Caedmon -
Amelia Harper
Comments by squire, February 16, 2007
This is one of those minor entries that feel
juiceless, if not useless. The only fact of
interest given to a student of Tolkien's life is
the poet Caedmon's use of Old English
Middangeard in his first and seminal poem.
Though Harper seems to claim that Tolkien took
"Middle-earth" from Caedmon's specific usage
(echoing his adoption of "Earendel" from the OE
poem Crist), a close reading of her
statement and his letter that she cites shows
that she does not.
Which leaves us with very little connection
indeed between Caedmon and Tolkien! Harper might have cited her comment that
Tolkien felt that later OE poems in the same
style should not be attributed to Caedmon; that
could have led to more thoughts that Tolkien had
recorded about the poet.
Finally there is this hoary old link, drawing
on Tom Shippey's authority: Caedmon was a poet,
one of the first poets to write in English.
Tolkien was an English poet too, so there's kind
of a connection, right? But if we take Shippey
too literally, applying to Tolkien the ancient
historian's evaluation of Caedmon ("many others
following him began also to make songs of
virtue"), we may be compelled to regard The
Sword of Shannara as virtuous.
Comments by Jason Fisher, February 16, 2007
I agree: a very, very, very minor connection
to Tolkien, one that scarcely justifies an entry
of this length. I found only one other (and also
very small) link that Harper might have
mentioned. In his landmark essay, Beowulf:
The Monsters and the Critics, Tolkien wrote
that “far from being a confused semi-pagan ...
he [the Beowulf poet] brought probably
first to his task a knowledge of Christian
poetry, especially that of the Cædmon school,
and especially Genesis.” A very small
point indeed, but it links Caedmon to Beowulf,
which we know was very important to Tolkien
(much more so than Caedmon’s own poetry). But if
one is going to attempt the entry, one ought to
ferret out all the (few) places where Tolkien
mentions Caedmon. Actually, for my money, Harper
might have just included the original Caedmon
poem in full.
Michael Drout, in the notes to his edition of
Beowulf and the Critics (2002), provides
a capsule summary of Caedmon which could have
been useful to Harper. He explains that “In a
dream an angel came to him [Caedmon] and
commanded him to ‘sing the creation.’” Harper
summarizes the encounter with the angel but
misses this last part. This could allow for a
(highly speculative) connection to Tolkien’s
Ainulindalë.
In the end, though, I suppose I’m really just
grasping at straws, trying to find a way to
justify the entry’s inclusion in the
Encyclopedia at all. Realistically, the
one small Caedmon / “Middle-earth” connection
belongs in the entry on “Middle-earth” (where
the poet goes unmentioned).
Calendars
- Arden R. Smith
Comments by squire, May 30,
2007
Tolkien's interest in calendrical systems is
somewhat anomalous, since it shows an intense
interest in historical astronomy and mathematics
on his part that plays little part in his
fiction. However, as a scholar of past eras'
timelines and different cultures' dating
systems, he was obviously familiar with the
various calendrical problems when he began to
rough out his systems for Middle-earth in the
1930s and 1940s. The result is a fascinating
spinoff from his famously imaginative but
ordered brain: in the end he bragged that he had
invented a calendar system that was more
accurate to the sun than the Gregorian one.
His calendars also tempt readers to try to
fill in the missing information of just exactly
when the dated events in his timeline happened
in relation to our current system. This is a problem
that is tougher than it seems, since buried in
his rules is the note that equinoxes and
solstices were marked by the first days of
months, not ten days earlier as they are today
(e.g. April 1 coincided with the beginning of
spring, the vernal equinox, by the Elves'
reckoning, not March 21); and yet he seems to
contradict himself when he then makes September
22 (beginning of Fall), December 25 (beginning
of winter), and March 25 (beginning of spring)
significant dates in The Lord of the Rings.
The only conclusion may be that his Calendars,
which play very little part in his stories, are
a part of his "great game" that got away from
him, and have as much meaning as his conceit
that Westron is a real language from which the
Red Book was translated into English, so that
Merry's "real" name was Kali the whole time.
This is just a quick sample of the kind of
analysis we should expect from an article of
scholarship and criticism that would distinguish
this Encyclopedia from A Guide to
Middle-earth, yet Smith does nothing more
than (quite skillfully) condense the calendrical
and chronological LotR appendices and
associated notes from HoME for (it seems)
the reader's reference. His only comments of
interest are his lifted eyebrow that the Second
Age did not end with the Change of the World,
and his note that in a letter Tolkien apparently
tried to locate the destruction of the Ring at
some point about 6000 years ago. Why then forego
the observation that that is about the date that
was once calculated for Genesis according to the
Bible's internal chronology?
The 'See also' is sadly abbreviated with no
references to "Elvish", "Old English", "Elves",
"Númenóreans" (oops! no such article!) or the Hobbits or the relevant
HoME volumes. The lack of a 'Further
Reading' list suggests that no one has ever
really studied Tolkien's calendars and
timelines, but I find that hard to believe.
Comments by N.E. Brigand,
January 1, 2008
“Time! Time!” …is remarkably missing from
Smith’s See also list. His text,
meanwhile, restricts itself to calendars in the
Middle-earth stories, but as the “Farmer
Giles of Ham” article remembers, that story
is marked off by Catholic feast dates. There is
also the “Twenty-four Feast” in Smith of
Wootton Major, as well as a 120-year
chronology that was published with its 2005
edition.
Capitalism - Hal G. P. Colebatch
Comments by squire, May 3,
2007
Colebatch does about everything one can do
with this topic, considering that Tolkien
evidently had no interest in it. Using
"inference" and "suggestion" as his tools of
inquiry, he prods and examines all of
Middle-earth for an elevated economic
consciousness. He finds little besides the
correlation of the Free Peoples' personal
freedom with a "liberalistic" economic order:
free trade, moderate wealth and the right of
property are virtues in Middle-earth. But
capitalism as a hyperproductive system is
missing; and as Colebatch puts it, there are
neither capitalist heroes nor villains in
Tolkien's world.
Since there is no 'Further Reading' list, it
is not easy to say how far Colebatch might have
gotten by treating the subject secondarily. I
believe there is at least some critical, leftish,
literature that argues that Tolkien's nostalgic
or romantic Tory traditionalism constitutes by
itself an inherent endorsement of capitalism. I
imagine others have attempted to refute this
approach as not being particularly useful for
understanding Tolkien; that seems to be this
article's implicit conclusion.
Comments by N.E. Brigand,
January 1, 2008
Leftist criticism of Tolkien is presented in
“Marxist Readings of Tolkien”. That article and
this one don’t mention each other, though each
refers to the entry on “Communism” (which also
points back to both of them). Such criticism
views Tolkien negatively in part because he had
nothing to say about the evils of capitalism.
Given Tolkien’s silence on capitalism, it is
fortunate that Colebatch expands his comments to
include Tolkien’s presentation of economics in
more general terms. He could have said more on
these lines by also considering Farmer Giles
of Ham, “Leaf by Niggle”, and both the essay
and story called Smith of Wootton Major.
In the essay, Tolkien explicitly writes that
“commercial success” was causing a decline in
the “artistic quality” of the village’s crafts.
