Taniquetil -
Jason Fisher
Comments by N.E. Brigand, April 3, 2007
In a solid
article, Fisher describes the geography of
Tolkien’s original holy mountain, gives a
history of its appearance in Tolkien’s work,
explains the meaning of its names, notes its
real world analogues, and relates Tolkien’s own
repetition of its imagery with lesser sacred
pinnacles (though to Fisher’s list I would add
the Silvertine, where Gandalf’s mission was
“taken up” by “Authority” [Letter #156], and
Halifirien, whose name is Old English for “holy
mountain”).
Comments by squire, April 3, 2007
Fisher's fine analysis slackens in the last
paragraph, with his comment about Taniquetil's
"diminishing afterimages" in Middle-earth. While
I agree that Taniquetil is the ur-mountain
of Tolkien's legendarium, its afterimages that
Tolkien envisioned again and again are complex
and multidimensional. They should not be reduced
to a quick list to round off a short essay --
especially a list that mixes up explicitly
hallowed peaks (Mindolluin, Menaltarma),
visually striking but not particularly sacred
peaks (Mount Taras), and manmade towers (Elostirion,
Barad-dur).
The relationship of towers to mountains in
Tolkien's works is an entire essay in itself.
Sticking for the moment to mountains,
Taniquetil's symbolism as an intersection of
earth and heaven, or mind and sight and hearing,
can been seen in less obvious but more
explicitly potent heights in The Lord of the
Rings, such as Weathertop, Amon Hen and Amon
Lhaw, and Zirak-zigil.
Fisher's perceptive comment about Barad-dûr
with Sauron's all-seeing Eye is good. But in the
world of the Silmarillion where Taniquetil and
the Valar are more present in the story, we
might think instead of Thangorodrim, where Húrin
was made to sit in all-seeing witness to
Morgoth's evil designs: an obvious burlesque of
Taniquetil, where Manwe and Varda see and hear
all the world's sufferings.
Tavrobel (or Tathrobel) - Michael W. Perry
Comments by squire, January
31, 2007
This brief account of the
Elvish settlement on Tol Eressea where the Lost Tales
were composed
seems to get in most of the basic facts, but suffers
from a fairly casual style and organization.
Without claiming a complete
knowledge of the early HoME volumes, I
think at some point in Tolkien's ever-changing
reconception of the frame-narrative of his
mythology, Tavrobel becomes the home of the
scholar Pengolod after the fall of Gondolin, and
he is the one who writes the Elvish histories in
the Golden Book, so that Eriol/Ælfwine becomes a
translator, not a transcriber.
It could be made clearer what
sequence of houses and villages Tolkien occupied
during the 1916-17 period, so that the suggested
parallels between his own lodgings where he
wrote The Book of Lost Tales, and the
House of a Hundred Chimneys where Eriol and/or
Pengolod stayed, would make better sense.
I recently discovered that
Hammond and Scull in Tolkien: Artist and
Illustrator propose one of the houses that
the Tolkiens actually stayed in, rather than the
great house at Shugborough, as an inspiration
for the House of a Hundred Chimneys.
Finally, it seems idle to
speculate what Tolkien did or didn't notice
about the parallel between the Irish monasteries
and his fictional Tavrobel as places where
ancient books lingered to be rediscovered ages
later. He may well have intended the parallel to
be picked up by his readers without his aid.
If, as Perry's bibliography
suggests, only Flieger has commented on the
meaning of Tavrobel and its relation to
Tolkien's later device of the "Red Book of
Westmarch" as the vehicle for the transmission
of The Lord of the Rings, it just goes to
show how much critical work is still to be done
in reading and commenting on The Book of Lost
Tales.
It's good that the re-use of
the name Tavrobel in the later versions of the
Túrin saga is noted, though space constraints
seem to have limited any further explanation
beyond Christopher Tolkien's speculative
comment.
Comments by N.E. Brigand, January
5, 2008
Perry never mentions Tolkien’s poem, “An Evening
in Tavrobel”, published in Leeds University
Verse 1914–1924. The poem is mentioned in
the article on that collection and described in
the entry, “Poems by Tolkien: Uncollected”, but
none of the three articles refers to either of
the others, and the index listing for “Tavrobel”
leads only to this entry and that on “Great
Haywood”.
T.C.B.S. (Tea Club and
Barrovian Society) - John Garth
Comments by squire,
March 28, 2007
Here is an excellent summary of the story of
Tolkien's boyhood circle of artistic friends,
given by the expert Tolkien biographer Garth. It
is a very familiar story indeed to those who
have read Garth's sources: his own book and
Carpenter's biography. Garth carefully conveys
the TCBS's own high estimation of itself, not
his own.
It is perhaps too early to expect more in the
context of Tolkien studies. Yet I am always put
off by Tolkien's early poetry. I shouldn't
wonder that the first idealistic
achievements of his and his friends' youth, cut
off too soon by the war, acquired an elegiac
permanence in Tolkien's mind that transcended
their worth, and so has been conveyed inevitably
to his biographers. The death of a thousand
TCBS's among the educated men of England and the
other Powers in the Great War must have been a
commonplace of that time. Yet what was their
future anyway, after maturity extended its heavy
hand? The geniuses that survived to create great
works of art in later life, like Tolkien, were
perhaps no rarer than in more peaceful times,
and what they survived was not so much the War,
as adulthood.
Technological Subcultures: Reception of Tolkien
- Lisa L. Spangenberg
Comments by N.E. Brigand, April 2, 2007
This is a
fascinating look at a world unknown to me.
Spangenberg explains how Tolkien’s work caught
on with computer programmers (“hackers”) in the
1960s, she lists a number of examples of his
influence in that realm, and she offers some
useful advice regarding computer passwords.
I would like
some clarification on the chronology of
Tolkien’s effect on the likes of the Stanford
Artificial Intelligence Lab, ARPANET, and the
Perl scripting language; apart from her last
paragraph (a catch-all on dormitories,
asteroids, and a film-inspired prank), the only
dates in Spangenberg’s history are the 1965
appearance of LotR in paperback and the
“Great Worm” computer virus of 1988.
How has the
Tolkien interest among hackers fed back into
other Tolkiena? Spangenberg includes a pointer
to the “Gaming” entry in her See also
list, but what about connections to other fan
responses? Since she writes that hackers were
drawn to Tolkien particularly for his detailed
subcreation and his artificial languages, has
the computer subculture affected Tolkien
fanfiction, art, “Middle-earth studies”, or
scholarship of Tolkien’s languages?
Comments by squire, April 3,
2007
N. E. Brigand has touched on the most
interesting aspect of this subject, which
Spangenberg barely investigates: what is it
about Tolkien and dweebs, nerds, wonks, geeks,
and dorks? No one could be more
anti-"technological" than Tolkien, yet his
imaginary proto-medieval magical world
captivated the obsessive, super-logical, highly
analytical minds of computer programmers from
the start.
