act. Using preserved online Web posts as their raw material, Croft and Shorten describe the online community that grew up around a person reading The Lord of the Rings for the first time just before Jackson’s first film appeared. This reader posted her reactions, chapter by chapter, on the Web and invited responses from others. The community was unusually warm and friendly, but Croft and Shorten doubt that having Tolkien as subject matter was responsible for this. They suspect the unusually large number of female participants may have played a larger role.

Mark T. Hooker’s work on Tolkien’s reception in Russia, discussed below under “Sub-creation and Linguistics,” may also be classified as reader-response criticism.

General Literary Criticism:The Lord of the Rings and Tolkien’s Work as a Whole

Despite the title, Following Gandalf: Epic Battles and Moral Victory in The Lord of the Rings by Matthew T. Dickerson (Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2003) is not a devotional work but a literary critical study of Tolkien’s moral expression. The first chapter analyzes Tolkien’s use of distancing viewpoints to describe battles, arguing that Tolkien neither glorifies nor wallows in war. This approach is contrasted with Peter Jackson’s. The next chapter addresses Tolkien’s exaltation of moral victory as opposed to military victory, discussing the meaning in this context of Aragorn’s final words to Boromir, “Few have gained such a victory.” From here Dickerson turns to describing Tolkien’s approach to more theological subjects such as free will, moral judgment, the responsibility to hope, and the promise of salvation, with somewhat decreasing rigor as he goes along. Dickerson tends to treat pragmatics very loosely, but he gives clear explanations of moral principles.

Tolkien in the Land of Heroes by Anne C. Petty (Cold Spring Harbor: Cold Spring Press, 2003) is, like her earlier book One Ring to Bind Them All, a mythological study of The Lord of the Rings. Unlike its predecessor, a doctoral dissertation, this book is written in very colloquial English. It is a clear, straightforward study of various aspects of the novel, without consideration of the drafts. Individual sections form separable essays on the significance of evil, the impact of mortality and loss, the role of nature, and the various types of heroism on display in the novel.

Four important older critical studies of Tolkien were reissued in revised editions in 2003. The Road to Middle-earth, originally published as by T.A. Shippey in 1982, and winner of the Mythopoeic Scholarship Award in 1984, appeared in a “Revised and Expanded Edition” under the byline Tom Shippey (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2003). Generally considered one of the most significant and penetrating studies of Tolkien, the book seeks to understand him in the context of the philological and philosophical tradition in which he worked. Shippey shows Tolkien using modern language and contemporary storytelling to convey and mediate ancient styles and philosophies. The first edition necessarily excluded consideration of The History of Middle-earth, which had not yet begun publication. A (not clearly designated) “new edition” of 1992 added a new chapter on the History and a new preface, but otherwise left the text unchanged. The volume in hand is therefore the third edition. It includes the second edition’s new chapter nine and makes other additions. Besides various new asides, endnotes, and corrections, several additions of some length are embedded into the text: further explications based on the History, an etymological analysis of the word wraith in chapter five, a defense of the author’s symbolic reading of Smith of Wootton Major in chapter eight, and a response to the 2000 Freudian interpretation of Tolkien by the critic Leonard Jackson in chapter nine.

Tolkien: A Cultural Phenomenon by Brian Rosebury (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003) is an expansion of his 1992 book Tolkien: A Critical Assessment. The text of the earlier edition, slightly revised with new material on Roverandom and the later History of Middle-earth books, forms the first four and a half chapters of the current edition. Here Rosebury applies close stylistic analysis to demonstrate that Tolkien’s work, particularly The Lord of the Rings, while not flawless, is a worthy achievement by the conventional standards of modern literary criticism. He considers it worth studying on that basis. In the new half of chapter five, Rosebury expands his earlier discussion of Tolkien’s political philosophy with replies to critics both favorable and unfavorable. An almost entirely new chapter six addresses aspects of the cultural phenomenon: the instinctive hostile reaction of some critics, Tolkien-imitative fantasy (which Rosebury argues lacks Tolkien’s modern literary quality), and the films (which Rosebury rather likes).

J.R.R. Tolkien: Myth, Morality, and Religion by Richard L. Purtill, first published in 1984 and recipient of the Mythopoeic Scholarship Award in 1987, was reissued with a new appreciative preface by Joseph Pearce calling it a fine study of the religious dimension in The Lord of the Rings (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2003). The book is in fact a collection of disparate essays on various aspects of Tolkien, most valuable for a philosophical, rather than religious, discussion of sin and temptation in The Lord of the Rings and an argument that “Leaf by Niggle” is too complex in symbolism to be fairly called an allegory. An essay on science fiction seems misplaced, and a chapter on The Silmarillion criticizes its lack of formal religion, in strange contrast with the argument in the author’s earlier Lord of the Elves and Eldils that The Lord of the Rings is successful in presenting religion without formal institutions.

A Tolkien Compass, ed. Jared Lobdell, was notable on original appearance in 1975 as the first commercially published collection of scholarship from the Tolkien fan community. Though most of the authors are professional academics, the papers were all prepared between 1969 and 1973 for fan-organized Tolkien conferences. Two of them have become classics in the field: “The Interlace Structure of The Lord of the Rings” by Richard C. West and “Gollum’s Character Transformation in The Hobbit” by Bonniejean Christensen. The second edition (Chicago: Open Court, 2003) includes the ten original papers and editor’s introduction, but omits from the first edition Tolkien’s guide for translators on “Nomenclature of The Lord of the Rings,” saved for more relevant inclusion in The Lord of the Rings: A Reader’s Companion by Wayne G. Hammond and Christina Scull (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2005). New to this edition are a foreword by Tom Shippey and a postscript by the editor, both placing these essays in the context of the history of Tolkien scholarship, and an index.

“Middle-earth, the Middle Ages, and the Aryan Nation: Myth and History in World War II” by Christine Chism (Chance 63-92) is a large, sweeping article discussing Tolkien’s envisaging of his legendarium from a perspective oriented more towards the practice than the theory. Chism argues that Tolkien’s observation of what he called Nazi perversion of Germanic mythology had the effect on The Lord of the Rings and other later work of decreasing the innocent wonder of art and increasing a suspicion of power. The center of the essay is a careful study distinguishing Tolkien’s moral approach to mythic history from Richard Wagner’s and from Nazi theorist Alfred Rosenberg’s. Chism shows the fundamental individuality of Tolkien’s approach.

Verlyn Flieger in “Tolkien’s Wild Men: From Medieval to Modern” (Chance 95-105) mentions Beorn and Ghân-buri-Ghân, but the essay primarily concerns the uncivilized side of characters such as Aragorn, Túrin, and Gollum mediating medieval conceptions of the Wild Man in novelistic depictions with modern psychological insight.

Similarly, Leslie A. Donovan in “The Valkyrie Reflex in J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings: Galadriel, Shelob, Éowyn, and Arwen” (Chance 106-32) shows these four characters as modernized, Christianized adaptations of different aspects of medieval Germanic heroic women. Tolkien echoes medieval depictions of female power and specific character descriptions, but the characters are placed in more novelized contexts where Éowyn and Arwen in particular escape the enforced tragic fates of their models. Other, less important female characters in the book are more domestic in nature.

“Re-writing the Past: The Pillars of Middle-earth” by Andreas Gloge, translated from German by Marie-Noelle Biemer (Mallorn 41: 44-52) is excerpted from the author’s 2002 book J.R.R. Tolkien’s Der Herr Der Ringe. This article briefly surveys the importance of various mythologies and literary sources as parallels and possible sources for the mythic elements in The Lord of the Rings.

“Not to Strike Without Need: Evaluation of the Dichotomy of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Views on War” by Andrew Spencer and Brandon Soule (Schindler 61-65) identifies as Tolkien’s moral ideal Tom Bombadil’s refusal to dominate, while the hobbits’ acceptance of the duty to fight is his realistic view.

“The Sins of Middle Earth: Tolkien’s Use of Medieval Allegory” by Charles Nelson (Schindler 73-80) was first published in 2000. Nelson attempts, with partial success, to associate each of the seven deadly sins with one or another of the races in The Lord of the Rings.

“My Precious: Tolkien’s Fetishized Ring” by Alison Milbank (Bassham and Bronson 33-45) begins, as the title suggests, by interpreting the Ring as a Freudian fetish, but Milbank chiefly wishes to discuss Tolkien’s moral warning against becoming imprisoned by possessions. Rather we should cherish simple objects for their beauty and use.

“Tolkien and the Nature of Evil” by Scott A. Davison (Bassham and Bronson 99-109) argues that the Ring’s evil is purely Augustinian, a reflection of desire on the part of its possessors. Because Tolkien rejected Manicheanism as an ultimate explanation of reality, Davison dismisses evidence that the Ring mediates the two concepts of evil, as Tom Shippey argues. Davison mischaracterizes Shippey as holding that the Ring is only Manichean.

In “Tolkien, Modernism, and the Importance of Tradition” (Bassham and Bronson 137-49), Joe Kraus argues for a connection between Tolkien’s (simplified) anti-Modernism and his respect for scholarly research. Sam Gamgee is presented as a model case of a character who achieves scholarly wisdom despite lack of training.