On the other hand, in the story, Smith is
admiringly said to know “how to turn an honest
penny into twopence, as the saying went”.
Carolingians –
Jared Lobdell
Comments by Jason Fisher, June
20, 2007
“The Carolingians,” Lobdell writes, “seem to
have played little role in Tolkien’s
imagination.” Oh dear, not a promising beginning
for this entry — another in a series of entries
whose very inclusion in the Encyclopedia can
(and should) be questioned.
Lobdell can do little more than to suggest
that Peregrin Took’s nickname “Pippin” is
connected with the Carolingian Pippin III. Other
scholars have done likewise (e.g., Hammond and
Scull); although, as I have written elsewhere,
I’m not convinced this is the case at all.
“Pippin” is the familiar, diminutive of “Peregrin”,
and as such, is not meant to be taken as an
example of the “high-sounding first-names … of
Frankish and Gothic origin” to which Tolkien
alludes in Appendix F of LotR. Lobdell
mentions another Carolingian name, Lotho, and
here he is probably right; but he then proceeds
to offer a selection of names he notes are not
Carolingian, straying well off the topic. One of
these, by the way, requires clarification.
“Frodo (correctly Froda),” he writes, “is Danish
or Old English” — Froda is the correct Old
English form, but the Scandinavian form is
actually Fróði (from Old Norse fróðr “knowing,
learned, well-informed”).
The entry just isn’t of any great interest or
relevance. A bit more might have been done with
the comparison to the Ruling Stewards of Gondor,
for example, to increase its value. But there’s
precious little raw material for Lobdell to work
with in any case. When a 'Further Reading' list
offers nothing at all pertaining to Tolkien,
it’s a sign the entry itself may be otiose.
I can think of one reference Lobdell could
have included, however: David Day’s Tolkien’s
Ring, Chapter 7 “Carolingian Legends”. Not a
book I normally recommend highly, it is
nevertheless one of the few that makes some
attempt to connect Tolkien to the Carolingians.
There are also several scattered references to
the Carolingians in Hammond and Scull’s Lord
of the Rings: A Reader’s Companion. And,
considering that he invoked him in the final
paragraph of the entry, Lobdell ought to have
included “Denethor” in the 'See also';
“Huns” and “Goths” should also have been
included here.
Comments by N.E. Brigand, June 27, 2007
Lobdell’s “Frodo (correctly Froda)” is probably
a too-shortened reference to Tolkien’s
mock-translation note (in Appendix F of The
Lord of the Rings) that some “genuine”
Hobbit names in LotR were simply
transliterated into English, with the last
letter changed from “a” to “o” because masculine
Hobbit names ended with “a”. “Bilbo”, for
example, is imagined to have originally been “Bilba”.
As Tom Shippey has observed (The Road to
Middle-earth, pp. 204-209), this might mean
that Frodo is really Froda – though Tolkien
doesn’t confirm that in LotR – and
“Froda” is a notable name in Germanic mythology.
Catholicism, Roman - Bradley J. Birzer
Comments by squire, January 9, 2007
As a non-Catholic, I admit to being baffled
by the occasional arcane theological point that
Birzer throws into this workaday article on
Tolkien's religion. Still, the gist is good:
Tolkien's sincere Catholic faith and devotion
were an integral part of his artistic
personality, and this fleshes that truism out
with valuable details and examples.
Without volunteering do better myself, I
sense that this piece suffers from lack of
focus, or perhaps needs a stronger narrative
concept. I would have liked even more analysis
of the impact of Catholicism on Tolkien's
fiction, at the expense of some of the finer
details of Catholic doctrine that take up so
much of the article. And there are also annoying
editorial lapses, such as a duplicate quotation,
missing information (like the fact that
Tolkien's son John was a Catholic priest), and a
particularly obscure peroration.
Comments by N.E. Brigand, February 20, 2007
This article is
better than Birzer’s shorter entry on
“Christianity” mostly because Birzer has more
room to examine many of the same points. On the
other hand, Birzer is too casual with the space
allotted, providing a serviceable but sloppy
introduction to Tolkien’s Catholicism.
Birzer’s
article can be divided roughly in two: In the
first half, he examines the importance of
Catholicism to Tolkien’s life, noting the
development of his beliefs, then their nature
and practice, in particular the importance
Tolkien attached to veneration of the Virgin
Mary and to the Eucharist. The article’s second
half relates Tolkien’s faith to his fiction,
noting connections between the Eucharist and
lembas, and identifying Marianist references
in a broad range of Tolkien’s works. There is
almost no mention of other critics’ views on
Tolkien and Catholicism, which Birzer covers in
a separate article on “Christian Readings of
Tolkien”.
Some statements
need more support. Birzer asserts that the
“impress” of Tolkien’s “mother’s death …
permeated his academic work” along with his
fiction, but never backs up that claim. Also,
though it’s true that:
-
Humphrey
Carpenter (Biography, p. 49) says
that Father Francis Morgan “had been as a
father” to Tolkien;
-
Michael Coren’s encyclopedia article on Morgan
(without identifying the source) quotes
Tolkien calling Morgan “more than a father”;
and
-
Tolkien
writes in letter #332 that he thought of
Morgan as a “second father”;
none of these
remarks quite justifies Birzer’s comment that
Tolkien felt that Morgan was “his true father”.
And when Birzer writes that Tolkien was
“intimately familiar with the teachings” of St.
Thomas Aquinas, he forgets his own article on
"Aquinas, Thomas", where he admits that this
can’t be proved, since Aquinas is not mentioned
in any of Tolkien’s published writings.
This article is
poorly edited. Birzer describes a period when
Tolkien lapsed in his religious practice as
“sometime during the early 1920s”, but a few
sentences later he quotes Tolkien himself
describing that time as including his residence
at 22 Northmoor Road, where Tolkien lived from
1925 to 1930. Squire has noted how the same
Tolkien quotation appears twice in successive
paragraphs (the Catholic Church as a “trap”):
this is the result of Birzer’s use of a long
excerpt from Clyde Kilby, whose work includes
two Tolkien quotes also appearing in Letters.
Later Birzer repeats himself again, when he
writes twice in the same paragraph that for
Catholics, the Eucharist is the “Body and Blood
of Christ”. Other mistakes includes a
misspelling of “Wootton Major” and the
identification of Galadriel as an “Elven queen”
(Tolkien specifically wrote that “[s]he is not
in fact one” – Letters, p. 274). The use
of internal citation is inconsistent. For
example, when in one paragraph Birzer quotes
from Tolkien’s letters #43, 89, and 250; the
first and third letters are cited (but read “Letters,
53” for “Letters, 112”), but the second
quote, about Tolkien’s vision of a guardian
angel, has no source listed. And Birzer wrongly
attributes Tolkien’s comments on the name
“Coventry”, from his letter to the Catholic
Herald, to “Letters, 112” (again!);
in that letter, Tolkien merely tells his son,
Christopher, that he had written to the
Herald. Finally, the 'See also' list is
missing at least Eucharist, lembas, Fr.
Francis Morgan, and Mabel Tolkien.