Spangenberg has done some fine research here
into some of the episodes that highlight this
seemingly strange conjunction. But I wonder that
in some Cultural Studies field no one has yet
embarked on a serious inquiry into the appeal of
Middle-earth (and related cultic fantasy and
sci-fi realms) to the so-called "technological
subculture". For instance, are philologists (c.
1870-1950) and computer programmers (c.
1950-200?) similar personality types?
It would also be interesting to me to learn
if any of Tolkien's works besides The Lord of
the Rings has really had an impact on the
computer guys. Spangenberg tries to connect
Tolkien's term "Great Worm" (Glaurung from
The Silmarillion) to the so-called "Great
Worm" internet virus of 1988 - but I wonder if
that might not come from Dune, instead?
Technology
in Middle-earth - Shana Worthen
Comments by squire,
February 27, 2007
From beginning to end this article reads
like a collision of a History of Technology
textbook and the Dummies' Guide to
Middle-earth.
A variety of sentences cribbed from academic
surveys on the subject, randomly conjoined
with clumsy examples from Tolkien's stories,
show an almost total lack of understanding
of what technology meant to Tolkien, and
makes the entire thing into an exercise in
absurdity. (The Elves "capture the light of
a star in a bottle" - enough said.)
Technology as a concept may be used to
analyze Tolkien's imagined worlds, but for
starters it would be well to remember that
the word itself was not common even in
Tolkien's time. Strictly, the whole point of
technology is that it is a scientific
and methodical approach to making
tools. That is a very new concept. Tools
have been made by men from the beginning,
but always in an ad-hoc and undirected way.
To apply the rules of science (propose,
test, verify, refine, mass-produce) to the
process of invention was not a
characteristic of medieval or ancient minds,
even the minds of the very intelligent and
skilled engineers and artisans of those
times. In Worthen's defense, here she is
only following the lead of a host of
ambitious historians of science, anxious to
project contemporary scientific modes of
thought back through the ages.
Definitions aside, I would take "technology"
in Tolkien to stand for industrial
mechanization. As such, Worthen's odd
examples of technology in the lands of the
Free Peoples are somewhat bizarre: mushroom
picking, making wastepaper baskets, and
using center-hall hearths are not examples
of a certain level of technology, but
examples of the absence of technology. She
is of course more correct in seeing
technology in Isengard, Mordor, and the
Shire under Sharkey's rule, since in
Tolkien's world technology is essentially
evil.
Unfortunately, she obscures this obvious
dichotomy in her determined effort to show
that each race in Middle-earth is defined by
its particular "technology".
Comments by N.E. Brigand,
April 2, 2007
My 1964
printing of Webster’s defines technology
as “the science or study of the practical or
industrial arts”, whereas
wikipedia (at the moment) gives “the
relationship that society has with its tools
and crafts”, a definition that jibes with
Worthen’s explanation that technology
concerns all “tools and techniques”.
Tolkien probably would have disputed that
interpretation – does the word “technology”
even appear in his writings? – but in the
twenty-first century, I’m willing to grant
Worthen her subject, as a replacement for
separate entries on tools, crafts, and the
applied sciences as portrayed in Tolkien’s
fiction.
It’s a big
topic, though. And it’s a shame Worthen is
limited to “Middle-earth” because Verlyn
Flieger’s 2005 edition of Smith of
Wootton Major includes a long essay by
Tolkien in which he offers some fascinating
comments on craftsmanship. (In fact,
Worthen limits herself to the Middle-earth
of LotR: for example, dwarves are
described as being, following a decline,
“still competent miners”.)
So defined,
Worthen still falls short with this
article. Her
introduction includes the dubious
proposition that good and evil uses of
technology differ “in ends, not means” –
doesn’t Tolkien mean the Ring to be a
refutation of that idea?
Following
her introduction, she simply provides one
paragraph each on the technology of Hobbits,
Men, Elves, Dwarves, Ents, Wizards, and
Orcs, in which a few examples are connected
to real-world technological history: so
Gandalf’s fireworks date to ninth-century
China, and the open hearths of Rohan were
antiquated in Europe by the fourteenth
century.
Her
comments on individual races include
needless speculation, overgeneralization,
and unsubstantiated claims. What point is
there in specifying that bells in Rivendell
and Minas Tirith “may or may not be
mechanically regulated; the author does not
say”? Do all Tolkien’s men really “live in
fortified cities and rely on agricultural
trades for their subsistence and income”?
Where are the “large castles” built by orcs?
More
importantly, Worthen never gets past the
most elementary analysis of her topic. She
notes that “hobbits possess some of the most
recent technologies in Middle-earth”
including umbrellas, wastepaper baskets, and
mechanical clocks
,
but how does she know that technology
developed in Middle-earth exactly as in the
real world?
She then says that this contrasts with their
pastoral lifestyle, and comments that the
existence of a postal service and museum
indicate “a systematically-organized civic
body”.
But she
never asks: what do these contrasting
elements tell us about hobbits? Why did
Tolkien portray them in this way? Likewise
for the other peoples she describes. And
what are the larger patterns in Tolkien’s
presentation of technology, and what
does that mean for the story?
Television: U.S. Coverage - Anthony Burdge
and Jessica Burke
Comments by N.E. Brigand,
April 2, 2007
The first half of this article touches on
TV-related subjects that are
covered elsewhere in the Encyclopedia.
The
animated cartoons of The Hobbit and
The Return of the King are discussed
in the article on "Rankin-Bass Productions,
Inc." There are also articles on unfilmed
LotR adaptations, Ralph Bakshi’s
LotR film, and Tolkien’s 1960s reception
in the U.S.
As Burdge and Burke note, Tolkien was
interviewed for the BBC in 1968, but never
for American television. Then there
comes an
exaggerated claim that “Tolkien fans waited
for two decades [after 1980] to have his
name mentioned on American television”
-- as one counter-example, the incomplete
fan
archive for the Jeopardy quiz
show lists 16 references to Tolkien on that
one program just between 1990 and 1999.
Only on
reaching the year 2000 do Burdge and Burke
turn to their real subject: TV coverage
afforded Tolkien because of Peter Jackson’s
films. They write that Jackson’s films have
brought more fans to Tolkien (“particularly
[by] airing on cable television” – no source
is given for that claim). But although it
lists some titles, this article’s purpose
seems to be to steer readers away from most
of the film-inspired TV programs, because
Tolkien gets short shrift. The exception
are two National Geographic
documentaries, applauded for investigating
“what may have inspired Tolkien to write his
tales of Middle-earth”. That sounds like
faint praise: how do these studies compare
to printed Tolkien scholarship?
Comments by squire, April 3,
2007
This really does seem like an article
looking for a subject. "Coverage" in TV
terms implies an ongoing story. Tolkien is
not a story. Burdge and Burke document a
series of unconnected programs, mostly
oriented toward film treatments. The upshot
is that American TV "coverage" of Tolkien
himself has been almost nil, but has rather
focused on promoting entertaining
adaptations of his stories. Anyone
with a knowledge of American television would say, "And what
exactly did you expect? The Tom Shippey
Hour, Tuesdays at 8 (7 Central)?"