“Tolkien’s Green Time: Environmental Themes in The Lord of the Rings” by Andrew Light (Bassham and Bronson 150-63) suggests that the detached perspective of Tom Bombadil and the Ents towards the War of the Ring embodies the indifference of nature towards ephemeral human affairs.

“Providence and the Dramatic Unity of The Lord of the Rings” by Thomas Hibbs (Bassham and Bronson 167-78) outlines the interplay between free will and fate in the story from a philosophical perspective without reference to Christian underpinnings.

“Happy Endings and Religious Hope: The Lord of the Rings as an Epic Fairy Tale” by John J. Davenport (Bassham and Bronson 204-18) reviews the novel’s employment of the eucastastrophic principles given in “On Fairy-Stories,” claiming without detailed argument that this is what makes the book fundamentally religious in nature.

“Survey of Tolkien Literature” by Colin Duriez (Seven 20: 105-14) is a review article discussing a number of books on Tolkien published in 2000-2001, placing them in the context of the state of Tolkien studies.

“The Response of the Human Imagination to the Concept of City: The City as Literary Trope” by Johanna Fisher and Dorothy Smith (The Image of the City in Literature, Media, and Society, ed. Will Wright and Steven Kaplan (Pueblo: Society for the Interdisciplinary Study of Social Imagery, 2003): 340-45) features a discussion of the mythic role of Venice in works by Thomas Mann and Italo Calvino, then turns to an elementary summary of mythic resonance in The Lord of the Rings with only the briefest allusions to “Rivendell, an Elfin city” [sic] and the city or “castle” of Gondor which the authors leave unnamed (344). Tolkien’s identification of Venice with Gondor (Letters 223) is unmentioned.

General Literary Criticism: Other Works

Most discussion of Tolkien’s use of invented proverbs focuses on The Lord of the Rings. “‘If You Sit on the Door-step Long Enough, You Will Think of Something’: The Function of Proverbs in J.R.R. Tolkien’s Hobbit” by Olga V. Trokhimenko (Proverbium 20: 367-77) shows proverbs in the earlier novel as largely associated with Bilbo. His ability to cite or coin them grows with his own increasing wisdom.

Verlyn Flieger in “‘There Would Always Be a Fairy-tale’: J.R.R. Tolkien and the Folklore Controversy” (Chance 26-35) gives the intellectual background to the 1939 essay “On Fairy-Stories” that may not be familiar to readers unversed in the history of 19th-century folklore studies. Max Müller, Andrew Lang, and George Dasent had offered packaged mythological, “primitive” anthropological, and racial explanations of the origins and significance of fairy tales. Tolkien rejected all of these in favor of acknowledging the value of fairy tales simply as stories. The eve of World War II, Flieger says, was a particularly apposite time to counter racial theories of myth.

Most of “Faith Seeking Fantasy: Tolkien on Fairy-Stories” by Tony Kelly (Pacifica 15 (2002): 190-208) is taken up by a summary of “On Fairy-Stories” with little commentary. In concluding remarks, Kelly compares what he sees as Tolkien’s Christian humanism with the Jungian interpretation of Hugo Rahner’s Greek Myths and Christian Mystery.

Susannah Brietz Monta discusses in “Teaching Spenser As Fantasy Literature, or, How to Lure Unsuspecting Undergraduates into a Spenser Course” (Pedagogy 3.2: 191-96) using “On Fairy-Stories” as a road into The Faerie Queene by way of introducing students to the romance genre and the rules of sub-creation. In a similar method, Jeff Massey in “From Baggins to Beowulf and Back Again: Teaching (via) Tolkien” (Schindler 49-52) describes combining The Hobbit and Beowulf in a freshman English course, using the former as an introduction to concepts in the latter.

“Tolkien’s ‘Mythopoeia’ as a Theology of Conversion” by Greg Maillet (Schindler 43-47) discusses the religious appreciation of myth expounded in that poem. As Tolkien is advocating his specifically Christian position to a skeptic, the poem may be viewed as a work of apologetics. Maillet compares Tolkien’s use of myth as a tool for conversion with that of Bernard Lonergan in Method in Theology.

Mary Faraci in “‘I Wish To Speak’: Tolkien’s Voice in His Beowulf Essay” (Chance 50-62) tries to construct a theory of a grammatical “middle voice” between passive and active out of Tolkien’s use of phrases such as “I wish” and “I think” in his essay Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics. Other readers might see Tolkien’s usage as tentative and modest rather than a bold grammatical stroke. Faraci emphasizes the essay’s robust attack on critical burial of Beowulf beneath commentary. She draws a parallel between Tolkien’s The Hobbit and J.L. Austin’s speech theory: both were 1930s products of Oxford dismissed in A.L. Rowse’s history of university culture.

“The Great Chain of Reading: (Inter-)textual Relations and the Technique of Mythopoesis in the Túrin Story” by Gergely Nagy (Chance 239-58) studies literary depth in Tolkien’s legendarium. Starting with the cryptic references to Túrin in The Lord of the Rings, Nagy plunges into The Silmarillion and other First Age texts to show how these provide context for each other: explaining references and operating as critical parallels for both the reader and the characters themselves. A multitude of story-telling levels result from such sub-creation, whether the texts referred to actually exist or not: this is the source of literary depth and the way a series of myths become a mythology. Nagy compares Tolkien’s technique to the allusions and episodes, referring to other tales, in Beowulf and other primary-world mythological texts.

“Real-world Myth in a Secondary World: Mythological Aspects in the Story of Beren and Lúthien” by Richard C. West (Chance 259-67) itemizes some mythic and legendary correspondences and echoes in the various versions of the story. Its origins in Tolkien’s life history are equivalently considered in the same manner as if they were mythic correspondences, demonstrating the equal depth and resonance Tolkien placed in that aspect of the tale.

“From Fëanor to Doctor Faustus: A Creator’s Path to Self Destruction” by John Ellison (Mallorn 41: 13-21) was first published in 1992. Ellison discusses the hubris of Fëanor as creative artist, whose Silmarils were at once a great achievement and the cause of immeasurable tragedy. He considers Fëanor’s history to be a cautionary tale about the dangers of a restless yearning for an unachievable perfection, and notes the contrast with Tolkien’s own reluctance to complete artistic projects. Aldarion and Aotrou are other Tolkien characters with some of the same characteristics. This is all compared with the Faust legend, particularly in the form of Thomas Mann’s Doctor Faustus, whose protagonist, a composer, is like Fëanor a yearning artist whose aspirations cause his breakdown.

“The Lost Heart of the Little Kingdom” by Alex Lewis (Mallorn 41: 3-8) was first published in 1991. It is not so much an article about Farmer Giles of Ham as a history of the demographic changes in the Oxford area that led Tolkien to say that “the heart has gone out of the Little Kingdom.” Lewis suggests that in later years Tolkien searched for a way to recapture that heart, and did so in Smith of Wootton Major.

Sources and Comparative Studies

The Origins of Tolkien’s Middle-earth for Dummies by Greg Harvey (Hoboken, N.J.: Wiley, 2003) is as much a descriptive guide to the creatures, geography, and history of Middle-earth as a source study, but it does not take a sub-creational approach. Harvey has a reasonable grasp on the internal facts of the story, but does not engage with The History of Middle-earth at all. The author’s relatively sophisticated, subtle discussion of Tolkien’s mythic resonance is not at all suited to the well-established Dummies format’s lists and charts and boxed tips. The result comes across as bloodless and dogmatic. Harvey wishes to teach literature to his readers, but his format is preparing them to win a Tolkien trivia contest.

David Day in The World of Tolkien: Mythological Sources of The Lord of the Rings (London: Mitchell Beazley; New York: Gramercy Books, 2003) runs through places, peoples, and some individual characters appearing in The Lord of the Rings to present various mythic and historical analogues. Both Rivendell and Lothlórien are compared to Delphi; Gollum is compared to Grendel, hobgoblins, and Dr. Jekyll; and so on. Factuality and significance of these analogues is assumed throughout. Much of the book is derived from Day’s earlier work. A large number of uncredited illustrations are included.

Four Christian Fantasists: A Study of the Fantastic Writings of George MacDonald, Charles Williams, C.S. Lewis, and J.R.R. Tolkien by Richard Sturch (Zurich: Walking Tree, 2001) is a lucid comparative study of the four authors. Despite the title, Sturch’s approach is literary rather than religious. He discusses the moral and philosophic views expressed by the authors in their literary works, distinguishing Christian fantasy from apologetics. Chapters cover secondary creation, escapism, symbolism and imagery, moral choice, the responsibility of power, and divine providence. A section on the hierarchy of creation ties back to an earlier chapter on the possibility of salvation for non-human intelligence, which includes a detailed discussion of Tolkien’s dilemma over whether orcs have souls. Throughout the book, Sturch skillfully intertwines and compares the four authors, finding each to be more successful at unobtrusive demonstration of Christian values than at trying to argue them.