Cave, The -
Jared Lobdell
Comments by N.E. Brigand, February 20, 2007
I previously
had overlooked Humphrey’s Carpenter’s brief
explanation, in The Inklings, of “The
Cave”, a group of English professors at Oxford,
so I am grateful to Lobdell for bringing it to
my attention here. Lobdell’s article, partly
derived from his own interview with one Cave
member, also concludes with the interesting
suggestion that Tolkien’s participation in this
informal club was a way to further his academic
agenda.
Unfortunately,
Lobdell’s explanation of the group is not very
helpful: he writes that they conspired against
David Nicol Smith, but he never explains who
Smith is or what the group hoped to achieve in
his despite (and this entry appears to include
the encyclopedia’s only reference to Smith).
Also, three of the article’s five paragraphs are
spent merely listing the publications of Cave
members.
Comments by squire, March 29, 2007
While I believe I got the gist of Lobdell's
thesis, I found this article very confusing and
obscurely written, with lots of references that
it seems the reader is expected to understand
without explanation.
As N.E. Brigand says, David Nicol Smith's
position is never made clear; but then neither
is the Cave's, really. Lobdell refers to two
Cave members, Lord David Cecil and Gordon, who
are not included in his initial list. Nor is it
obvious why the three whose complete
bibliographies are tediously catalogued have
earned that incoherent honor.
Caves and Mines - Jessica Burke
Comments by N.E. Brigand, June 14, 2007
Burke’s slightly awkward opening paragraph
promises an explanation for the “mythological,
psychoanalytical, and philosophical
implications” of Tolkien’s caves, along with
some comment on their more prosaic narrative
functions, and on the cultural aspect of mines
in his tales. The awkwardness continues through
the article; while the analysis is mostly
absent.
The article’s chief problem may be its uneasy
division into separate sections on caves and
mines. For story purposes, all underground
passages, including mines, are “caves”, whose
symbolism and function can be examined under
that heading. So Burke, after introducing
“caves” with the weak remark that “[t]here are
structures that could be deemed caves”, lists
four examples, and quite reasonably includes the
Dwarves’ halls under the Lonely Mountain.
Likewise her more detailed remarks on the
symbolic use Tolkien makes of specific caves
include comments on the Mines of Moria. But on
turning to “mines”, her first statement opposes
them to “caves”.
Actually mines are a subset of caves with a
specific additional meanings for Tolkien: for
example, they reflect the imagined cultures that
built them, and when presented as ruins (as
often), they carry the weight of history and the
idea of the “long defeat”. Likewise hobbit
holes, which Burke reasonably identifies as a
kind of cave, serve also to represent “comfort”,
as Tolkien explicitly notes in The Hobbit.
Burke notes only a little of this, focusing more
on “mining” than on the relation between the
places and their associated peoples. While the
subject of mining may be significant enough to
merit separation from the article on “Technology
in Middle-earth” (absent from Burke’s See
also list), that topic is presented here as
little more than a list of prominent miners.
Along the way she misidentifies the Noldorin
elves, “foremost craftsmen of all the Eldar” as
equivalent to the Gwaith-i-Mírdain, who were
specifically the smith’s guild in Eregion in the
Second Age.
Burke does at least cite the theories of Plato,
Carl Jung, and Joseph Campbell, and apply them
briefly to some incidents in The Hobbit
and The Lord of the Rings, but she
shouldn’t have claimed that Tolkien was “keenly
aware of all the symbolism behind the use of the
cave image” without evidence. Her conclusion is
poor, just a list of some underground locations
in Tolkien’s writing.
Comments by squire, June 14,
2007
The best that can be said here is that Burke
identifies a few of the important ways to think
about underground passages and dwellings in
Tolkien's works. What is lacking, as N. E.
Brigand points out, is any systematic approach
to the various forms that Tolkien's "caves"
assume. For instance, taking a cave or cavern as
a natural formation, there is only the Aglarond
with its amazing limestone formations that send
Gimli into a rare aesthetic ecstasy (arguably
there is Henneth Annun too, another place of
beauty). All the other instances of caves named
by Burke have been excavated or modified from
their natural state, presumably using "mining"
methods. Likewise, most serve as dwellings as
well as passages or mines, and the distinctions
have meanings that Burke does not handle well.
As far as the difference between Caves and
Mines goes, it is regrettable that Burke took
the editors' title so literally; valuable space
is lost in splitting the article in two that
could have gone towards some more analysis. But
within this subcategory, she scants the idea
that mines are morally ambiguous, since they
provide the raw material not just for beautiful
crafts, the inventions of Aulë, but also for the
means of war and other destructive technologies,
the inventions of Morgoth. Thus it is important
to note that both Dwarves and Orcs (Goblins, in
The Hobbit) delve mines, with only
slightly different moral approaches to their
work; while it is never clear just how or why
Elves live underground as much as they do, or
whether they dug their own mines in Valinor.
Certainly under Celebrimbor in Hollin the
Dwarves mined while the Noldorin Elves crafted.
Without addressing all the errata, I'll
mention that Angband in the north of
Middle-earth should be known as Morgoth's lair,
not Sauron's. It was only commanded as an
outpost by Sauron in the early times, before the
destruction of Utumno, Melkor's primary
cavernous retreat in the far east. The list of caves at the end is problematic
and anything but complete; one notable absence,
as from the article, is Shelob's Lair.
Cecil, Lord David (1902-86)
- Colin Duriez
Comments by squire, June 30,
2007
The one mention of Tolkien in this charming
portrait of Cecil seems almost obligatory rather
than being the point of the article. It
certainly doesn't enlarge my understanding of
Tolkien, his life and work, and his intellectual
interaction with his peers, by much, if at all.
I can't speak for anyone but myself, but when
I read about one of the Inklings in the J. R. R.
Tolkien Encyclopedia, I expect to learn either
1) what the Inkling said about Tolkien or The
Lord of the Rings or 2) which character the
Inkling is in The Notion Club Papers. I
consider it lucky beyond chance if I also get to
hear how the Inkling's intellectual or social
talents related to one of the above encounters
with Tolkien. I daren't hope for some record of
what Tolkien thought of the Inkling in turn;
that seems to be out of Tolkien's range, whether
in his Letters or any other officially
sanctioned records.
All the rest -- the Inkling's birthdates, the
marriages, the careers in or around Oxford, the
charming and/or annoying characteristics, the
scholarly and erudite publications -- are just
window dressing. The point of window dressing is
to frame and decorate what's seen in the window.
Here that view is either quite unremarkable, or
has been forgotten in favor of some very fine
drapery fabrics.
Charms - Carol A.
Leibiger
Comments by squire, June 30,
2007
This is a good example of how to get the most
bang for the buck from a question of medieval
literature's influence on Tolkien's fiction.
Leibiger gives a concise explanation of the
"charm" in Anglo-Saxon literature, then offers
two examples of how Tolkien employs analogous
devices in The Lord of the RIngs.
The first, the idea that the Nine Walkers vs.
the Nine Riders might have been inspired by the
"Nine Herbs Charm" that dispels "nine poisons
and nine infections" seems a bit far-fetched.
Leibiger (or her source Pettit) undercuts this
perception by pointing out that the count of
nine (the square of the powerful number three)
has had significance almost universally in the
human imagination.
The second example, "Against a Sudden
Stitch", is quite successful. The detailed magic
inherent in Strider's chanting over the broken
Morgul-blade on Weathertop, and the fact that
the fragment that Elrond later recovers from
Frodo is melted, both follow closely the rituals
described in the above-named charm.