It is idle to compare whatever attention
Tolkien may have gotten on the air with
"printed Tolkien scholarship". However,
since
the two 2002-03 National Geographic
specials named are the best that Burdge and
Burke can offer as "coverage" of Tolkien (as
opposed to films of his work), it would have
been nice to get a more detailed analysis of
just how Tolkien was presented to the mass
TV audience.
Tertullian -
John Walsh
Comments by N.E. Brigand,
March 21, 2007
This entry
is meant to be complementary to William
Smith’s article on Alcuin. Tertullian
asked, “What does Athens have to do with
Jerusalem?”, an attack on classical legends
that Alcuin echoed six centuries later with
“What does Ingeld have to do with Christ?”,
in a screed against Northern mythology.
Tolkien discusses Alcuin’s query in his
Beowulf lectures, the subject of Smith’s
article. Walsh tackles the question as it
applies to The Lord of the Rings. In
this, he follows Tom Shippey, who in both
The Road to Middle-earth and J.R.R.
Tolkien: Author of the Century proposes
LotR as a mediation of Christian and
pagan ideals, though Walsh never refers to
Shippey.
Did Tolkien
ever mention Tertullian? Walsh quickly
drops him in favor of Alcuin, and working
from Tolkien’s lecture, seizes on a
reference to Ingeld’s story as “chiefly
interesting as an episode in a larger theme”
to make a underdeveloped connection between
Beowulf, Christ, Frodo and Ingeld as heroes
of stories built on a larger history. Then
he observes that LotR includes both
pagan and Christian elements, mercy
preeminent among the latter, and concludes
by overreaching in describing Gandalf’s
sacrifice and rebirth as “the same as
Christ’s Harrowing of Hell and
resurrection”.
There is no
See also list, which should refer at
least to Alcuin, Beowulf and the Critics,
“Beowulf: The Monsters and the
Critics”, Frodo, and Mercy.
Textual History: Errors and
Emendations - David D. Oberhelman
Comments by Jason Fisher,
October 9, 2007
Judging by Oberhelman’s essay, the title
perhaps ought to have stipulated that its
scope is limited to The Lord of the Rings.
I can see why Oberhelman made this choice;
however, I would have liked to see the
discussion expanded to cover at least The
Hobbit, also, had the space been
allowed. The material here is good,
judiciously selected, and well summarized,
even if the subject is a bit dry.
The 'Further Reading' is perfectly
sufficient, but one wonders whether there
might be more out there. In the See also,
“Tolkien, Christopher” should read “Tolkien,
Christopher Reuel”. I would also have
expected to see cross-references to those
volumes of The History of Middle-earth
that specifically treat with The Lord of
the Rings.
Textuality - Gergely Nagy
Comments by N.E. Brigand,
April 2, 2007
Nagy opens
by writing that his subject is
“[n]otoriously difficult to define”, and
indeed this article is full of slippery
abstractions. More specifics would help
non-theorists like myself. What I could
understand is interesting, but I am left
with many questions:
I think
that Nagy is right to note that “Tolkien’s
texts are nearly always claimed to be texts
inside his fictitious world” –though some
examples would be helpful here– but is he
right that Tolkien’s texts are “largely
about how texts and stories told in them are
used by cultures and individuals”? Is
LotR “largely” about the use of texts?
Is Nagy
correct to cite pp. 308-17 of Tom Shippey’s
The Road to Middle-earth (3rd
edition) in support of the idea that
Tolkien’s use of a “whole complex of variant
texts” to suggest depth, “most notably” in
LotR? Shippey’s intention in those
ten fascinating pages, if I follow him
correctly, is to relate Tolkien’s multiple
versions of the story of Beren and Lúthien
to the various real-world retellings of the
Völsungasaga, to show how Tolkien was
attempting to create depth in a different
way than he had achieved it in LotR
(where his usual method was to refer to
older tales, not to retell the story of
LotR – though there are exceptions, like
the poems describing the ride of the
Rohirrim, and Sam’s speculation on the steps
of Cirith Ungol).
What does
Nagy mean when, citing work by Verlyn
Flieger and himself, he writes that “it is
always the individual variant … of the story
that criticism examines”? Does he mean that
criticism should examine only
individual variants of multi-textual
stories? Or that it cannot help but do so,
that it is impossible to examine multiple
variants?
Nagy refers
to “Tolkien’s focus on the written text as
the only appropriate medium in which the
creation of a world can be performed” – what
are the alternatives that Tolkien rejected?
And what about the creation of our world?
Tolkien’s
“insistence on texts as artifacts”, Nagy
claims, includes “his painstakingly
constructing a few pages from the Book of
Mazarbul” – how does the fact that those
pages are runic transcriptions of English
affect their status as fictional artifacts?
Finally, I
return to my request for specificity:
couldn’t Nagy have explained why his subject
matters in more concrete terms than that it
leads to “important theoretical
considerations about the different
discourses of culture (such as history,
theology, economics, politics, etc.),
observable in these texts [that] shape a
representation of any world”? Just one
example of how Tolkien’s textual efforts
bears on “history, theology, economics,
politics” would make this article much
clearer.
Theoden -
Hilary Wynne
Comments by N.E. Brigand,
April 2, 2007
The first
two-thirds of Wynne’s article relates
Théoden’s life as if told by a later
historian. There’s no point in providing
readers with the names of Théoden’s parents,
or listing the dates he and his father
reigned, or writing that “He lay in state in
Gondor before being borne back to Rohan to
be laid to rest”, especially if no
significance is attached to these facts.
Wynne’s approach also doesn’t fit well with
her eventual comments on Théoden as a
literary character (which follow a too long
explanation of the Old English meaning of
his name). Wynne’s comparison between
Théoden and Denethor is good but familiar,
and given without attribution; the entry has
no bibliography. So also her remark on the
archetypal nature of Théoden’s renewal “has
often been” made before, she says, but not
by whom. Wynne concludes by noting, at too
little length, the power of two of Théoden’s
scenes. One of them is his cry Arise
now, arise, Riders of Théoden! from “The
King of the Golden Hall”; however, at that
point he brandishes not his own sword (as
Wynne claims) but Éomer’s.
(An editing
oddity: Théoden is stripped of his
diacritical mark in the title and throughout
the article, though the name is spelled
correctly in Wynne’s “Éomer” article and
elsewhere in the encyclopedia.)
Theological
and Moral Approaches in Tolkien's Works -
Matthew Dickerson
Comments by squire,
April 1, 2007
Dickerson proves mostly true to his
commission. He does not just cover The
Lord of the Rings, but considers the
underlying theological and moral axioms in
much of Tolkien's fantastic fiction,
including Leaf by Niggle, Smith of
Wootton Major, and the "Ainulindalë"
and "Valaquenta" in The Silmarillion.