Tales Before Tolkien: The Roots of Modern Fantasy, edited by Douglas A. Anderson (New York: Del Rey, 2003), is not strictly a book about Tolkien, but appears often enough in relevant commentaries and bookstore shelves to be worth note as a Tolkien source anthology. It collects twenty stories, one novel-excerpt, and a play, written between 1812 and the 1930s by authors, all but one British or American, who were at least eight years Tolkien’s senior. The cover blurb describes the collection as “Classic stories that inspired the author of The Lord of the Rings,” and a few of the stories, by George MacDonald, E.H. Knatchbull-Hugessen, and Andrew Lang, are ones he is known to have read as a child; others, by Lord Dunsany and E.A. Wyke-Smith, he found in adulthood. Stories by William Morris, H. Rider Haggard, and John Buchan he may or may not have read, but he is known to have liked the authors. These and other stories handle themes, such as the glamor of Faërie, which Tolkien was later to make his own. Some of the stories have no direct relationship to Tolkien’s work, but illustrate the breadth of the fantasy field he worked in. Anderson explains the relevance of each story in succinct headnotes and provides endnotes listing other recommended reading.

A DVD documentary, The Real Middle-earth (Manchester, England: Multi Media Arts, 2003), without authorship credit but narrated by Ian Holm, is more specific in subject than the “Secrets of Middle-earth” series. It recounts how place names, landscapes, and buildings in England, and the battlefields of World War I France, inspired Tolkien in the creation of the places in The Lord of the Rings. The narrative usually conveys that the relationship is of inspiration, not identity, but does devote a section to the theory that the Shire is an encoding of the Ribble Valley in Lancashire. Most of the exposition is carried by interviewees Helen Armstrong, Patrick Curry, and John Garth, with a section on Tolkien’s childhood in Sarehole covered by Birmingham local historians. Visuals are of English landscape and buildings, some of them specifically tied to Tolkien.

This DVD shares its title but nothing else with The Real Middle-earth: Magic and Mystery in the Dark Ages by Brian Bates (London: Pan, 2003). This book is not about Tolkien at all but deserves recording because of the author’s belief in a connection. Bates, a specialist in mythic and historical psychology, uses Tolkien’s popularity as a starting point for a highly speculative and loosely organized account of the civilization and worldview of late first-millennium Celtic and Germanic Europe. He refers to these peoples as “the real Middle-earth,” but correlations with Tolkien’s sub-creation are only cursory.

Mahmoud Shelton in Alchemy in Middle-earth: The Significance of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings ([Ashland, Oregon]: Temple of Justice Books, 2002) finds Islamic and hermetic parallels to various items of Tolkienian symbolism which he considers too striking to be anything other than conscious. According to Shelton, the Balrog is named for Baal, the Eagles are rocs, the Stewards are the Stuarts of Scotland who are reputedly descendants of Muhammad, Aragorn as a warrior-healer is a type of the caliphs rather than a Christian king, as is Gandalf the White Rider, and so on. Shelton’s final proof that this was all intentional is that Tolkien knew Charles Williams, who had once belonged to a hermetic order (97-98).

Andrew Lazo in “A Kind of Mid-Wife: J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis – Sharing Influences” (Chance 36-49) tries to locate literary influences shared by the authors (myth, fairy tales, Beowulf, Homer, medieval romance), though the results are so disparate that little common thread may be found. Lazo places these in a simplified biographical context emphasizing a perceived distance and even hostility towards Lewis on Tolkien’s part. Though Lazo claims the friendship was close if not deep, he is more interested in friction. Tolkien is shown as drawing Lewis to the importance of myth and fairy tales, while Lewis is shown encouraging Tolkien’s work.

Several papers in Tolkien the Medievalist seek to find specific medieval parallels, some with more success than others. Miranda Wilcox in “Exilic Imagining in The Seafarer and The Lord of the Rings” (Chance 133-54) discusses Tolkien’s scholarly engagement with this Anglo-Saxon poem and his direct linguistic references to it in other fictions. Wilcox then turns to thematic parallels with the Elves in The Lord of the Rings: their sea-longing, status as exiles from a paradise, and use of seasonal imagery.

“‘Oathbreakers, Why Have Ye Come?’: Tolkien’s ‘Passing of the Grey Company’ and the Twelfth-century Exercitus mortuorum” by Margaret A. Sinex (Chance 155-68) argues that the army of the Dead in The Lord of the Rings reflects shadow hosts in Orderic Vitalis’s Ecclesiastical History and posthumously-binding oaths in another twelfth-century text, De fundatione monasterii S. Fidis Sletstatenis. Unfortunately Sinex undercuts her point by misreading “The King of the Dead” as a title of Aragorn’s (160).

Michael W. Maher in “‘A Land Without Stain’: Medieval Images of Mary and their Use in the Characterization of Galadriel” (Chance 225-36), while cautioning that Galadriel is not an image of Mary, finds characterizations of Galadriel and Lórien reflecting phrases and images associated with Mary in a medieval Catholic text, the Loreto Litany. Whether the parallels are either intentional or significant is hard to judge.

More plausibly if with theological daring, John William Houghton in “Augustine in the Cottage of Lost Play: The Ainulindalë as Asterisk Cosmogony” (Chance 171-82) expands on a 1995 Mythlore paper. Houghton details Augustine’s symbolic reading of Creation in De Genesi, distinguishing it from an allegorical reading. Augustine shows God creating the world as knowledge in the minds of the angels and as physical reality in a set of separate acts during one moment that Genesis presents symbolically as six days. Not only does the Ainulindalë ’s creation story repeat this mind/reality separation, it is—if read the same way—entirely compatible with Christian theology, and could be assimilated as Neoplatonism historically was.

Bradford Lee Eden follows on this in “The ‘Music of the Spheres’: Relationships between Tolkien’s The Silmarillion and Medieval Cosmological and Religious Theory” (Chance 183-93) by seeking for examples of Boethius’s three kinds of music in The Silmarillion. The fit does not appear to be as exact as with Augustine.

“Randy is a Dwarf: A Note on Lord of the Rings Imagery in Neal Stephenson’s Cryptonomicon” by Jonathan P. Lewis (Notes on Contemporary Literature 33.3: 2-4) discusses a character in Cryptonomicon who self-identifies as a Dwarf and who classes other characters as Hobbits and Elves, terms taken explicitly from Tolkien. Rough plot parallels between Cryptonomicon and The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings are noted.

Mike Foster contributes two comparative articles to the University of St. Thomas proceedings. “The Shire and Notting Hill: Tolkien and G.K. Chesterton” (Schindler 33-41) was first published in 1997. Foster compares their shared affection for Catholicism, unindustrialized England, light verse, and fantasy—on the last of which both wrote seminal essays. Some evidence is presented that Tolkien enjoyed Chesterton’s work. Foster’s “Ringo and Samwise: Paradigms?” (81-86) was first published in 2000. It is a seriously written but lighthearted comparison of The Lord of the Rings with the Beatles. He cites the continuing popularity of both, suggests identifications of specific Beatles with specific hobbits, and notes that two Beatles as well as Tolkien suffered the early deaths of their mothers.

Ellen Argyros in “‘Clicking Its Pincers Menacingly’: Arachnophobia, Gender, and the Transformation of the Hero in the Work of Rowling and Tolkien” (Schindler 53-59) discusses the role of giant spiders in both authors’ work. Battling the spiders serves primarily as a narrative tool for the maturation of Bilbo, Sam, and Harry Potter and his friends into heroes. Argyros finds the loathsomeness of all these fictional spiders to be evidence of arachnophobia on both authors’ part, although she admits lacking evidence apart from Tolkien’s childhood encounter with a tarantula. She also discerns a loathing of the female body in Tolkien’s descriptions of Shelob and Ungoliant. This she considers accentuated by its lack in Rowling, whose evil spider is male.

“‘Walkers in Darkness’: The Ancestry of Gollum” by Alexandra Bolintineanu (Schindler 67-72) compares Gollum both physically and spiritually with Grendel in Beowulf, and then compares that relationship with the similarities between Gollum on the one hand and Bilbo and Frodo on the other.

Several of the essays in Bassham and Bronson’s The Lord of the Rings and Philosophy, by explaining philosophical positions and attempting to apply them to Tolkien, function as comparative studies. “The Rings of Tolkien and Plato: Lessons in Power, Choice, and Morality” by Eric Katz (5-20) expounds on the temptation of the magic ring in The Republic by giving examples of rejection and submission to the Ring’s power in Tolkien. In “Farewell to Lórien: The Bounded Joy of Existentialists and Elves” (72-84), Eric Bronson attempts to compare the mixture of sorrow and joy in Tolkien’s Elves with a mixture of existentialist despair and Nietzschean self-affirming power. This is framed by undigested allusions to a Kenny Rogers song, perhaps inserted for the purpose of enticing undergraduates into reading the essay. In “Überhobbits: Tolkien, Nietzsche, and the Will to Power” (87-98), Douglas K. Blount summarizes Nietzschean philosophy and belies his title by arguing briefly that Tolkien’s philosophy differs from Nietzsche’s, primarily by being more beautiful and communitarian. “Virtue and Vice in The Lord of the Rings” by Aeon J. Skoble (110-19) briefly cites Tolkien’s characterizations as exemplifying Aristotlean ethics of virtue. “Sam and Frodo’s Excellent Adventure: Tolkien’s Journey Motif” by J. Lenore Wright (192-203) compares the Ring quest as a pilgrimage with the spiritual journeys of Augustine and Descartes.