Leibiger backs up these detailed examples
with other quick citations from Zimmer's study
of the subject, noting both the similarities and
the differences from the medieval type in
Tolkien's use of the charm. All in all, an
excellent introduction to the topic and an
invitation to the reader to delve deeper, using
the fine 'Further Reading' list. The 'See
also' should include "Song Contests" and
"Weapons, Named".
“Chaucer as Philologist: The Reeve’s Tale” –
Simon Horobin
Comments by Jason Fisher,
February 15, 2007
The publication in question is one of the
more difficult to find, but important, pieces of
Tolkien’s early scholarship. Horobin does an
admirable job both in summarizing Tolkien’s
argument in the original paper and in explaining
how Tolkien’s view has had to be reconsidered
over the years following, as more was learned
about Middle English scribal practice as well as
the provenance of the major surviving
manuscripts of The Reeve’s Tale. All that
is missing from the discussion, really, is a
slightly more pointed assessment of the
importance and place of Tolkien’s paper among
the contemporary work on the topic.
Two oversights strike me as worth mentioning.
First, while Horobin tells us that Tolkien’s
essay was “based on a paper read at a meeting of
the Philological Society in Oxford on May 16,
1931,” he fails to mention a more germane point,
its print publication: Transactions of the
Philological Society (1934): 1-70. It may be
possible this was in a 'Further Reading' section
subsequently cut from the Encyclopedia. Second,
I think that a mention of Tom Shippey’s essay,
“Creation from Philology in The Lord of the
Rings” (J.R.R. Tolkien: Scholar and
Storyteller, ed. Salu and Farrell), could
have been helpful in bridging Tolkien’s
philological view of Chaucer’s creative process
with his own -- in other words, for explaining
why Tolkien’s early paper on Chaucer should
still interest students of Tolkien today.
Finally, there’s no 'Further Reading' provided,
but I would point out that much of the meat of
this entry can be found (expanded on at greater
length) in Horobin’s excellent essay,
“J.R.R. Tolkien as a Philologist: A
Reconsideration of the Northernisms in Chaucer’s
Reeve’s Tale”, English Studies 82
(2001): 97-105.
Childhood of Tolkien – Jared Lobdell
Comments by
Jason Fisher, June 20, 2007
I really
don’t quite understand the fragmentation
of the biographical entries on Tolkien
in the Encyclopedia. One has to read
this entry, plus at least “World War I”,
“Education”, “Marriage”, and “Oxford” —
most of which aren’t immediately obvious
as predominantly biographical entries —
and there are still major gaps. Well, be
that as it may, Lobdell’s entry conveys
most of the facts of Tolkien’s first
years, if rather dully. There are a few
nice points, like the discussion of
Afrikaans, but Lobdell relies overmuch
on too many lengthy quotations (this
time, most are from The Tolkien Family
Album). When Lobdell himself is doing
the writing, there are clumsy phrases
(e.g., “the older child and older son”,
“in speaking of himself as a child …,
Tolkien wrote, ‘speaking for myself as a
child …’”) and a general lack of
organization.
In the entry, Lobdell tells us to
“see Roverandom”, but omits that
entry (which he himself wrote) from his
See
also. Obviously, an oversight. He
also mentions John Buchan, but again
omits the entry on that author from the
See also. Other
omissions include at least “Education”,
“Languages: Early Introduction and
Interest”, and “Shelob”. The 'Further
Reading', on this occasion, is perfectly
adequate.
Comments by N.E. Brigand, January 1,
2008
Actually, Lobdell does refer readers to
his “Roverandom” article, and
also to his entry on “Sauron”, but only
in the body of his text; these
cross-references should be removed to
the See also list (which should
also refer readers to “Education”, the
next entry in the Encyclopedia’s
biographical series). It’s odd that
Lobdell here contradicts his own remarks
in “Roverandom”. There he notes
that the wave drowning Atlantis may
derive from E. Nesbit’s The Story of
the Amulet, but in this entry, he
says that is “unlikely”.
Lobdell describes Fr. Francis Morgan as
“Hiberno-Spanish”, but Carpenter’s
biography describes him as “Half Welsh
and half Anglo-Spanish” (p. 34) – Irish
is unmentioned.
Children’s Literature and Tolkien –
Penelope Davie
Comments by
Jason Fisher, August 28, 2007
The opening
is a little weak, and not particularly
clear to me. The Lord of the Rings
itself, not just The Hobbit, was
dismissed as “juvenile trash” by one
influential critic. And “much less
critical writing on Tolkien’s other
children’s works exists” – does this
mean the writing that exists is less
critical, that there’s less of it, or
that the works being considered are
those of Tolkien’s children? Of
course, I know what she meant to say,
but a little more precision in the
writing would be helpful.
I’m also a
little unclear on the headings breaking
up the entry. Why the division between
“Tolkien’s Children’s Books” and
“Children’s Literature” – this seems
unnecessary. Davie does do a nice job
summarizing the scholarship on Tolkien’s
works for children, but I would have
expected an entry of this type (and
categorized with the other, broad
“Critical History and Scholarship”
articles) to do more to describe the
larger context of children’s literature
in which Tolkien, perhaps reluctantly,
found himself.
I like the
point Davie makes about how the
posthumous published works Roverandom
and Mr. Bliss are really aimed at
an adult, even scholarly audience.
That’s a fresh take on the subject, and
it makes me wonder what opportunities
may have been lost in attracting younger
readers to Tolkien by these publishing
choices. Likewise, Davie approaches the
question that has bedeviled The
Hobbit for decades: is it a
children’s work about a littler person
and a magic ring, or is it a prequel for
the larger, more “adult” Lord of the
Rings? Unfortunately, Davie doesn’t
really engage the question.
The
'Further Reading' is first-rate, and to
the generally thorough See also,
I would add “Barrie, J.M. (1860-1937)”, “Lewis, C.S. (1898-1963)”,
“MacDonald, George (1824-1905)”,
“Wyke-Smith, A.E. and The Marvelous
Land of Snergs”, and perhaps
“Childhood of Tolkien”.
Christ - Joseph
Pearce
Comments by squire, February
12, 2007
Just as Pearce seems to have gone overboard
in logically showing how, because Tolkien was a
devout Catholic and the Ring was destroyed in
The Lord of the Rings on March 25, so the
One Ring is Original Sin, Frodo is a Christ
figure and Mordor is Golgotha -- he pulls back.
He admits that Tolkien wanted to avoid just such
a one-on-one allegory between his fantasy epic
and his real-world religion. So he adds Gandalf
and Aragorn to the mixture of "Christs" that
appear in the story. His ending is very good.
With Aragorn's healing powers, at least, I
think it should have been recognized that
medieval Kings, healing and all, were held to be
Christ's delegates on earth, rather than Christ.
And Pearce focuses exclusively on the March 25
date, neglecting to mention the Fellowship's
departure from Rivendell on December 25. Still,
given his reasonable caveats, I don't think he
is wrong to pursue this line of thinking. And
his bibliography seems to give a decent
assortment of further reading on the endlessly
debated topic of whether and how Christ is in
LotR.