His essay on a difficult topic is clear and
well-organized. His 'Further Reading' list
is excellent.
But he essentially skips the "Quenta
Silmarillion" in The Silmarillion.
That consciously mythic set of legends,
written in the 'heigh style', as Tolkien put
it, should definitely have been checked
against Dickerson's list of Tolkien's
"theological and moral approaches": a
monotheistic mythology with a messianic
Christ figure; emphasis on moral rather than
military heroism; an objective morality
established by God, with forgiveness only
possible through grace; an actively involved
Creator who responds to prayer.
Whether Dickerson's list covers the
Silmarillion or not (and to me, checking
off the list above, it raises fascinating
points of similarity and difference
between Sil and LotR), we as
Dickerson's readers should not have to be
doing this. LotR is a "late" work of
Tolkien's, compared to the Sil, and
though it is certainly his most mature work,
he did actually spend most of his life on
creating the Sil as a coherent work
of mythology. LotR's 10-14 years of
composition are only a fraction of that
period. No discussion of "Tolkien's Works"
can ever ignore the Silmarillion cycle
without inviting a certain level of scorn.
I'm not even going to mention The Hobbit.
I will, however, close with a mini-rant that
the following article "Theology in The
Lord of the Rings" by Cath Filmer-Davis
cannot help but revisit much of Dickerson's
ground here. Dickerson's article is listed
in the Thematic category "Literature";
Filmer-Davis's is in the "Themes and
Thematic Elements" category. What's up with
that? Why? Why? Why?
Theology in The Lord of the Rings - Cath
Filmer-Davies
Comments by Entwife Wandlimb,
January 21, 2007
Cath Filmer-Davies wrote “Theology in The
Lord of the Rings,” a one-sided entry
lacking supporting references. She compares
the imagery and plot of LotR to a Roman
Catholic view of life as a pilgrimage.
Regrettably, she does not support this view
with the works of any other writers. Her
one citation outside of LotR is from
Carpenter’s biography, quoting Tolkien as
saying “I dislike allegory wherever I smell
it.” Is she unknowingly contradicting
Tolkien again when she insists that
Galadriel symbolizes “the church in its
feminine aspect of ‘the bride of Christ’…not
the Virgin Mary”? Perhaps she hasn’t read
Letters, where Tolkien compares
Galadriel to Mary three times. It is
neither cited nor listed under further
reading. She also asserts “Elves seem to
fulfill an ecclesiastical role in function
if not in social structure and ceremony.”
An interesting notion, but it does not
reference any other work and her next
statement compares the elves to the Church,
not the clergy.
On a petty note, she refers to Gollum as
“the Gollum” three times. The only time she
doesn’t use the
definite article
before his name is when quoting Gandalf’s
words in RotK.
Her
Further Reading list is anemic:
“Roman Catholicism” in The New
International Dictionary of the Christian
Church and Carpenter’s biography. There
is no “See also” list.
Comments by
N.E. Brigand, April 2, 2007
Filmer-Davies
isn’t contradicting herself, as Entwife
Wandlimb suggests: she is trying to show
that despite Tolkien’s claims, “there is a
decided element of allegory” in LotR.
It’s curious that this article, like the
preceding one by Matthew Dickerson, opens by
acknowledging Tolkien’s distaste for
allegory (Dickerson is much stronger in his
separation of allegory from implication).
And why did Filmer-Davies feel it was
necessary to specify that she didn’t mean
allegory “in the sense of portraying
political events”?
She follows
this introduction with a helpful summary
(for me) of the Catholic doctrines
concerning original sin, grace, and the
sacraments, at the conclusion of which she
lays out the argument she will be making in
the rest of her article: the story of
LotR represents, in Catholic terms, a
life’s journey.
But
immediately Filmer-Davies falters, when she
claims that “[t]he title, the epigraph of
the trilogy and the very first chapters are
all concentrated on the notion of evil”.
Thus right away she must pause to explain
how the Shire is evil. She also never
explains how the Prologue and the maps fit
her scheme. Then she takes up the same
allegorical approach that Joseph Pearce
managed better in his article on “Christ”:
the Ring as original sin. But through the
rest of her article, Filmer-Davies struggles
with consistency: the Elves, who “fulfill an
ecclesiastical role”, depart at the story’s
end; likewise, “so will the church cease to
function on earth when its purpose has been
accomplished”. But in that case, LotR
represents not one life’s journey but all of
history. (And Tolkien said that Aragorn in
the Fourth Age would be a “priest king” –
Letters p. 206.)
Filmer-Davies
should never have structured this article as
a single allegorical scheme. Rather,
working from Tolkien’s somewhat
contradictory statements that first, LotR
is “fundamentally” Christian, and second,
that he removed almost all religious
elements from it, she ought to have
attempted an explanation of both the few
hints of religion given within the story
(“May the Valar turn him aside!”) and
some of the likelier symbolic elements
she identified. That is, given that Tolkien
was unlikely to have intended an overarching
allegory, what were his particular
intentions, and how does he succeed? (On
the last point, she might have noted that
some critics have complained that a lack of
religion hurts the story.)
Thingol - Marcel R. Bülles
Comments by
N.E. Brigand, April 2, 2007
With nods
to Randel Helms and Tom Shippey, Bülles
notes connections to Kalevala and
Sir Orfeo. He mentions Tolkien’s
repeated use in other contexts of the
imagery of Thingol’s encounter with Melian.
Though Flieger’s comments on Thingol go
unmentioned, Splintered Light does
appear in Bülles’ bibliography. There are
references to The Silmarillion,
several HoMe volumes, The Hobbit,
LotR and Tolkien’s letters. And yet
I find this article unsatisfying. Maybe it
is the changes in tense. Or the disjointed
summary that explains that Thingol was
charged to lead his people to Valinor but
never explains that he didn’t return there
himself. Or the unnecessary report that
Letters contains no important comments
on Thingol. Or Bülles’ concluding sentence,
a description of Aragorn and Arwen from
LotR, that ends with an ellipsis.
Thorin
Oakenshield - Jo-Anna Dueck,
Paulina J. Gibson, Gerda Marz, and Sharon
Tanhueco Schmitt
Comments by
N.E. Brigand, April 2, 2007
Though
Dueck appears alone in the encyclopedia’s
list of contributors, the byline for this
article also credits Gibson, Marz, and Schmitt.
Most of their entry is a chronological
telling of Thorin’s life, taken from The
Hobbit, LotR and perhaps
Unfinished Tales –information from “The
Quest of Erebor” is scanted – though no
attempt is made to identify those sources,
apart from one mention of The Hobbit.
The history is presented clearly but with
unnecessary elaboration: so they write that
Thorin in the Dimrill Dale, “never lagging
during the battle … bravely killed many Orcs
that day” – while not unlikely, this is only
supposition.