Religious and Devotional

Secret Fire: The Spiritual Vision of J.R.R. Tolkien by Stratford Caldecott (London: Darton Longman & Todd, 2003) presents a fresh view of Tolkien’s work. Caldecott takes an unusual path, discussing The Notion Club Papers and “Leaf by Niggle” before getting to The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, let alone The Silmarillion, but his examples are at the service of a coherent thesis. The book’s subject is Tolkien’s moral aesthetics, leading into specifics on the incorporation of Catholic moral teachings and teleology into his work. For instance, Caldecott suggests that the reference to the Incarnation in the Athrabeth is Tolkien’s way of testing his sub-creation’s consistency with Catholic reality (107). Apart from a few speculations on authorial intent, Caldecott avoids symbolic or sacramental analysis. A slight revision and expansion of this book was published as The Power of the Ring: The Spiritual Vision Behind The Lord of the Rings (New York: Crossroad, 2005).

The Gospel According to Tolkien: Visions of the Kingdom in Middle-earth by Ralph C. Wood (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2003) covers the moral and doctrinal lessons primarily in The Lord of the Rings from a specifically Protestant viewpoint. The scholarship is not notable for original insight, but performs its task with minimal error and misinterpretation. Wood is careful to distinguish Tolkien’s subtle, integrative approach to theology in fiction from C.S. Lewis’s open apologetics and allegory. The Catholic, mystic, and sacramental parts of Tolkien’s theology are only briefly mentioned.

The book alludes to the perspective of Wood’s fuller article on “Conflict and Convergence on Fundamental Matters in C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien” (Renascence 55.4: 314-38), a point-by-point comparison and contrast of the two men’s views on apologetics, ecumenism, Christian metaphysics, modernism (Wood sees Lewis as more of a modernist than Tolkien), and other theological issues.

Hal G.P. Colebatch’s Return of the Heroes: The Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, Harry Potter, and Social Conflict (Christchurch, N.Z.: Cybereditions, 2003) is the second edition of a monograph first published in 1990. Although a work of literary criticism, it is closely allied to the religious studies because it defends Tolkien’s and Lucas’s work (Harry Potter is only mentioned incidentally) as literature of moral integrity and Burkean conservatism against a decaying society, maintaining traditional heroic and anti-totalitarian values. Comparisons are made to similar works of science fiction, particularly writings of Poul Anderson. The most interesting chapters are Colebatch’s passionate rebuttals to a long list of negative critics, especially of Tolkien, ranging from Catherine Stimpson to Michael Moorcock. This takes up about half the text.

Despite its title, Frodo & Harry: Understanding Visual Media and Its Impact on Our Lives by Ted Baehr and Tom Snyder (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2003) is not about The Lord of the Rings at all, nor even really about the Harry Potter books and films. The authors are Christian media watchdogs who write for Christian parents concerned about the morally corrupting effects of much popular media. Most of the book is general in subject, but the opening chapters present the Harry Potter books and films as examples of morally corrupting and anti-Biblical work. Tolkien’s novel and, to a lesser extent, Peter Jackson’s films are occasionally brought in to show morally uplifting fantasy for contrast. Baehr and Snyder emphasize Tolkien’s Christian worldview and depict Christian symbolism in The Lord of the Rings as overt.

Faith Journey through Fantasy Lands by Russell W. Dalton (Minneapolis: Augsburg Books, 2003), by contrast, through equally addressed specifically to Christians, takes an analytical approach. Dalton dispassionately describes the treatment by three fantasies (Harry Potter, the Star Wars series, and The Lord of the Rings) of questions of Christian morality and ethics. Of the three, The Lord of the Rings gets the least attention. Dalton discusses the Jackson films as much as Tolkien’s novel, and often conflates the two, only contrasting them once or twice. The treatment is straightforward and very cursory. A concluding chapter on dangers of fantasy briefly alludes to perceived connections between Tolkien’s readership and the occult.

Greg Wright addresses his Tolkien in Perspective: Sifting the Gold from the Glitter (Sisters, Or.: VMI, 2003) to fellow Christians, but his book takes a much less didactic approach than any of the three preceding works. Wright begins by distinguishing myth from fiction, and then presents his principal thesis, that a writer’s Christian faith should be judged by his intent, although the success of the work at presenting that faith is also a relevant question. Wright takes a discursive, expository approach to explaining Tolkien’s intent, assuming sophisticated understanding on the reader’s part and therefore evidently aiming more at the sympathetic Christian reader than at the anxious searcher for blasphemy.

Walking with Frodo: A Devotional Journey through The Lord of the Rings by Sarah Arthur (Wheaton, Ill.: Tyndale House, 2003) is this year’s elementary devotional guide based on Tolkien—or, in this case, more on Jackson’s films. Each chapter presents a simple moral dilemma and guidance on how to approach it, based on the actions of characters in The Lord of the Rings, with Biblical references and questions for further study. A companion volume, Walking with Bilbo, appeared from the same publishers in 2005.

“The Anthropology of Arda: Creation, Theology, and the Race of Men” by Jonathan Evans (Chance 194-224) starts off as if it is going to study racial and ethnic tensions among the peoples of Middle-earth, but instead it is a study of the aesthetic and moral theological problems of being a Man in a world in which Elves and other sapient beings are of equal or higher moral rank. The place of Men within the resulting absence of primary-world anthropocentrism, and the reputation of Men in Middle-earth as weak or treacherous, are compared with the resentments and rebellion of Satan in Milton’s Paradise Lost. Evans is repeatedly disturbed by the problem of a Creator’s responsibility for the misbehavior of created beings to which he has given free will, and fails to come up with an answer because he is looking within Tolkien and Milton for it and not to Christianity itself.

“Tolkien’s Middle-earth and the Catholic Imagination” by Christopher Garbowski (Mallorn 41: 9-12) discusses the religious humanism in The Lord of the Rings, in particular Tolkien’s sense of the sacredness and beauty of the natural world as a way of worship. He suggests that Catholic perception is deeply rooted in the English imagination.

“The Cracks of Doom: The Threat of Emerging Technologies and Tolkien’s Rings of Power” by Theodore Schick (Bassham and Bronson 21-32) is a thorough-going attempt at using Tolkien’s concept of applicability on a contemporary moral issue. Schick applies arguments for and against using the Ring to the moral problems of nanotechnology. He arrives at no answer and leaves the impression that The Lord of the Rings is not a useful guidebook on moral dilemmas.

“Tolkien’s Six Keys to Happiness” by Gregory Bassham (Bassham and Bronson 49-60) is more successful at showing Tolkien’s characters embodying a simple definition of happiness: enjoy simple things, be cheerful, sociable, and of good character, and so forth. “The Quests of Sam and Gollum for the Happy Life” by Jorge J.E. Gracia (Bassham and Bronson 61-71) expands on this by depicting Sam as outer-directed and thus successful at being happy, while Gollum is self-centered and therefore unhappy.

“Choosing to Die: The Gift of Mortality in Middle-earth” by Bill Davis (Bassham and Bronson 123-36) is an extraordinarily superficial comparison of philosophical theories of death and immortality with the fates of Men and Elves in Middle-earth. Davis fails adequately to distinguish death from non-existence, or spiritual immortality from infinitely prolonged physical existence.

Jennifer L. McMahon and B. Steve Csaki in “Talking Trees and Walking Mountains: Buddhist and Taoist Themes in The Lord of the Rings” (Bassham and Bronson 179-91) consider Tolkien’s treatment of the Ents, Gandalf and other “mentor” figures, and the opposition of good and evil. Parallels are sought with Buddhist theories of the sentience of nature and the master-student relationship, and Taoist yin-yang contrast. The authors conclude that Tolkien’s use of these themes has little in common with their employment in the eastern religions.

This year’s other Buddhist study, “The Buddha and Tolkien” by John Algeo (The Theosophist 124.6, reprinted in English Today 75: 59-64) briefly identifies the four functions of fairy tales from “On Fairy-Stories” with the Four Noble Truths of Buddhism without explaining the relationship.

Sub-creation and Linguistics

The Maps of Tolkien’s Middle-earth by Brian Sibley and John Howe (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2003) is a slipcase with two volumes inside. One is itself a case with four folded 28 x 28 maps, Howe’s illuminated watercolor re-creations, with ink lettering, of four of J.R.R. and Christopher Tolkien’s maps: Wilderland from The Hobbit, Third Age Middle-earth from The Lord of the Rings, Beleriand from The Silmarillion, and the isle of Númenor from Unfinished Tales. Short essays by Sibley in the other volume retell the stories from a geographical perspective, discuss the origin of each original map, and provide a gazetteer of each land.