What I miss in this article is a slightly
bigger picture: where and how Christ was in
Tolkien and all his works, not just LotR.
Inevitably there would be a risk of overlap with
the Birzer articles on "Christian Readings of
Tolkien", "Christianity", and "Catholicism", but I
would like to have read where Pearce assigns
Eärendil and Manwë in the allegorical scheme of
things. And no discussion of Christ in Tolkien's
works should ever have left out the mystic
Debate of Finrod and Andreth, with its
tantalizing promise of the Coming of Eru into
Arda to redeem his Children from Morgoth's
Taint.
Christ: "Advent
Lyrics" - Carl Phelpstead
Comments by squire, June 14,
2007
It takes a while, but eventually this article
takes off. The first two or three paragraphs
seem to overlap, and it's still unclear to me
what the "Advent Lyrics" are: just the first
"Christ" poem, called Christ I, or all
three "Christ" poems, I, II, and III?
However, once Phelpstead gets going on the
meaning and interpretation of the famous couplet
about earendel, which so inspired Tolkien
that it became one of the centerpieces of his
Middle-earth mythological cycle, he really
soars. Tolkien's scholarship, which established
that the reference was to the Morning Star
(Venus), symbolizing John the Baptist who
heralded the arrival of Christ (the Sun), is
fascinating. Phelpstead ends with a quick note
of where the actual verse, not the character
Eärendil, is inserted into Tolkien's stories. A
final round-up of the critical literature does
no more than introduce the really excellent
'Further Reading' list.
As an erratum for some future revised
edition, Tolkien's thinly-fictionalized
self-description of his feelings on first
reading this line of the Christ poem is in 'The Notion Club Papers' in Sauron Defeated,
not The Shaping of Middle-earth.
Christian
Readings of Tolkien - Bradley J. Birzer
Comments by squire, February
13, 2007
This is a good example of the purpose of this
Encyclopedia. In my own efforts to keep up with
books that are published about Tolkien, I'd
noticed what seemed like a lot of recent books
with the "Christian reading" approach. Birzer
confirms my impression, saying that there has
been a "new wave" of such books since 1998. He
gives here an excellent review of the field,
going back to the beginning.
It is, perhaps, not surprising that in a
field like Tolkien studies he inevitably must
review his own book in the third person, but it
is unfortunate. It is also unacceptable not to
put all the books (and the unattributed
reviewer) he mentions into a "Further Reading"
column at the end.
With three articles on Tolkien and his
Catholic Christianity by Birzer, and one for
good measure by Pearce, it seems more than ever
a shame that the entire topic, considered
critically, symbolically, biographically, and
bibliographically, could not have been combined
into one convenient omnibus.
Comments by N.E. Brigand, January
17, 2008
This article’s missing bibliography is
especially troublesome for Birzer’s second
paragraph, where he writes that Edmund Fuller,
William Ready, and John Ryan “commented on
Tolkien’s faith in the 1960s in their own works”
– but he never gives their titles! He also
never provides the source for his quotation of
Tolkien in the first paragraph.
I wish Birzer had tried to explain why so few
religious studies on Tolkien were published for
more than a decade before 1998, when Joseph
Pearce’s Tolkien: Man and Myth appeared
and “inspired a whole new wave of Christian
evaluations of Tolkien”. Based on the repeated
references to the “Athrabeth Finrod ah Andreth”
in the Encyclopedia’s religious articles, I
would have guessed that the 1993 appearance of
that religious writing in Morgoth’s Ring
gradually came to the attention of
theology-minded scholars, but Pearce’s book, at
any rate, doesn’t cite that work.
On the other hand, Birzer does list a good
number of religious analyses of Tolkien, and
offers the beginnings of some evaluation of
their merits. I particularly appreciated his
observation that too few works look past The
Lord of the Rings.
Christianity - Bradley J. Birzer
Comments by squire, January
9, 2007
It is difficult not to compare this to its
twin article, "Catholicism, Roman" by the same
author. Especially since Birzer wrote both
articles, I don't think it's unfair to expect
the two to be rationally coordinated. But,
unfortunately, much of this article duplicates
the Catholicism one (or vice versa - it depends
which you read first, I suppose). Many of the
theological points and examples from Tolkien's
writings are identical in both pieces.
I might even speculate (from a protestant
perspective!) that Tolkien's view of Catholicism
was that the Roman church was
Christianity; and so the two should be identical
as far as our analysis of the effect of his
religion on his art is concerned!
If we depend on Birzer to prevent that
dubious substitution from taking over his two
articles, we are disappointed.
Comments by N.E. Brigand,
February 20, 2007
Taking my cue
from squire, I tackled this article before
examining “Catholicism, Roman”, to see if their
value, relative to each other, depended on
reading order. My first response after
finishing this article was that it was better
than squire described, a passable introduction
to the subject in three sections. Quoting from
Tolkien’s letters and interviews with others
(though he never identifies his sources), Birzer
begins by stressing the centrality of
Christianity in Tolkien’s life and its
expression in his works. Then he explains
Tolkien’s feelings toward Protestantism. Birzer
closes by reasserting the importance of
Christianity to Tolkien, supported by a long
quote from On Fairy-stories. It’s a bit
disjointed, but the parts are acceptable.
However, after
reading the “Catholicism” article, this one
seems a pointless reduction, especially in light
of Birzer’s comment here that “For Tolkien,
Christianity meant specifically Roman
Catholicism”. Given that fact, this article
should have been either cut in favor of the
Catholicism article, or focused more tightly on
Tolkien’s mixed feelings about other Christian
sects (and I’m not sure where that leaves the
“Church of England” article by Joseph Pearce).
Structured that
way, perhaps Birzer could have clarified his
assertion that, “When pushed on it, Tolkien
offered a broad-tent vision of Christianity.
But in the main, he held Protestants in low
regard”. Though Birzer offers examples of
Tolkien’s dissatisfaction with Protestantism,
what about Tolkien’s 1940s participation in an
Oxford ecumenical council, or the fact that he
named his third son for his friend Christopher
Wiseman, whose Methodist reverend father Tolkien
described as “one of the most delightful
Christian men I have met” (Letters, 395)?
Church of England
- Joseph Pearce
Comments by N.E. Brigand, March 18, 2007
On facing
encyclopedia pages, Bradley Birzer writing on
“Christianity” and Pearce here quote Tolkien’s
statement that Anglicanism was “a pathetic and
shadowy medley of half-remembered traditions and
mutilated beliefs”. Neither identifies the
source of that quote, which is p. 73 of
Carpenter’s biography; apparently Tolkien wrote
it in the early 1910s. There’s not much wrong
with this short article (though Mabel Tolkien
was 34 not 35 at her death) but as written,
there’s not much need for it, either; it covers
the same ground as several other articles. In
his comments on the conversions of Tolkien’s
mother and wife to Catholicism Pearce
paraphrases pp. 21 and 34-35 of his own book,
Tolkien: Man and Myth (without citation,
though it is the only work in his bibliography).
Comments by squire, March 18, 2007
Pearce should
be clearer on which of Mabel Tolkien's "Anglican
relatives" were her persecutors following her
conversion to Catholicism. A brief inspection of
the sources at hand shows me only that Tolkien
blamed Mabel's death on her relatives, who were
anti-Catholic Protestants of a number of
denominations, with no particular emphasis on
the C. of E.