Thorin’s
character is accurately but uninterestingly
described: for example, “He had strong
leadership qualities and willingly took
charge”. But no attempt is made to place
him as a figure in The Hobbit or in
Tolkien’s fiction as a whole. William Green
has commented on Thorin’s dragon-like
behavior upon recovering the gold. Paul
Kocher has noted how the songs of the
Lake-men lead Thorin to see himself as a
returning king rather than a treasure
hunter. For Tom Shippey, Thorin, especially
in his speech patterns, represented an
aspect of the ancient Northern world:
“Thorin, though long-winded enough, does not
talk about calculations, but about things…”
(The Road to Middle-earth, 3rd
edition, p. 73). Some of this should have
appeared here, along with some comparison of
Thorin to Tolkien’s proto-dwarf, Mîm, or to
that model of stubborn pride, Túrin, or to
Gimli, or perhaps to Théoden, who has a
similar heroic death.
Two late
paragraphs explaining the nature of dwarves
of the Völuspá and Nibelunglied
belong rather to the “Dwarves” article, and
anyway make no attempt to explain why
Tolkien changed the legends as he did.
Michael Stanton’s Hobbits, Elves and
Wizards appears in the bibliography,
though Thorin is mentioned only once in that
book. “Pride” and “Exile” should be added
to the See also list.
Time -
Verlyn Flieger
Comments by squire, February
2, 2007
This long complex article
treats with a very slippery topic. What is
Time, after all? Nevertheless Flieger
tackles it, and touches on what seems like
most of the important ways in which Tolkien
dealt with the abstract concept of Time in
his stories.
But the article is really not
organized very well. She returns several
times to Tolkien's "time-travel" stories
The Lost Road and The Notion Club
Papers, each time pausing to re-explain
what they are. She defines at one point
several categories or motifs that Tolkien
seems to use ("fields of Time", "Other
Time", "standing outside Time"), but fails
to use them as they beg to be used: to
organize her subsequent discussion of Time
in his fiction. She introduces Tolkien's
fascination with the mechanics of time
measurement, but fails to return to the
subject, although his chronologies and his
calendar systems are strong features of the
Lord of the Rings appendices and
speak loudly about his instincts that time
could be quantified.
For all of Flieger's natural
erudition, I feel this article has the
earmarks of a first draft. Some strict
editorial oversight or peer review would
have quickly turned this into the truly
masterful essay it should have been.
Also, as an acknowledged
expert on the subject (she literally wrote
the book on this one), Flieger cites but one
source other than her own work. Perhaps no
other Tolkien critic has tackled the
subject. The omission of the crucial Dunne
book from the bibliograpy is odd. So is the
lack of even one general/popular history of
time-space theory to give the reader a
chance to follow up her point that Tolkien's
obsession with the metaphysics of space-time
was not at all unusual in the 1930s and 40s.
Comments by N.E. Brigand,
January 5, 2008
Concerning Smith of Wootton Major,
Flieger explains how the hero can make long
journeys in Faery without exceeding “the
compass of a single day” in his village. I
wish she had noted how Tolkien plays with
this idea in the very structure of the tale:
the smith’s experience of Faery begins when
he clasps the magic star to his forehead at
dawn on his tenth birthday, and ends at dusk
nearly forty-eight years later when he
relinquishes it and describes his wanderings
to his son as having lasted “All the way
from Daybreak to Evening”.
Concerning The Hobbit, Flieger feels
that work “in particular … uses time as a
natural marker of supernatural events”, and
gives the example of Durin’s Day, when the
sunlight reveals the keyhole on the Lonely
Mountain, but I can think of only one other
instance: the conjunction of midsummer and
moon that illuminates Thorin’s map at
Elrond’s house.
Flieger casts an impressively wide net,
referencing the Lost Tales, The
Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings,
the two unfinished time-travel stories,
Smith of Wootton Major, “On
Fairy-stories”, “Beowulf: The
Monsters and the Critics” (an especially
nice touch) and an unpublished essay on
“Elvish time”. Unfortunately, though the
‘Further Reading’ list includes her own A
Question of Time, she doesn’t indicate
that two paragraphs from the last item were
published in her book’s third chapter.
Besides Tolkien’s Smith and two of
Flieger’s own books, the only other work in
her bibliography is an online 2004 essay
that seems hardly worth including; it is no
advance on A Question of Time. The
See also list is inadequate: there
are no references to “Calendars”,
“Lothlórien” or “Faërie”.
Time
Travel - Verlyn Flieger
Comments by
squire, February 2, 2007
Another example of an "odd couple" of
articles, and by the same author as so often
is the case. But compared to "Time" this is
a model of focus. Her discussion of the mode
of time travel that Tolkien favored, the
para-psychological (compared to the
physical, a la Wells), is very good,
and as with the other article she takes care
to place Tolkien in a contemporary context
with other writers of his time who treated
with the same theme. (Along with the authors
she cites, James and Balderstone, I thought
of one of my favorite mid-century British
authors, Nevil Shute, whose An Old
Captivity and In The Wet feature
dream-state time travel, into the past and
future respectively.)
Her analysis of Merry's memory in the barrow
of being a warrior of old Arnor is odd, as
it was also in "Time": I have always
interpreted Merry's experience not as one of
psychological time travel, but of possession
by a long-dead ghost, if such a distinction
can be made.
Comments by
Jason Fisher, February 5, 2007
Her analysis of Merry's memory...
That has always been my interpretation
as well, but I don't think it need
necessarily conflict with Flieger's theory.
After all, memory is a kind of time travel
(though by definition, always backward); and
the more vivid the memory being relived, the
more successful the trip back in time, one
might say. Merry's possession, in which he
speaks with the voice of another and
actually clutches his breast, could very
well be called psychological time travel, I
think. Verlyn Flieger's keynote address at
the University of Vermont, April 8, 2006,
"Deep Wells of Memory" (unpublished, so far,
I believe) elaborated on her Merry / Barrow
hypothesis in much greater detail, though,
which may account for my willingness to take
the argument at face value in the present
entry on "Time Travel".
Comments by N.E. Brigand,
January 5, 2008
Flieger’s article on Merry’s time-traveling
has now been published as “The Curious
Incident of the Dream at the Barrow: Memory
and Reincarnation in Middle-earth” in
Tolkien Studies 4.
Tol Eressëa
- Michael D. C. Drout
Comments by squire, August 8,
2007
As Drout points out, Tol Eressëa
in one form or another was a constant
presence in Tolkien's mind for fifty years.
Drout is less clear on the creative
circumstances of its transformation from
"England" (was this its identity in "The
Cottage of Lost Play" story, or not?) to a
kind of vast ferryboat for transporting the
Elves across the great Sea to Elvenhome,
which he attributes unsatisfyingly to The
Silmarillion. The references to other
literary instances of a far western Isle in
English and Celtic tradition are very
welcome, but again seemingly conflict
with the "Lonely Isle's" unexplained early
role as England itself. And once again a
reference to Númenor threatens to frustrate
an unwary reader.