Untangling Tolkien: A Chronology and Commentary for The Lord of the Rings by Michael W. Perry (Seattle: Inklings Books, 2003) is presented as a detailed enlargement of the original book’s Appendix B: a year-by-year, later day-by-day, chronicle of the war against Sauron from the founding of the Shire to the aftermath. The chronology, presented in a Dummies-style boxed tip format, unveils a number of interesting cross-storyline temporal relationships and occasional sub-creational glitches, but misses as many more, largely because Perry does not discuss the draft texts. The book is difficult to use due to the lack of exact page references and the very large number of short discursive essays. These are written in extraordinarily clumsy prose, are pervasively inaccurate, and reveal an interesting tendency to treat Tolkien’s epic as a giant role-playing game by second-guessing the characters, criticizing their failure to have read the book before they sat down to play. For instance, “Rohan gives Isengard to Saruman,” a statement with two factual errors, is characterized as “Rohan’s Great Blunder,” as if Saruman’s treachery should have been foreseen (32). The copy in hand is a second printing, dated October 2003. The author/publisher has expressed interest in correcting errors in later printings. But the problems with this book are too pervasive to be removed cosmetically.

Understanding Middle-earth: Essays on Tolkien’s Middle-earth by Michael Martinez (Poughkeepsie, N.Y.: ViviSphere, 2003) is a somewhat rewritten and edited collection of Web-published essays by a popular online writer on Tolkien. These explore many general and specific Tolkienian topics, from explorations of Tolkien’s lesser-known sources to whimsical speculations and outright guesswork. Unlike Perry, Martinez uses posthumously published material extensively. His most characteristic posture is a forceful intervention in debates over the sub-creation, especially in testing the limits of reliable sub-creational knowledge. He is particularly interested in the questions of to what extent and in what circumstances the posthumous works may be used to supplement the canon of sub-creational facts established in the works Tolkien published. Though his interpretations are sometimes questionable, Martinez’s facts are generally reliable. He writes informally and argumentatively but (in small doses) readably in adequate prose, without pretensions to formal scholarship.

Translation studies are the newest growth industry in Tolkien scholarship. Bilingual scholars analyze accuracy in idiom, consistency in naming, the presentation of dialect and non-standard speech, the conveyance of Tolkien’s English atmosphere, and other questions presented by the translation of Tolkien’s novels into other languages. Occasionally translators themselves discuss their work. Two full books on this subject were published in 2003.

The first, Tolkien in Translation, edited by Thomas Honegger (Zurich: Walking Tree, 2003), is a collection of case studies of translations. A general introductory article, “A Theoretical Model for Tolkien Translation Criticism” by Allan Turner (1-30), outlines some basics of translation theory and brings up specific problems of translating Tolkien, in particular his works’ status as themselves pseudo-translations from imaginary languages, and the necessity for a translator to be familiar with the sub-creation. The case studies also address these matters. Most find that many of Tolkien’s linguistic subtleties tend to be overlooked in translation, either through ignorance or deliberate choice. Nils Ivar Agøy in “A Question of Style: On Translating The Silmarillion into Norwegian” (31-43) gives a personal account of his own experiences as a translator in attempting to properly understand some of Tolkien’s more ambiguous expressions and in finding an adequate voice in Norwegian to represent Tolkien’s archaic tone in English.

The other four essays are secondary studies by bilingual scholars on specific translations of The Lord of the Rings. Victor Ferré, Daniel Lauzon, and David Riggs in “Traduire Tolkien en français: On the Translation of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Works into French and their Reception in France” (45-68) outline this history but primarily criticize word choice by the Lord of the Rings translator, Francis Ledoux. Sandra Bayona in “Begging your pardon, Con el perdón de usted: Some Socio-Linguistic Features in The Lord of the Rings in English and Spanish” (69-90) examines the treatment of lower-class hobbit speech by translators Matilda Horne and Luis Doménech, finding that with few exceptions it is regularized to grammatically standard Spanish. Arden R. Smith in “The Treatment of Names in Esperanto Translations of Tolkien’s Works” (91-118) categorizes translator William Auld’s nomenclature, criticizing problems of consistency, morphology, and orthography.

The remaining essay, “Nine Russian Translations of The Lord of the Rings” by Mark T. Hooker (119-52), is a précis for his full-length study, Tolkien Through Russian Eyes (Zurich: Walking Tree, 2003). Hooker outlines the complex history of Tolkien’s reception in Russia, concentrating on the literary style of no fewer than nine partial or full translations of the novel into Russian, most of them samizdat publications. Russian translators tend to value literary effect and acculturation over strict accuracy, and some of them modify Tolkien’s text considerably, though Hooker notes exceptions. Hooker’s full book provides a thorough and detailed examination of the literary, social, and political roles for Russian readers of the translations, and he does this in a context designed for monoglot English readers. Another brief version of Hooker’s work, also titled “Tolkien Through Russian Eyes,” appeared in the University of St. Thomas proceedings (Schindler 7-31). Either of the two essays would serve a reader not wishing to plumb the exhaustive detail of Hooker’s full study, but the longer version does serve to clarify the manner in which Tolkien has been read in Russia.

Another article by Allan Turner, “Fronting in Tolkien’s Archaising Style and Its Translation” (English Core Linguistics: Essays in Honour of D.J. Allerton, ed. Cornelia Tschichold [Bern: P. Lang, 2003), 301-21] focuses primarily on Tolkien’s own literary style in The Lord of the Rings. “Fronting” is an inversion of default word order to emphasize an element by placing it at the start of a phrase or sentence, e.g. “A witless worm have you become.” Turner shows Tolkien using this form of moderate archaism to achieve particular linguistic effects that go beyond “merely decorative temporal colour” (319). Turner also examines the treatment of his examples in two translations of the book. The German translation by M. Carroux and E.-M. von Freymann preserves fronting, but as this is a normal German usage it loses archaic flavor. The French translation by Ledoux mostly normalizes the sentences to default French word order. The thesis of this article is briefly summarized in chapter six of Turner’s book, Translating Tolkien: Philological Elements in The Lord of the Rings (Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 2005).

The title “Tolkien, Philology, and The Reeve’s Tale: Towards the Cultural Move in Middle English Studies” by Wendy Scase (Studies in the Age of Chaucer 24 [2002]: 325-34) may attract attention, but the article refers to Tolkien only briefly. Scase describes a current trend for using Chaucer’s work to unite linguistic and literary studies (this appears to be what she calls “the cultural move”), contrasting this interdisciplinary study with Tolkien’s 1934 article “Chaucer as Philologist: The Reeve’s Tale,” which “enlist[s] Chaucer on the side of the philologists in a disciplinary war” (330, 334).

In “The Common Speech and Its Speakers in The Lord of the Rings” (Mallorn 41: 38-40), Nikolas Koravos ponders the questions of how this wide-spread and long-lasting language could have remained mutually intelligible among different communities, and how it came to be used even among Orcs, enemies of its native speakers. Koravos offers tentative hypothetical justifications for these phenomena.

“Coinage in Middle-earth” by Kenneth Fraser (Mallorn 41: 42-43) sums up references to coins in The Lord of the Rings and its drafts, comparing this coinage to genuine medieval coins, and speculating on the designs and minting of Middle-earth coins.

Film

Two academic articles on the Peter Jackson films of The Lord of the Rings are of some interest to the Tolkien scholar.

Tom Shippey in “From Page to Screen: J.R.R. Tolkien and Peter Jackson” (World Literature Today [July 2003]: 69-72) compares plot treatments in the first two Jackson films with Tolkien’s, concluding that Tolkien’s somber worldview led him to make noncinematic narrative choices. Shippey speculates on the conclusion of Jackson’s then-unreleased third film, doubting that Sam’s “Well, I’m back” would be a likely ending though it remains, as in Tolkien, the most appropriate one. In the event Jackson, wittingly or not, took Shippey’s advice on this point.

“Fantasy, Franchises, and Frodo Baggins: The Lord of the Rings and Modern Hollywood” by Kristin Thompson (Modern Light Trap 52: 45-63) is largely concerned with film publicity and game spinoffs, but one section, “Kung Fu Elf, Samurai Wizard” (47-53), helps distinguish the films from the book by demonstrating that the images and action of the films owe as much to martial-arts, horror, and superhero films as they do to Tolkien. Film stills illustrate several of these debts, for instance the resemblance of Jackson’s Gandalf the White to fighting monks in kung-fu films (52). Thompson attributes the resulting “gallery of battles and monsters” to the need to market a film to “an age of adolescent tastes” (47-48), leaving unasked the question: if the story needs to be altered to appeal to adolescent tastes, why is the unaltered book so popular among adolescents?

Bibliography (in English) for 2004

Compiled by Michael D.C. Drout, Marcel R. Bülles, and Rebecca Epstein

Primary Sources

[Tolkien, J.R.R.] “Addenda and Corrigenda to the Etymologies—Part Two,” by Carl F. Hostetter and Patrick H. Wynne. Vinyar Tengwar, no. 46 (July 2004): 3-34.

———. The Lord of the Rings. London: HarperCollins; Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2004. [50th Anniversary Edition.]

———, ed. “Sir Orfeo: A Middle English Version By J. R. R. Tolkien,” edited by Carl F. Hostetter. Tolkien Studies 1 (2004): 85-123.

———. Si Qente Feanor & Other Elvish Writings, edited by Arden R. Smith, Christopher Gilson, Patrick H. Wynne, and Bill Welden. Cupertino, CA: [Parma Eldalamberon], 2004. Parma Eldalamberon no. 15.

Books

Beahm, George. The Essential J. R. R. Tolkien Sourcebook: A Fan’s Guide to Middle-earth and Beyond. Franklin Lakes, NJ: New Page, 2004.