The
Encyclopedia article on the Suffields mentions
only her father, who was a bigoted
Nonconformist, hardly an Anglican. Carpenter's
biography (which Pearce does not cite) is a
little more informative, naming Mabel's
brother-in-law as a proud Anglican. His wrath
seems to have been mostly directed at his wife
May, Mabel's sister, who converted to
Catholicism at the same time; but he did cut
Mabel off from some financial support he had
been giving her. Carpenter leaves unnamed "other
members of her family" who were hostile to
Mabel's conversion, while noting that many in
the Tolkien family were Baptists! Carpenter does
state that Mabel was married in the C. of E. and
had been attending a "high" Anglican church just
before converting, so plainly some in her and
her husband's immediate family were C. of E.!
(Have I missed somewhere a mention of Mabel's
mother's name and ancestry?)
More generally, the article suffers from too
tight a focus on Mabel. It is not extravagant to
speculate that J. R. R. Tolkien may have
absorbed prejudice against his faith in early
20th century England from other quarters than
his family memories; nor when measuring his
bitterness should we ignore the angry and
defensive Catholic doctrine about the C. of E.
that Tolkien was taught from a young age.
Carpenter places Tolkien's demand that his
fiancée Edith break cleanly and publicly with
the C. of E. in that context. If I understand
Carpenter, who does not quote specific letters,
Tolkien seems to have referred at that time to
his mother's persecution for becoming a
Catholic, not of her persecution by Anglican
relatives per se. Tolkien's letters (#83,
#306) from later in his life support this more
ideological rather than sentimental
interpretation, when we look for his feelings
toward the C. of E. specifically, as opposed to
Protestantism generally. That Pearce does not
cite these letters, easily found via the index,
is another indication of the weakness of this
piece.
Finally, as N.E. Brigand notes, why was this
article not merged with the one on Christianity?
Or, since Pearce treats the entire subject
entirely from a biographical angle, why not list
it in the thematic category for Tolkien's "Life"
rather than in "Theological/Philosophical
Concepts and Philosophers"? Although it might be
fun to try to make a case that schisms and
heresies in Tolkien's fiction always lead to
perdition, so that for instance Ar-Pharazon's
devil-worship can be read as "applicable" but
not "allegorical" to the Anglican faith!
Class in Tolkien’s Works – David
Oberhelman
Comments by
Jason Fisher, August 28, 2007
For its
brevity, this is an excellent
introduction to a large, complex
subject. The writing is clear and
engaging, the points well supported by
the authorities cited, and the arguments
logical and cogent. If I could have
wished for anything, it would just have
been more detail and more breadth. I’ll
just make two specific points here.
Oberhelman
points out that Tolkien’s “social
origins in Sarehole” seem to place him
at odds with his apparently
“conservative views on social class.”
Tom Shippey has written about this very
issue in, of all the unlikely places,
his review of Robert S. Blackham’s
The Roots of Tolkien’s Middle Earth
[sic], published in Tolkien Studies
4 (2007). I would add that another
variable in the equation of Tolkien’s
views on class might be his very early
childhood as a “rooinek” in South Africa
around the time of the Boer Wars. He
was, of course, too young to feel his
social position in colonial Africa at
the time; however, he must have had some
feelings about it later in life, no?
Second, had
Oberhelman been given a more generous
word count, I think he might have
extended the discussion beyond
Middle-earth and into other works by
Tolkien. Smith of Wootton Major,
Farmer Giles of Ham, even Mr.
Bliss, all reveal aspects of
Tolkien’s attitudes to social class and
hierarchy.
The
'Further Reading' section is very good.
Oberhelman even includes Marjorie
Burns’s paper from Marquette, 2004,
which has subsequently been printed in
the Proceedings of that
conference. The 'See also' is
also solid; I would only think of adding
“Aragorn”, “Childhood of Tolkien”,
“Heroes and Heroism”, and “World War I”.
Coghill, Nevill Henry Kendal Aylmer (1899-1980)
- Colin Duriez
Comments by squire, July 10, 2007
As with most Inklings articles, this covers a
bit more of Coghill's life than I feel I want to
know; on the other hand, Duriez seems to have
given us every kind of connection Coghill had
with Tolkien, so the problem is not misplaced
priorities so much as excessive verbiage. And we
do get some sense of his personality, always a
virtue in these uncountable Inklings pieces.
What I miss is any record of what he thought of
Tolkien's writings.
In lieu of that kind of focus, I found most
interesting the account of Coghill's avocation
as a director of Oxford theatrical productions
(the idea that he directed Burton and Taylor in
a 1966 film boggles the mind but Duriez breezes
right past that one), and as a popular reader of
medieval literature on the public radio. One
wonders if he had anything to do with Tolkien's
stints as a reader on the BBC, e.g. the 'Sir
Gawain' piece. More directly relevant, Tolkien
performed "as Chaucer" in summer entertainments
that Coghill arranged in the late 1930s. This
brings up the question of Tolkien's talents and
aptitudes in the realm of theatre, a subject
that in my opinion is far from fully explored in
the existing body of Tolkien criticism. But I
can't blame Duriez for ignoring that here.
The See also list is much too brief,
given all the names dropped in the article.
Start by adding "Dyson, Hugo", "Kolbítar", "Auden,
W. H.", "Book of Lost Tales II", and
"Williams, Charles". And why do C. T. Onions and
George (not E. V.) Gordon not have their own
articles?
Comments by N.E. Brigand,
December 20, 2007
A “Kolbítar” cross-reference would have allowed
Duriez to cut down his first paragraph, where he
lists six of the group’s members and their
college affiliations. He would then have had
room to expand a little on Coghill’s feelings
for Tolkien’s work (for example, Humphrey
Carpenter says he enjoyed The Hobbit –
see The Inklings, p. 135).
Although Carpenter’s J.R.R. Tolkien: A
Biography and The Inklings both
appear in Duriez’ bibliography, he sometimes
makes careless use of them: the opening
description of Coghill as “the younger son of an
Anglo-Irish baronet” comes verbatim from
Inklings (p. 256); and the claim that
Tolkien “modeled Treebeard’s manner [way] of
speaking (Hrum, Hroom) on the megaphonic
[booming] voice of C.S. Lewis” comes from
Biography (p. 198) with just two words
changed (I give them in brackets). The latter
comment is also misleadingly positioned,
appearing immediately before a reference to
Tolkien’s 1938-39 Chaucer presentations, which
occurred before Tolkien created the character of
Treebeard. Finally, when Duriez describes
Tolkien as “grieved” to be unable to contribute
to a festschrift for Coghill in 1965, and
notes Tolkien’s amusement at Coghill’s “adj.
[adjective] ‘hobbit-forming,’ applied to my
[his] books” (the brackets indicate Duriez’s
substitutions) he should but does not cite
Letters #275 and #319, respectively, and does
not use quotation marks for the latter remark.
Comments by
Jason Fisher,
December 30, 2007
There is one small addition
I would have liked to see in Duriez's otherwise
thorough entry. Nevill Coghill and Christopher
Tolkien together edited several of the
Canterbury Tales for publication: The
Pardoner's Tale (1958), The Nun's
Priest's Tale (1959), and The Man of
Law's Tale (1969).