However, Drout may perhaps be excused these
lapses because, as with his "Eldamar"
article, he is after sweeter fare. His main
point is that
Tol Eressëa is Tolkien's
archetypal image of an inaccessible but
beautiful place, whether distant in time (an
earlier Elvish England) or in space (an
Elvish paradise across an ocean of water, or
later, air).
He is right, of course. But his arguments
for Eldamar ("the combination of the natural
and the wrought") and
Tol Eressëa ("the
combination of beauty with deep loneliness")
both conclude that their subjects represent
the apex of Tolkien's cultural esthetic
(Eldamar: "his conceptions of absolute
beauty"; Tol Eressëa: his "most
aesthetically effective creations").
Drout does
perceive a distinction between the two
places' essences: one is perhaps more
intellectual, the other more emotional. But
the distinction is so fine, and his own
rhetoric so similar, that I wish he
had addressed this duality more explicitly.
For instance, why not ask what was the
difference for Tolkien between Eldamar,
on the shore of a vast Bay of the heavenly
mainland with its white city, tower, and
haven; and
Tol Eressëa, on an island
in that Bay, with its white city, tower, and
haven? As Drout notes, both even have
hauntingly beautiful lamps by their twilit
shores! So which place came first? Or are
they in fact the same place in a world where
Tolkien had at a very deep level failed to
keep his notes in order?
Tolkien Reader, The
- John Walsh
Comments by N.E. Brigand,
April 2, 2007
Why did
The Tolkien Reader merit a separate
entry? All of the volume’s components are
covered in other articles, except for Peter
Beagle’s introductory essay, which could as
easily be discussed in the article on
"Tolkien Scholarship: 1954-1980"; Walsh
affords it just two sentences of
description. This is in keeping with the
rest of his entry, which consists of a short
summary for each item. There is one amusing
typo, when Walsh writes that Farmer Giles
“gets the dragon’s horde”.
Comments by squire, April 3,
2007
Equally funny is the idea that "Leaf by
Niggle" is essentially about impermanence.
Tolkien
Remembered: Humphrey Carpenter – Don N.
Anger
Comments
by Jason Fisher, September 25, 2007
Never having seen this
documentary myself, I found Anger’s entry on
it quite interesting. He covers the short
program thoroughly, from all appearances,
and offers some value judgment on it as
well. A good substitute for most of us who
haven’t seen it, and may never get the
opportunity. The 'Further Reading' is not
particularly impressive, but then, how could
it be for such a narrow topic? The See also is likewise perfectly sufficient.
Should Anger have included Taniquetil, since
he mentions the mountain in the entry?
Perhaps, but it probably isn’t necessary.
The strangest thing is how this entry,
helped by its irregular title, highlights
the fact that Humphrey Carpenter does not
get an entry of his own. As a result, the
subject of his two important books – the
biography of Tolkien and the history of the
Inklings – has to be relegated to tangents
in various other entries, such as this one.
Tolkien Scholarship: An Overview - Brian
Rosebury
Comments by
squire, March 11, 2006:
The fluidity and concision of this article
leaves me in awe, as usual, of Rosebury's
distinctive critical panache. Among the
strengths here are a clear sense of
organization, a respect for the different ways
in which criticism can be classified, and a
wonderful ability to look forward as well as
backward. As elsewhere, he lays into the fans
for their sins as much as he does the naysayers.
And if the article is wound just about as
tightly as it can be without bursting --
well, after all, it is just an introduction
to three further in-depth articles on
Tolkien criticism. Whether that was the
right way to go is, as usual, for the
editors to dwell on in retrospect.
The only caveat I would offer is that
Rosebury is preaching to the choir at the
seminary school. That is, if you don't
already have some familiarity with the
various annals and schools of Tolkien
criticism to which he refers, I imagine this
article must be somewhat opaque, despite his
best efforts to be clear in so short a
space.
His closing comment about the
internationalization of the Tolkien
phenomenon is especially penetrating; one of
the strengths of the Encyclopedia is that it
addresses this question, albeit at a fairly
primitive level, with its "Reception of
Tolkien in...[tiny Belgium, China, North
Borneo, etc.]" series of articles.
Tolkien Scholarship: First Decades:
1954-1980 - Richard C. West
Comments by
squire, April 4, 2007
West is himself the annotator of a major
bibliography of Tolkien scholarship that covers
this period, as he quietly notes at the end of
this fine retrospective. He makes it fairly
clear that he is singling out here only the
best, most robust works from the "pre-Shippey"
era of Tolkien studies.
Ah, Tom Shippey. Encyclopedia editor
Michael Drout, and Hilary Wynne (author of
the companion post-1980 article on Tolkien
scholarship), suggested in their 2000
article "Tom Shippey...and a look back at
Tolkien criticism since 1982" that the time
is coming when Shippey's Author of the
Century [and by implication Road to
Middle-earth] will mark for Tolkien
scholars "a convenient benchmark back beyond
which they need not read."
West's article does not confront or
acknowledge this bibliographic declaration
of war and its implicit challenge to the
relevance of pre-1980 Tolkien Scholarship.
It would have been valuable, I think, for
him to have treated openly with the problems
of academic trends and styles, fashions and
follies, and to have either defied, embraced
or qualified Drout and Wynne's terms of
endangerment.
For instance, either the proceedings of
the 1969 Tolkien seminar at the U. of New
England in Australia are still worth reading
(in West's opinion), or they are not - but
West is ambiguous here and almost seems to
be lauding the event for its historical
value rather than its current relevance.
The other way to interpret West's
approach is that it is merely nostalgic. Is
this essay not really a bibliographical
essay, but a memorial of the good old days
before the internet, when the Tolkien cult
and its peripheral academics were a smaller
and less established bunch - when a new
insight or angle on Tolkien was easier to
achieve because so much less had been
written? Or should readers of the
Encyclopedia take advantage of this entry's
really excellent 'Further Reading' list, and
make a huge effort to acquire and read the
books and articles West has reviewed, before
proceeding further with their Tolkien
researches?
I can't quite tell.
Tolkien Scholarship: Institutions - Cecilia
Barella
Comments by squire, June 8,
2007
This is an odd article. There is no
introduction to explain the theme of the
article. Barella's first section, vaguely
titled 'University', seems to be an attempt
to treat the Academic world in general as an
"Institution" of Tolkien scholarship, but it
simply rehearses the gradually easing
prejudices against Tolkien studies. The rest
of the article is a series of short sketches
of the supposedly major institutions that
conduct or host Tolkien studies.
In a work like the J. R. R. Tolkien
Encyclopedia, there is certainly a place
for a pure reference article like this. Two
flaws stand out. One, Barella's prose is
distractingly awkward or ungrammatical at
times. Two, there is no critical distance in
the writing: some of the descriptions of the
various institutions read as if they were
taken directly from the relevant promotional
web pages or brochures.