Chance, Jane, ed. Tolkien and the Invention of Myth: A Reader. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2004.

Croft, Janet Brennan, ed. Tolkien on Film: Essays on Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings. Altadena, CA: Mythopoeic Press, 2004.

———. War and the Works of J. R. R. Tolkien. Westport, CT; London: Praeger, 2004.

Gee, Henry. The Science of Middle-earth. Cold Spring Harbor, NY: Cold Spring Press, 2004.

Heims, Neil. J. R. R. Tolkien. Philadelphia: Chelsea House, 2004.

Honegger, Thomas, ed. Translating Tolkien: Text and Film. Zurich: Walking Tree, 2004.

Hughes, Shaun F. D., ed. J. R. R. Tolkien. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004. [Special issue of MFS: Modern Fiction Studies, 50:4; individual contributions are listed below under Articles.]

Kells, F. MacDonald. The Culture of Middle-earth: Everyday Life in Tolkien’s World. Carlton South, Victoria: Bread Street Press, 2004.

Levine, Stuart P. J. R. R. Tolkien. San Diego: Lucent, 2004.

Lloyd, D. R. The Sillymarillion. Cold Spring Harbor, NY: Cold Spring Press, 2004. [Parody.]

Lobdell, Jared. The World of the Rings: Language, Religion, and Adventure in Tolkien. Chicago: Open Court, 2004. [Revised edition. Originally published as England and Always: Tolkien’s World of the Rings. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1981.]

Lyons, Mathew. There and Back Again: In the Footsteps of J. R. R. Tolkien. London: Cadogan Guides, 2004.

McFadden, Edward J. Deconstructing Tolkien: A Fundamental Analysis of The Lord of the Rings. Farmingdale, NY: Padwolf, 2004.

Roberts, A. R. R. R. The Sellamillion. London: Gollancz, 2004. [Parody.]

Rutledge, Fleming. The Battle for Middle-earth: Tolkien’s Divine Design in The Lord of the Rings. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2004.

Salo, David. A Gateway to Sindarin: A Grammar of an Elvish Language from J. R. R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2004.

Smith, Jim and J. Clive Matthews. The Lord of the Rings: The Films, the Books, the Radio Series. London: Virgin, 2004.

Turgon, ed. The Tolkien Fan’s Medieval Reader. Cold Spring Harbor, NY: Cold Spring Press, 2004.

Tyler, J. E. A. The Complete Tolkien Companion. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2004.

Wainwright, Edmund. Tolkien’s Mythology for England: A Middle-earth Companion. Hockwold-cum-Wilton, Norfolk: Anglo-Saxon Books, 2004.

Willett, Edward. J. R. R. Tolkien: Master of Imaginary Worlds. Berkeley Heights, NJ: Enslow, 2004.

Wright, Greg. Peter Jackson in Perspective: The Power Behind Cinema’s The Lord of the Rings. Burien, WA: Hollywood Jesus Books, 2004.

Zimbardo, Rose A. and Neil. D. Isaacs, eds. Understanding The Lord of the Rings: The Best of Tolkien Criticism. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2004.

Articles and Book Chapters

Akers-Jordan, Cathy. “Fairy Princess or Tragic Heroine? The Metamorphosis of Arwen Undómiel in Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings Films.” In Croft, ed. Tolkien on Film. 195-213.

Alleva, Richard. “Peter Jackson’s Sorcery: The Lord of the Rings Trilogy.” Commonweal 131:2 (2004): 20-21.

Anderson, Douglas A. “Tom Shippey on J. R. R. Tolkien: A Checklist.” Tolkien Studies 1 (2004): 17-20.

Baltasar, Michaela. “J. R. R. Tolkien: A Rediscovery of Myth.” In Chance, ed. 19-34.

Bashir, Nadia, et al. “A Precious Case from Middle Earth.” BMJ 329:7480 (2004): 1435-36.

Battis, Jes. “Gazing upon Sauron: Hobbits, Elves, and the Queering of the Postcolonial Optic.” MFS: Modern Fiction Studies 50:4 (2004): 908-26.*

Bibire, Paul. “J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings.” British Writers: Classics, Volume II, edited by Jay Parini. New York: Scribner’s, 2004. 155-75.

Bodek, Richard. “Beowulf.” Explicator 62:3 (2004): 130-32.

Bolintineanu, Alexandra. “‘On the Borders of Old Stories’: Enacting the Past in Beowulf and The Lord of the Rings.” In Chance, ed. 263-73.

Booker, Courtney M. “Byte-sized Middle Ages: Tolkien, Film, and the Digital Imagination.” Comitatus 35 (2004): 144-74.

Booker, Susan. “Tales around the Internet Campfire: Fan Fiction in Tolkien’s Universe.” In Croft, ed. Tolkien on Film. 259-82.

Boyle, Nicholas. “Rewards and Fairies (2).” Sacred and Secular Scriptures: A Catholic Approach to Literature, by Nicholas Boyle. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2004. 248-66.

Bratman, David. “Summa Jacksonica: A Reply to Defenses of Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings Films, after St. Thomas Aquinas.” In Croft, ed. Tolkien on Film. 27-62.

Bülles, Marcel R. “Tolkien Criticism—Reloaded.” Hither Shore 1 (2004): 15-23.

Burdge, Anthony S. and Jessica Burke. “Humiliated Heroes: Peter Jackson’s Interpretation of The Lord of the Rings.” In Honegger, ed. 135-64.

Burns, Marjorie J. “Norse and Christian Gods: The Integrative Theology of J. R. R. Tolkien.” In Chance, ed. 163-78.

Carretero González, Margarita. “When Nature Responds to Evil Practices: A Warning from the Ents of J. R. R. Tolkien’s Middle-Earth.” Truth, Reconciliation, and Evil, edited by Margaret Sönser Breen. Amsterdam, Netherlands: Rodopi, 2004. 147-61.

Chance, Jane. “Tolkien’s Women (and Men): The Films and the Book.” In Croft, ed. Tolkien on Film. 175-94.

Croft, Janet Brennan. “‘Bid the Tree Unfix His Earth-Bound Root’: Motifs from Macbeth in J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings.” Seven 21 (2004): 47-59.

———. “‘The Young Perish and the Old Linger, Withering’: J. R. R. Tolkien on World War II.” Mythlore 24 (2004): 58-71.

———. “Mithril Coats and Tin Ears: ‘Anticipation’ and ‘Flattening’ in Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings Trilogy.” In Croft, ed. Tolkien on Film. 63-80.

———. “The Morality of Military Leadership.” Mallorn: The Journal of the Tolkien Society 42 (2004): 47-50.

Davis, Aaron R. “Holy Elven Light: A Religious Influence on The Lord of the Rings.” Studies in Fantasy Literature: A Scholarly Journal for the Study of the Fantasy Genre 1 (2004): 3-11.

Dimond, Andy. “The Twilight of the Elves: Ragnarök and the End of the Third Age.” In Chance, ed. 179-89.

Downie, John. “Cyclones, Seduction, and the Middle Mind: The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King.” Illusions 36 (2004): 2-11.

Drout, Michael D. C., Laura Kalafarski, and Stefanie Olsen, eds. “Bibliography (in English) for 2001-2002.” Tolkien Studies 1 (2004): 183-89.

Drout, Michael D. C. “A Mythology for Anglo-Saxon England.” In Chance, ed. 229-47.

———. “Tolkien’s Prose Style and its Literary and Rhetorical Effects.” Tolkien Studies 1 (2004): 137-62.

———. “An Anglo-Saxonist Gets His Fifteen Minutes; or, What Happens When the Media Briefly Pay Attention.” Old English Newsletter 37:3 (2004): 34-37.

———. “How the Monsters Became Important: The Logical and Rhetorical Development of ‘The Monsters and the Critics.’” Fabelwesen, mostri e portenti nell’immaginario occidentale, edited by Carmela Rizzo. Torino: Edizione dell’Orso, 2004. 1-23.

———. “The Problem of Transformation: The Use of Medieval Sources in Fantasy Literature.” Literature Compass 1 (2004): 1-22.

Dunning, James. “The Professor and the Director and Good vs. Evil in Middle-earth.” In Honegger, ed. 181-212.

Ferré, Vincent. “Tolkien, Our Judge of Peter Jackson.” Trans. Daniel Lauzon. In Honegger, ed. 125-33.

Flieger, Verlyn. “A Mythology for Finland: Tolkien and Lönnrot as Mythmakers.” In Chance, ed. 277-83.

———. “‘Do the Atlantis story and abandon Eriol-Saga.’” Tolkien Studies 1 (2004): 43-68.

Frank, Arthur W. “Asking the Right Question about Pain: Narrative and Phronesis.” Literature and Medicine 23:2 (2004): 209-25.

Fuller, Graham. “Kingdom Come: Graham Fuller Hails Peter Jackson’s Monumental Tolkien Triptych.” Film Comment 40 (2004): 24-29.

Galwey, Caroline. “Reasons for Not Liking Tolkien.” Mallorn: The Journal of the Tolkien Society 42 (2004): 5-10.

Garbowski, Christopher. “Life as a Journey: The Spiritual Dimension in Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings.” Journal of Religion and Popular Culture 6 (2004). [Electronic publication.]