Collecting – Anthony S. Burdge and
Jessica Burke
Comments by
Jason Fisher, March 3, 2007
This essay
bothers me. First of all, I can’t see
any reason to include it in the
Encyclopedia in the first place. Of what
relevance is it to the Encyclopedia’s
stated goal of representing “Scholarship
and Critical Assessment”? Second, it’s
light on substance. I was left thinking,
“So what?” And I’m a collector myself,
so that’s not a good sign. Third, it
really needed the hand of an editor. The
essay is loosely, vaguely, sometimes
poorly written. A few examples:
Finally,
why do we have a discussion of the
resources at Marquette? And what is the
relevance of Drout’s bibliographical
articles in the 'Further Reading'?
Comments by
squire, March 3, 2007
While Jason Fisher is correct that the
article is very badly written, I don't think a
study of the phenomenon of collecting
Tolkieniana is conceptually outside the scope of
the Encyclopedia. But where it belongs, I guess,
is inside the "Fandom" article, also by Burdge and
Burke.
Whether as a separate article, or in a larger
one, the focus should have been on a "Cultural
Studies" approach: an examination of which
groups of people have collected Tolkien over the
years, and why; how these particular fan or
bibliophile communities interact with other
groups with similar fan-type interests; and how
the corporate marketing arms of the publishing,
auction, and collectibles industries have
fostered and fed off the commercialization of J.
R. R. Tolkien.
Comments by N.E. Brigand,
December 30, 2007
I agree with squire that this subject needed to
be viewed from the perspective of both buyer and
seller. To that end, a See also
reference to the “Merchandising” article would
have been appropriate but is missing – by this
point, need I even note that the opposite is
also true?
Why does this article mention Marquette
University? Because as Burdge and Burke note,
that library holds a large collection, including
not only many Tolkien’s manuscripts but also a
great deal of secondary material. And Marquette
continues to collect: in July of 2006, its
archivist, Matt Blessing, reported at a Toronto
conference that Marquette had recently paid more
for newly-available letters written by Tolkien
than had been spent to acquire the manuscripts
for The Lord of the Rings. It is odd
that Burdge and Burke should mention Marquette’s
Gary Hunnewell collection of Tolkien fanzines
but not their similarly impressive Richard
Blackwelder or Grace Funk collections of
Tolkiena.
Likewise I think Drout’s bibliographies are
listed simply as recent guides to the
(collectible) secondary literature on Tolkien.
A correction: in their list of significant
scholarly publications sought by Tolkien
collectors, Burdge and Burke include “Medium
Aevum (1940-59)”. The date range should
probably be extended back to 1932, when Tolkien
helped start, and then contributed the first
part of “Sigelwara Land” to, that journal.
Colors
– Victor Parker
Comments by
Jason Fisher, August 28, 2007
This entry
is interesting, if somewhat arbitrary,
and for the most part well put together,
but I find it strangely indecisive. It
often second-guesses itself, leaving the
reader wondering what, if any,
conclusions it has actually drawn:
“Tolkien often avails himself of this
association unproblematically” versus
“yet one must not suppose that Tolkien
employs such symbolism methodically”,
and the like. In fact, these quotations
also demonstrate how overburdened with
tedious, top-heavy diction the entry is.
Some
additional quibbles and questions:
Parker
asserts that “when Saruman falls from
grace, his erstwhile white garments
become multihued,” which makes it sound
as if Saruman himself had no part to
play in that. Rather, the change in
color is by Saruman’s own volition, and
he does not see it as the
“diminution” of “unbroken light” that
Parker (and readers) may deem it.
I like
Parker’s mention of the medieval poem,
Pearl, in connection with white;
why doesn’t he mention Sir Gawain and
the Green Knight in connection with
green? A missed opportunity. Instead, we
get the strange equation:
“Middle-earth’s Elessar corresponds to
the divinely lit Silmarils as the green
grass of Rohan does to the sunlight.”
I’m not really sure exactly what Parker
means to say by this – or whether the
analogy is accurate.
The
'Further Reading', while it looks
impressive, is perhaps too narrow and
arcane. At least three, and it could be
as many as five, out of the eight
references are in languages other than
English, which was specifically
proscribed in the contributors’
guidelines. Two of these are obviously
encyclopedia entries, as they share the
same title, “Farbe” [German “Color”].
And only one of the eight
pertains directly to Tolkien. Was there
really nothing else Parker could find?
The See
also is awfully short. Parker ought
to have included “Mountains”, “Rings of
Power”, and “Wizards” – each with their
associated colors – as well as
“Arkenstone”, “Darkness”, “Light”, and
“Phial”.
Comedy
- Christopher Garbowski
Comments by squire, July 10,
2007
I'm not exactly sure of the difference
between "Comedy" and "Humor", but the
Encyclopedia's editors must be, or they would
not have assigned two different articles on
these subjects. Garbowski might well have
defined his terms at the beginning, since I
would guess most readers these days assume
comedy = humor.
Still, he seems to stick mostly to terms of
style here rather than effect. He starts to look
for "comedy' in Tolkien using what I believe is
the classic Aristotelian meaning of the term: a
drama with a happy ending (i.e., where the hero
doesn't die). On these grounds he dismisses
The Silmarillion without a second thought,
but it is unfortunate on a number of levels that
he equally ignores The Hobbit, Tolkien's
comic masterpiece, as being only a "children's
story".
He next agrees with Rosebury that The Lord
of the Rings is comedic - a point of view
that is arguable, but by no means as obvious as
he suggests. Other critics might well disagree
that Middle-earth is "ultimately benign".
At this point he changes tack slightly, and
moves on to more modern terms of discourse,
where comedy connotes a lightness of tone that
relieves a too-serious story, and shows that (of
course) the hobbits perform this function in
LotR. The rest of the article is a
well-conducted analysis of this aspect of
Tolkien's epic. Although Garbowski
conscientiously tries to square the resulting
circle with a series of qualifications, at this
point I began to wonder how successfully he was
balancing his claim that Tolkien could not
afford any irony that might prick the
believability of his secondary world, with the
seemingly ironic role of the hobbits (except
Frodo) as comic relief to the "high tone" and
"utmost seriousness" of Middle-earth.
Communism - Hal G. P. Colebatch
Comments by squire - July 10,
2007
There are some good points of criticism here,
but in general the article wanders too much
between equating Communism with the
totalitarianism of Stalin's USSR, and the more
wide-ranging theories of the Left, both
political and literary, in the West. Likewise
there is some confusion between Tolkien's own
opinion of Communism, and the presumed
commentaries on it that might be found in his
epic The Lord of the Rings.
Colebatch is on solid ground in
pointing out Tolkien's love of religion,
splendor, display, and hierarchy (all
antithetical to classic Marxist-Leninism). He
might however also have taken more note of his own
apologies for Attlee's anti-Soviet socialism,
which seem to dilute the definition of
"Communism" in this article to
critical near-uselessness. Like the "Industrialism" article
did, he might then have concluded that Tolkien
was as much anti-industrial and anti-modern,
whether Capitalist or Communist or Nazi, as he
was some kind of orthodox "anti-Communist".