The See also could be broader in scope:
for instance, by including the three other
"Tolkien Scholarship" articles, "History
of Middle-earth: Overview", and
"Publications, Posthumous".
Comments by N.E. Brigand,
January 5, 2008
Squire said: Some of the descriptions…
read as if they were taken directly from the
relevant promotional web pages
For the most part, that is just what Barella
has done. Of the 1,908 words in Barella’s
article, just 103 (5%) are presented
explicitly as quotation, in the form of
three separate passages. Only one of the
three is fully attributed, to Scott
McLemee’s 2004 online conversation with
Michael Drout. Another, describing “The
Lord of the Rings Research Project” is
not sourced, but can be traced to online
announcements by Martin Baker, one of
that project’s coordinators. Barella’s
third acknowledged quote is attributed to
Jane Chance, but Barella fails to identify
where Chance’s comment appears. In fact the
source is Tolkien the Medievalist (p.
2).
Tolkien the Medievalist
is also the source of another 38 words by
Chance from the same passage, transcribed in
this article exactly but without quotation
marks that would indicate the words are
Chance’s. Likewise, Baker’s announcement is
the source of another 17 words that Barella
doesn’t identify as quotation. In total,
some 1,008 words (53%) of Barella’s text is
lifted, without attribution, from online
sources. This borrowed text is not set off
with quotation marks or indentation; and the
sources are identified neither in her text
or on her ‘Further Reading’ list, although
they are obvious: as squire perceives, each
of Barella’s sections, on
Marquette University’s library, the
Wade Center at Wheaton College, Oxford’s
Bodleian Library, the
Tolkien Society, the
Mythopoeic Society, Forodrim’s “Arda
Format” system, and the journals
Tolkien Studies and
Vinyar Tengwar, copies large amounts of
text from the relevant web sites.
Additionally, Barella’s first section, on
“University” Tolkien scholarship, quotes not
only from McLemee and Chance as noted, but
borrows two more sentences from the
Tolkien Studies site. Her Bodleian
Library section also uses text from the
Marquette site. And some of the Vinyar
Tengwar material also comes from
wikipedia. Only Barella’s paragraph on
the Medieval Congress at Kalamazoo seems to
be original.
Three further comments deserve further
response. First, Barella writes that Jane
Chance, Michael Drout, Verlyn Flieger, and
Tom Shippey have between them taught Tolkien
to “hundreds” of students – has that number
by now surpassed one thousand? Second, the
“Arda Format for Structural
References” is no sort of institution, but a
method for referencing Tolkien’s works,
developed for the journal Arda by
Forodrim, the Swedish Tolkien society.
Third, Barella’s description of the annual
Medieval Congress in Kalamazoo includes a
note that Tolkien scholarship there has
since appeared in “journals, theses and
books”, but she never mentions any of those
works, not even the three collections
largely derived from the Kalamazoo
conferences: Tolkien the Medievalist,
Tolkien and the Invention of Myth,
and Tolkien’s Modern Middle Ages.
Tolkien Scholarship: Since 1980 - Hilary
Wynne
Comments by
squire, February 7, 2007
To read this article while in the midst of a
browse through the J. R. R. Tolkien
Encyclopedia is rather like being a freshman
at a lively faculty cocktail party and noticing someone
sitting in the corner, taking notes. It's both
awkward and confusing.
Wynne inevitably comments on the work of
a large number of contributors to the
Encyclopedia. The reader immediately begins
comparing her judgements against both his own
knowledge of the works in question, and his
own impression of the scholars' more recent
contributions to the Encyclopedia. In my
case, I have to say I mostly agree with
Wynne's unsurprising ratings. Self-doubt
immediately asks how the Kool-aid tasted.
Wynne was Encyclopedia editor Michael
Drout's colleague in assembling their
monumental review of the state of Tolkien
scholarship in 2000, of which this article
is more than a little reminiscent. Aside
from the minor questions of why Shippey's
Author of the Century, and the scholarly
journal that Drout co-edits, Tolkien Studies, were not
mentioned, there is little I can think
of that is misplaced in her survey. Others
may disagree, and I would welcome their
contributions to this Diary.
Comments by N.E. Brigand,
March 18, 2007
This useful
but error-prone entry is adapted from a fine
article that Wynne co-authored with Michael
Drout for Envoi in 2000 on Tolkien
scholarship since 1984. Wynne even lifts an
entire paragraph from that article verbatim
(from “And Flieger has not only written the
second-best book” to ”gave voice to his and
their longing”) without any indication that
she is quoting herself, though the earlier
work is listed in her bibliography. Wynne’s
somewhat careless adaptation also explains:
the appearance of Verlyn Flieger’s 2005
work, Interrupted Music, three
paragraphs after her other books have been
discussed; the listing of Brian Rosebury’s
book by its 1992 subtitle Critical
Assessment in the text, but by its 2003
title Cultural Phenomenon in the
bibliography; and the absence of texts
published from 1981 to 1983, like Tolkien’s
Letters, or Flieger’s 1981 article on
Frodo and Aragorn in the Isaacs-Zimbardo
collection mentioned below.
Wynne
describes Gergely Nagy’s “The Great Chain of
Reading” from the Tolkien the Medievalist
collection as “the single most important
article published in Tolkien scholarship in
the past fifteen year[s]”. I think Nagy’s
“The Adapted Text” from Tolkien Studies I
is better, but as squire notes, Tolkien
Studies goes strangely unmentioned in
Wynne’s article. That journal should have
been mentioned not only for its new
scholarship, but also for its reviews,
including David Bratman’s annual “Year’s
Work in Tolkien Studies” essays. J.R.R.
Tolkien: Author of the Century by Tom
Shippey, whose absence also is noted by
squire, is mentioned by Wynne, but
only in passing (as “Author”) in her
comments on the Proceedings of the
1992 centenary conference.
In her
penultimate paragraph, Wynne identifies five
important articles but not where they can be
found, and those articles don’t appear in
her bibliography. Also, those articles
include Gene Hargrove’s “Who is Tom Bombadil?”,
an error-ridden and poorly-argued essay
(scarcely better than Hargrove’s poor "Tom
Bombadil" entry for the encyclopedia) that
Wynne terms “the best scholarly treatment of
this enigmatic figure”.
There are
many small mistakes. “Anderson’s editions”
are among the “essential” works listed in
Wynne’s opening paragraph, but these are not
identified in her text or bibliography.
Later she says that Reading The Lord of
the Rings is better than “the Giddings
collection”, but she never otherwise
mentions the latter work; the reference is
to J.R.R. Tolkien: This Far Land, a
1983 work edited by Robert Giddings. Wynne
mentions that Zimbardo and Isaacs’ 2004
anthology, Understanding The Lord of the
Rings, reprints essays from “their
original collection” of 1968, Tolkien and
the Critics, but it also largely
reprises their Tolkien: New Critical
Perspectives, a 1981 edition. The index
to The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien was
expanded in 1999 not 1995.