Garrido, Gerardo Barajas. “Perspectives on Reality in The Lord of the Rings.” Mallorn: The Journal of the Tolkien Society 42 (2004): 51-59.

Gay, David Elton. “J. R. R. Tolkien and the Kalevala: Some Thoughts on the Finnish Origins of Tom Bombadil and Treebeard.” In Chance, ed. 295-304.

Gaydosik, Victoria. “‘Crimes against the Book’? The Transformation of Tolkien’s Arwen from Page to Screen and the Abandonment of the Psyche Archetype.” In Croft, ed. Tolkien on Film. 215-30.

Gibson, Colin. “The A-Z of Teaching Tolkien: Gollum as a Case Study.” English in Aotearoa 53 (2004): 57-60.

Gilsdorf, Ethan. “The Trouble with Tolkien.” Common Review 2:4 (2004): 12-19.

Goldsmith, Jeff. “The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King.” Creative Screenwriting 11 (2004): 62-67.

Hannon, Patrick. “The Lord of the Rings as Elegy.” Mythlore 24 (2004): 36-42.

Hiley, Margaret. “Stolen Language, Cosmic Models: Myth and Mythology in Tolkien.”MFS: Modern Fiction Studies 50:4 (2004): 838-60.*

Høgset, Øystein. “The Adaptation of The Lord of the Rings: A Critical Comment.” In Honegger, ed. 165-80.

Holmes, John R. “Oaths and Oath Breaking: Analogues of Old English Comitatus in Tolkien’s Myth.” In Chance, ed. 249-61.

Honegger, Thomas. “The Westron Turned into Modern English: The Translator and Tolkien’s Web of Languages.” In Honegger, ed. 1-20.

———. “A Note on Beren and Lúthien’s Disguise as Werewolf and Vampire-bat.” Tolkien Studies 1 (2004): 171-75.

Hooker, Mark T. “Dutch Samizdat: The Mensink-van Warmelo Translation of The Lord of the Rings.” In Honegger, ed. 83-92.

———. “Frodo’s Batman.” Tolkien Studies 1 (2004): 125-36.

Hughes, Shaun F. D. “Introduction: Postmodern Tolkien.” MFS: Modern Fiction Studies 50:4 (2004): 807-13.*

———. “Tolkien Worldwide.” MFS: Modern Fiction Studies 50:4 (2004): 980-1014.*

Jacobs, DawnEllen. “Tolkien and Rowling: Reflections on Receptions.” Topic: The Washington and Jefferson College Review 54 (2004): 46-54.

Jordan-Smith, Paul. “Riddles: Perspectives on the Use, Function, and Change in a Folklore Genre.” Journal of American Folklore 117:464 (2004): 204-05.

Kim, Sue. “Beyond Black and White: Race and Postmodernism in The Lord of the Rings Films.” MFS: Modern Fiction Studies 50:4 (2004): 875-907.*

Kollmann, Judith. “Elisions and Ellipses: Counsel and Council in Tolkien’s and Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings.” In Croft, ed. Tolkien on Film. 149-71.

Lazo, Andrew. “Gathered Round Northern Fires: The Imaginative Impact of the Kolbítar.” In Chance, ed. 191-226.

Loy, David R. and Linda Goodhew. “The Dharma of Engagement: J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings.” In The Dharma of Dragons and Daemons: Buddhist Themes in Modern Fantasy, by David R. Loy and Linda Goodhew. Boston: Wisdom, 2004. 19-46.

Markova, Olga. “When Philology Becomes Ideology: The Russian Perspective of J. R. R. Tolkien.” Trans. Mark T. Hooker. Tolkien Studies 1 (2004): 163-70.

McKinney Wiggins, Kayla. “The Art of the Story-Teller and the Person of the Hero.” In Croft ed. Tolkien on Film. 103-22.

McLemee, Scott. “Reaching for the Ring: Tolkien Scholars Embark on a Quest for Legitimacy in Academe.” Chronicle of Higher Education 50:39 (2004): A11-A13.

Morrow, Jeffrey L. “J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis in Light of Hans Urs von Balthasar.” Renascence 56:3 (2004): 180-96.

Morse, Ruth. “Lords of the Ring: Tolkien, Beowulf, and the Memory of Song.” The Medieval Book and a Modern Collector: Essays in Honour of Toshiyuki Takamiya, edited by Takami Matsuda, Richard A. Linenthal, and John Scahill. Woodbridge, Suffolk: D. S. Brewer; Tokyo: Yushodo Press, 2004. 481-96.

Nagel, Rainer. “‘The New One Wants to Assimilate the Alien.’—Different Interpretations of a Source Text as a Reason for Controversy: The ‘Old’ and the ‘New’ German Translations of The Lord of the Rings.” In Honegger, ed. 21-52.

———. “The Treatment of Proper Names in the German Edition(s) of The Lord of the Rings as an Example of Norms in Translation Practice.” In Honegger, ed. 93-113.

Nagy, Gergely. “Saving the Myths: The Re-creation of Mythology in Plato and Tolkien.” In Chance, ed. 81-100.

———. “The Adapted Text: The Lost Poetry of Beleriand.” Tolkien Studies 1 (2004): 21-41.

Nelson, Dale J. “Possible Echoes of Blackwood and Dunsany in Tolkien’s Fantasy.” Tolkien Studies 1 (2004): 177-81.

Northrup, Clyde B. “The Qualities of a Tolkienian Fairy-Story.” MFS: Modern Fiction Studies 50:4 (2004): 814-37.*

Orbach, Danny. “The Israeli Translation Controversy—What About and Where To?” In Honegger, ed. 53-66. [Contributions by Yuval Kfir and Yuval Welis.]

Paxson, Diana. “Re-vision: The Lord of the Rings in Print and on Screen.” In Croft, ed. Tolkien on Film. 81-99.

Pearce, Joseph. “Letting the Catholic out of the Baggins.” Chronicles 28 (2004): 26-27.

Persoleo, Paula M. “Frodo: The Modern Medieval Hero.” The Image of the Hero: Selected Papers [of the] Society for the Interdisciplinary Study of Social Imagery, March 2004, Colorado Springs, edited by Will Wright and Steven Kaplan. Pueblo, CO: The Society for the Interdisciplinary Study of Social Imagery, Colorado State University-Pueblo, 2004. 464-68.

Pettit, Edward. “Treebeard’s Roots in Medieval European Tradition.” Mallorn: The Journal of the Tolkien Society 42 (2004): 11-18.

Petty, Anne C. “Identifying England’s Lönnrot.” Tolkien Studies 1 (2004): 69-84.

———. “J. R. R. Tolkien: A Treacherous Twosome.” Dragons of Fantasy, by Anne C. Petty. Cold Spring Harbor, NY: Cold Spring Press, 2004. 34-61.

Phelpstead, Carl. “Auden and the Inklings: An Alliterative Revival.” Journal of English and Germanic Philology 103 (2004): 433-57.

Rearick, Anderson, III. “Why Is the Only Good Orc a Dead Orc? The Dark Face of Racism Examined in Tolkien’s World.” MFS: Modern Fiction Studies 50:4 (2004): 861-74.*

Rohy, Valerie. “On Fairy Stories.” MFS: Modern Fiction Studies 50:4 (2004): 927-48.*

Rosenthal, Ty. “Warm Beds Are Good: Sex and Libido in Tolkien’s Writing.” Mallorn: The Journal of the Tolkien Society 42 (2004): 35-42.

Salo, David. “Heroism and Alienation Through Language in The Lord of the Rings.” The Medieval Hero on Screen: Representations from Beowulf to Buffy, edited by Martha W. Driver and Sid Ray. Jefferson, NC; London: McFarland, 2004. 23-37.

Shea, Mark. “The Lord of the Rings: A Source-Critical Analysis.” In Croft, ed. Tolkien on Film. 309-11.

Shippey, Tom. “Another Road to Middle-Earth: Jackson’s Movie Trilogy.” In Zimbardo and Isaacs, eds. 233-54.

———. “Light-elves, Dark-elves, and Others: Tolkien’s Elvish Problem.” Tolkien Studies 1 (2004): 1-15.

———. “Tolkien and the Appeal of the Pagan: Edda and Kalevala.” In Chance, ed. 145-61.

Smol, Anna. “‘Oh ... Oh ... Frodo!’: Readings of Male Intimacy in The Lord of the Rings.” MFS: Modern Fiction Studies 50:4 (2004): 949-79.*

Smyth, J. E. “The Three Ages of Imperial Cinema from the Death of Gordon to The Return of the King.” In Croft, ed. Tolkien on Film. 3-23.

Steele, Tony. “The Chronology of Middle-earth.” Mallorn: The Journal of the Tolkien Society 42 (2004): 43-46.

Stenström, Anders [Beregond]. “Tolkien in Swedish Translation: From Hompen to Ringarnas herre.” In Honegger, ed. 115-24.

Stevens, Annie. “From The Lord of the Rings to the Table of the Lord: Reflections on Eucatastrophe and Eucharistic Community in J. R. R. Tolkien.” Tennessee Philological Bulletin 41 (2004): 6-13.