Comments by N.E. Brigand,
December 30, 2007
Colebatch feels Sauron’s despotism resembles
“Stalinist Communism”, and though he notes
generally that “Tolkien strongly denied his
stories were allegory”, he ought to have more
specifically noted Tolkien’s rejection of
Saruman as stand-in for the U.S.S.R., in his
foreword to the second edition of The Lord of
the Rings.
And whatever the “adversary culture” is, I’m not
sure its nature was really the cause of the
Beatles’ failure to film The Lord of the
Rings. If Colebatch wanted to head down
that road in this entry, he should have
mentioned the Beatles’ doubts about communism
(“But if you go carrying pictures of Chairman
Mao / You ain’t gonna make it with anyone
anyhow.”) For that matter, the Beatles were not
opposed to pageantry, and Tolkien himself saw
“admirable motives” in “the behaviour of modern
youth” of 1968, including “anti-drabness, a sort
of romantic longing for ‘cavaliers’” (Letters,
p. 393).
Criticism of Tolkien, Twentieth Century - Jared
Lobdell
Comments by
squire, November 15, 2006
This article suffers from an atrocious and
self-indulgent style featuring innumerably
parenthesized asides and a general sense that
the writer is talking to himself and himself
only. This is reinforced by the citations: three
of the four are to his own work.
Lobdell chooses to restrict his article to
surveying criticism of Tolkien by non-"Tolkien
specialists" (so called "mainstream" critics).
He then declares that criticism of Tolkien
must be negative until the critic has become
familiar enough with the material to understand
it, at which point the critic has become a
"Tolkien critic" or "interested party" and so
can no longer be included in this article!
Lobdell seems to feel this paradox excuses him
from having to cite or analyze any of the
criticism he is ostensibly writing an
Encyclopedia article about.
By the end, he has *poof!* argued his own
article out of existence.
Comments by N. E. Brigand,
November 13, 2006
Harold Bloom
and Isaac Asimov both tried their hands at
Tolkien criticism—Bloom as a critic and
anthologist of criticism and scholarship (and
self-proclaimed polymath and expert) and Asimov,
of course, as a self-proclaimed polymath and
expert.
This paragraph could be entirely omitted in
favor of using actual quotes from Bloom and
Asimov below.
Bloom
decided Edwin Muir was the best (partly)
favorable critic of Tolkien (he himself not
caring for the author or the book he was
compiling commentaries on).
I think Bloom edited two anthologies of Tolkien
criticism -- one on Tolkien and one on
LotR -- and
contributed a short introduction to each. Both
are part of general series of anthologies on
English literature -- so Bloom may have been
stuck with a list of titles and authors not
entirely of his choosing. In one of those
introductions, Bloom cites Roger Sale as
Tolkien's best critic -- perhaps he cites Muir
in the other?
Asimov, of
course, did not need (or need to quote) anyone’s
opinion but his own.
There is no direct quotation in Lobdell's
article; and his bibliography includes no
citation of Bloom or Asimov, so it's pretty
shabby for him to be chiding Asimov on this
point. Perhaps we could track down Asimov and
Bloom's criticism of Tolkien in one of the three
works by Lobdell himself that appear in his
bibliography.
Bloom’s views
count as criticism of Tolkien (though he came
late to the gate);
Waste of a sentence: why not tell us what Bloom
said?
Asimov’s
most-quoted comments on Tolkien were (he said) a
commentary on the symbolism of the One Ring and
(I believe) a claim that modernity (or perhaps
the modern world) wasn’t all bad. But Tolkien
never said it was, and there’s a world of
difference between “not all bad” (which Tolkien
could have agreed with) and (in the vernacular)
“not all that bad” (which he would not have, if
ever he would have accepted the phrase long
enough to consider it).
What!? Why not summarize, then uphold or refute
Asimov's comments on symbolism? Why not
indicate which of Tolkien's comments on
modernity Asimov was responding to? Why argue
"not all bad" isn't the same thing as "not all
that bad" when neither is sourced to either
Tolkien or Asimov?
It could be
said, fundamentally, that no “mainstream critic”
appreciated The Lord of the Rings
or indeed was in a position to write criticism
on it—most being unsure what it was and why
readers liked it (not to say loved it, doted on
it, used it as a lens through which to view the
world).
But W.H. Auden liked
LotR, as
Lobdell himself mentioned earlier in the
article. As we have seen this week, so did
Burton Raffel. And Roger Sale, whom I mentioned
above, had mixed feelings but responded very
warmly to the portrayal of Frodo's journey.*
Brian Aldiss
was a critic of fantasy and science fiction—thus
not a mainstream critic because not a critic of
mainstream literature—but he was a critic
recognized by some mainstream critics and his
comparison of Tolkien with P. G. Wodehouse
echoes Colin Wilson.
This sentence goes in circles, wasting many
words. How about:
"Brian Aldiss, better-known for reviewing
fantasy and science fiction but respected by
mainstream critics, echoes Colin Wilson in his
comparison of Tolkien with Wodehouse."
That went from 43 words to 25, giving Lobdell
18 words to actually quote Aldiss or someone
else.
*The Wikipedia entry on Roger Sale includes
this comment:
Sale is also credited with being among the
first literary critics to seriously discuss
the work of J.R.R. Tolkien (which had been
largely dismissed as 'juvenile' and unworthy
of analysis by most prominent critics, most
notably Lionel Trilling).
Cruces in Medieval Literature - Tom Shippey
Comments by
squire, March 5, 2007
Shippey segues neatly from the general idea
of the 'crux' as the single most interesting problem
in interpreting a difficult medieval text, to
several specific instances of 'cruces' -- Wood-wose,
Gandalf, dragon-spell, Searu-man -- that
Tolkien tackled and solved in ways that informed his fiction.
Segues too neatly, I'd say. Shippey almost
seems to be implying that a general
characteristic of solving a crux in Medieval
scholarship is that it be incorporated into a
fictional mythology! His passing mention of
Tolkien's more conventional work on Exodus
is overwhelmed by his succeeding examples that
feature The Lord of the Rings and The
Hobbit.
As fascinating as the presentation is, I am
left with two questions: how accepted by his
peers were the latter solutions of Tolkien's, appearing as
they did in his fantasy literature rather than
in more regular academic guise? And more
generally, how does the scholarly community
acknowledge a proposed solution to a crux as
correct, if the exercise is as speculative as
Shippey seems to imply?
Comments by N.E. Brigand,
December 30, 2007
Has Shippey exhausted this method of research
into Tolkien’s fiction? He pioneered the
approach in The Road to Middle-earth
(1982), which is the only Tolkien scholarship in
this article’s ‘Further Reading’ list.
Cynewulf - Christina M. Heckman
Comments by squire, July 11,
2007
Since every one of the works attributed to,
or said to be influenced by, Cynewulf that has
relevance to Tolkien's professional and
fictional work, has an article of its own; and
since Cynewulf as a person seems only to exist
as a name cryptically signed in runes to several
Anglo-Saxon poems, anyone who has read the other
articles has to wonder what this one is bringing
to the party.
It is not reassuring to read in "Christ:
Advent Lyrics" that Cynewulf is no longer
believed to be the author of Christ I,
the poem in which the famous 'Earendel' couplet
appears. This article's main point of interest,
unfortunately, is the idea that Cynewulf wrote
it.