Stevens, Jen. “From Catastrophe to Eucatastrophe: J. R. R. Tolkien’s Transformation of Ovid’s Mythic Pyramus and Thisbe into Beren and Lúthien.” In Chance, ed. 119-32.

Straubhaar, Sandra Ballif. “Myth, Late Roman History, and Multiculturalism in Tolkien’s Middle-earth.” In Chance, ed. 101-17.

Sturch, Richard. “Estne Tolkien Latine Reddendus?: A Light-Hearted Look at Some of the Challenges.” In Honegger, ed. 67-82.

Sturgis, Amy H. “Harry Potter is a Hobbit: Rowling, Tolkien and the Question of Readership.” CSL: Bulletin of the New York C. S. Lewis Society 35:3 (2004): 1-13.

———. “Make Mine ‘Movieverse’: How the Tolkien Fan Fiction Community Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Peter Jackson.” In Croft, ed. Tolkien on Film. 283-305.

Susina, Jan. “Boys and Girls Forever: Children’s Classics from Cinderella to Harry Potter.” Marvels & Tales 18 (2004): 124-26, 142.

Thum, Maureen. “The ‘Sub-Subcreation’ of Galadriel, Arwen, and Éowyn: Women of Power in Tolkien’s and Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings.” In Croft, ed. Tolkien on Film. 231-56.

Timmons, Daniel. “Frodo on Film: Peter Jackson’s Problematic Portrayal.” In Croft, ed. Tolkien on Film. 123-48.

Trexler, Robert. “Tolkien, Lewis, Rowling & the Imagination: Three Book Reviews.” CSL: Bulletin of the New York C. S. Lewis Society 35 (2004): 18-21.

Turnau, Theodore A., III. “Inflecting the World: Popular Culture and the Perception of Evil.” Journal of Popular Culture 38:2 (2004): 384-96.

Vaccaro, Christopher T. “‘And One White Tree’: The Cosmological Cross and the Arbor Vitae in J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion.” Mallorn: The Journal of the Tolkien Society 42 (2004): 23-28.

Velten, Alexandra. “The Soundtrack Lyrics of Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings—A Legitimate ‘Translation’ of Tolkien?” In Honegger, ed. 213-43.

West, Richard C. “Setting the Rocket Off in Story: The Kalevala as the Germ of Tolkien’s Legendarium.” In Chance, ed. 285-94.

———. “A Tolkien Checklist: Selected Criticism 1981-2004.” MFS: Modern Fiction Studies 50:4 (2004): 1015-28.*

Yaggi, Miranda Maney. “Harry Potter’s Heritage: Tolkien as Rowling’s Patronus against the Critics.” Topic: The Washington and Jefferson College Review 54 (2004): 33-45.

Miscellaneous

The Invented Worlds of J. R. R. Tolkien: Drawings and Original Manuscripts from the Marquette University Collection. Milwaukee: Haggerty Museum of Art, 2004. [Catalog.]

Notes

* Published as part of a special issue of MFS: Modern Fiction Studies.

Addenda and Corrigenda to Bibliography (in English) for 2003

Primary Sources

[Tolkien, J. R. R.] “Letter to Milton Waldman (1951?).” Trans. Michaël Devaux. Tolkien, les racines du légendaire, edited by Michaël Devaux. Geneva: Ad Solem, 2003. [Bilingual edition; translation first published in Conférence 12 (Spring 2001): 714-56.]

Books

Esty, Jed. A Shrinking Island: Modernism and National Culture in England. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003.

Articles

Gloge, Andreas. “Re-Writing the Past: The Pillars of Middle-earth.” Trans. Marie-Noelle Biemer. Mallorn: The Journal of the Tolkien Society 41 (2003): 44-52. [author and translator switched in 2003 Bibliography].

Notes on Contributors

Amy M. Amendt-Raduege is a recovering biologist who spent four years doing research at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Currently, however, she is a doctoral candidate in the Department of English at Marquette University. Her dissertation, “The Bitter and the Sweet,” focuses on death and dying in The Lord of the Rings.

Douglas A. Anderson is co-editor of Tolkien Studies.

David Bratman reviews books on Tolkien for Mythprint, the monthly bulletin of The Mythopoeic Society, for which he served as editor from 1980-1995. He has edited The Masques of Amen House by Charles Williams, compiled the authorized bibliography of Ursula K. Le Guin, and contributed articles on Tolkien to the journals Mallorn and Mythlore and the book Tolkien’s Legendarium (ed. Verlyn Flieger and Carl F. Hostetter). His documentary chronology of the Inklings is in press as an appendix to The Company They Keep: C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien as Writers in Community by Diana Pavlac Glyer. He holds an M.L.S. from the University of Washington and has worked as a librarian at Stanford University and elsewhere.

Michael D.C. Drout is co-editor of Tolkien Studies.

Richard W. Fehrenbacher is Associate Professor of English at the University of Idaho, where he teaches classes in medieval literature, literary theory, and new media. He has published on Chaucer and Malory in such journals as Exemplaria, The Chaucer Review, and Arthuriana.

Karen Wynn Fonstad, whose M.A. from the University of Oklahoma was in Geography with a specialization in cartography, was the author/cartographer of The Atlas of Middle-earth (1981), Revised edition (1991). She also wrote several other atlases of fictional worlds, including The Atlas of Pern (1984), The Atlas of The Land (1985), The Atlas of the Dragonlance World (1987), The Forgotten Realms Atlas (1990). Karen died untimely in March of 2005.

James I. McNelis, III is Associate Professor of English at Wilmington College, Ohio. He teaches British literature survey, Shakespeare, linguistics/history of the language, and a regular (sometimes multi-section) course on The Lord of the Rings. He has published on a range of medieval topics including bestiaries, Arthurian literature, Beowulf, and Chaucer. He is the editor of Envoi: A Review Journal of Medieval Literature, and of the Medieval Science Web Page.

Gergely Nagy is a Junior Assistant Professor at the Institute of English and American Studies, University of Szeged, Hungary, writing his Ph.D. on J. R. R. Tolkien, medieval cultural history and poststructuralist literary theory. His academic interests include Middle English romances (mainly Arthurian), science fiction, and contemporary popular music. He has published essays on Tolkien, Chaucer, Malory, and contemporary rock music.

James Obertino teaches English, American, and comparative literature at Central Missouri State University. He has published papers on Milton and Tolkien.

Maria Prozesky (Department of English, University of Pretoria, South Africa) is interested in the medieval period, particularly Anglo-Saxon and Sir Thomas Malory, and in South African literature from the pre-colonial and early colonial periods. With a first degree in medical science, she enjoys exploring comparative and interdisciplinary approaches to literature. She is a member of the Pretoria University Inklings society.

Martin Simonson studied English Philology at the University of the Basque Country in Vitoria, Spain and holds a Ph.D. in English Literature from the same university. His doctoral thesis focused on the narrative dynamics of The Lord of the Rings, with the main aim of putting this work in a meaningful relationship to both modernism and the critical approach based on source-hunting. He has contributed to Reconsidering Tolkien (2005), edited by Thomas Honegger. His current research is centered on the relationship between nineteenth-century transcendentalism and Tolkien.

Ross Smith is a translator and writer living in Madrid, Spain. He holds a degree in English from Edinburgh University and is a member of the UK Chartered Institute of Linguists and a government-appointed Intérprete Jurado (sworn legal translator). He contributes regularly to specialized language publications, writing principally on aspects of translation, computational linguistics, and the role of English as a global language. In 2005 he published a series of articles in the journal English Today (Cambridge University Press) which discussed the enduring popularity of J.R.R. Tolkien’s work from a philological and linguistic viewpoint. He is currently head of the translation department at Pricewaterhouse Coopers Spain.

Tolkien Studies: An Annual Scholarly Review

EDITORS

Douglas A. Anderson

Michael D. C. Drout

Verlyn Flieger

EDITORIAL BOARD

David Bratman

Marjorie Burns

Carl F. Hostetter

Gergely Nagy

Tom Shippey

Richard C. West

Tolkien Studies: An Annual Scholarly Review (ISSN 1547-3155) appears annually in April/May. It is published by West Virginia University Press, P.O. Box 6295, West Virginia University, Morgantown, WV 26506-6295; www.wvupress.com; e-mail: press@wvu.edu. Subscription rates: Institution: $120/year; $224/2 years; individuals $60/year; $112/2 years. Outside the USA (all funds in US dollars) add $20 for air-expedited delivery. Send subscriptions (checks payable to WVU Press) plus change-of-address requests (include old address with new address) to Tolkien Studies, P.O. Box 6295, West Virginia University Press, West Virginia University, Morgantown, WV 26506-6295.

Material in Tolkien Studies may be photographed for the noncommercial purpose of educational or scientific advancement. Formal permission must be sought for all other purposes from the publisher.

Copyright © 2006, by West Virginia University Press.

All rights reserved.

Volume 3 (2006) by West Virginia University Press

ISBN (hardback) 1-933202-10-6

Cover photograph: Version “II” of “The King’s Letter” (Marquette MS Tolkien 3/9/35 1r). Copyright ©2006 The Tolkien Trust. Used by courtesy of the Tolkien Estate and the Marquette University Archives.

Support for Volume 3 of Tolkien Studies was provided by Wheaton College, Norton, Massachusetts.