Tolkien, Arthur Reuel
(1857-96) - Colin Duriez
Comments by squire, August 8,
2007
It seems unsupportable not to have an
article about J. R. R. Tolkien's father in
this Encyclopedia. Yet it also seems there
is little to say about him, both for his own
life and for his impact on his son, who
never knew him. Duriez does as well as can
be expected, I suppose: Arthur comes off as
an ambitious workaholic, and Ronald reveres
his father's memory in the abstract. Should
Duriez have mentioned Tolkien's rather
decided rejection of his father's
Anglo-German heritage in favor of his
mother's old Midlands family, the Suffields?
One thing I never knew before reading this
was that Arthur was one of six siblings and
had as well an entire step-family from his
father's first marriage. This puts a
distinct weight to the accounts of J. R. R.
Tolkien's mother's estrangement from her
late husband's family after her conversion
to Catholicism: no Tolkien biography I've
encountered mentions any interaction between
Tolkien and over half a dozen aunts and
uncles on his father's side.
I wonder why Duriez imagined there would be
an "Africa" article?
Tolkien, Baillie (1941-)
- Douglas A. Anderson
Comments by squire, June 23,
2007
Aside from some resume-like biographical
data and one brief quote showing her
perception of her father-in-law's talents,
there is little here about Baillie Tolkien
herself. It is possible to indulge a
prurient interest in the Tolkien family's
personal lives by reading this article
between the lines, but that is probably not
the point. Rather the most interesting thing
about the second Mrs. Christopher Tolkien is
that she edited the first and perhaps the
later editions of The Father Christmas
Letters after J. R. R. Tolkien's death.
Editions, yes - and here this article takes
a radical turn into something completely
different: Anderson gives us four detailed
paragraphs of the publishing history of this
book. Unfortunately, he does not make clear
what Baillie Tolkien's responsibilities for
the later editions were, especially in the
matter of the bad 1999 book design (this is
blamed on the publisher) and the
successfully redesigned version put out in
2004 (thanks to her "continued involvement"?
Anderson does not say).
Ideally, this section should not be in this
article at all, but in "Father Christmas
Letters", which makes no mention of the
different editions. But since it is here, a
familiar question arises: how is it that the
other article neither mentions Baillie
Tolkien nor gives a reference to this
article? How would a researcher into the
"Father Christmas Letters" even find this
valuable information?
Comments by N.E. Brigand,
August 15, 2007
That perceptive remark by Baillie Tolkien,
on allegory and symbolism in Tolkien’s work,
comes from a 1976 catalogue for an exhibit
of Tolkien’s drawings. However, the
Encyclopedia’s articles on “Symbolism” or
“Allegory” don’t have cross-references to
this entry; and the index doesn’t refer to
this article in its listings for those
subjects, so readers interested in those
topics will only discover Ms. Tolkien’s
comment by accident.
Also, the opening acknowledgements in the
2000 collection, Tolkien’s Legendarium:
Essays on “The History of Middle-earth”,
edited by Verlyn Flieger and Carl Hostetter,
thank Baillie Tolkien for “assistance and
encouragement”, so she has apparently been
involved with Tolkiena in other areas beside
the Letters from Father Christmas.
Tolkien, Christopher Reuel - Thomas Honegger
Comments by
squire, December 11, 2006
A lovely, straightforward, biographical
sketch. Clean, and relatively crisp. How
refreshing to learn something of his earlier
academic career, and to see the odd progress he
made out of, and then back into, his father's
literary shadow. One would always, somehow, like
to know more about what it is to be Christopher
Tolkien.
It is perhaps inevitable that Honegger should
not offer any interpretation of C. Tolkien's
life, beyond the obvious factor that CT himself
was allowed to correct this article. CT is
something of a lightning rod among Tolkien fans,
because of his role as the eminence grise
of the Tolkien Estate. His character has been
both disparaged and defended by fans who do not
know him. They discuss his personal life with
the gossipy attention that movie stars receive
in more mainstream popular subcultures.
All that may have no place in a critical
Encyclopedia, I admit. But I could wish that
Honegger had spent less time summarizing the
contents of The History of Middle-earth,
which is comprehensively covered elsewhere in
this book, and spent more time commenting on the
growth and development of CT's editorial style
during his most productive years as his father's
literary executor, 1973-1996. HoME is
filled with little clues and first-person asides
that give the attentive reader a most touching
portrait of a sensitive, intelligent, extremely
knowledgeable, hard-working, and perhaps rather
conflicted man.
Tolkien's Legendarium, from which
Honegger cites Douglas Anderson's "CT: A
Bibliography", also has an important
appreciation of CT by Rayner Unwin that I think
Honegger might well have included in his reading
list.
Comments by N.E. Brigand, April 2, 2007
This is a
steady, clear article, though two of its four
columns duplicate material appearing in the
“Publications, Posthumous” and “History of
Middle-earth: Overview” articles; I wish
that space had been devoted to an expansion of
Honegger’s fine but broad comments on the
“unique combination of talents, scholarship,
energy, and filial duty” that Christopher
Tolkien brought to his role as editor of his
father’s works.
There are a few
small lapses:
-
Honegger
notes the absence of “Nomenclature of The
Lord of the Rings” from the second
edition of A Tolkien Compass but not
that it has reappeared, in fuller form, in
The Lord of the Rings: A Reader’s
Companion.
-
It’s not
correct to say that Pictures by J.R.R.
Tolkien has been “superseded” by
J.R.R. Tolkien: Artist and Illustrator,
as the latter omits some artwork from the
former.
-
The
Monsters and the Critics and Other Essays
is notable not only for republishing “Beowulf:
The Monsters and the Critics” and “On
Fairy-stories” (and the latter already was
widely available) but also for the first
appearances of the 1953 lecture on Sir
Gawain and the Green Knight and the
essay on invented languages “A Secret
Vice”.
-
A few
references mentioned in Honegger’s text,
like Pictures and Carpenter’s The
Inklings, are missing from the
bibliography, where I would also suggest the
addition of “The Filial Duty of Christopher
Tolkien”, a 1977 interview by William
Cater.
-
The See
also list could be beefed up with
entries for the “Nomenclature” and Faith
Tolkien, and stripped of the entry for
“Life”, because there is no such article.
-
There are a
sprinkling of editing mistakes, like
references to both The Book of Lost
Tales, Part One and The Book of Lost
Tales I in the same paragraph.
Tolkien, Faith
- Douglas A. Anderson
Comments by squire, June 23, 2007
There doesn't seem to be much reason for this
entry. Faith Tolkien's intersection with her
onetime father-in-law, who is the subject of
this Encyclopedia, is restricted to the bust she
sculpted of him, that evidently still graces the
English Faculty Library at Oxford. That is a
kind of footnote-like item that could have been
inserted into the article about her husband,
Christopher Tolkien. The rest of her biography,
even the very complimentary paragraph on her
later ecclesiastical sculpture work executed
long after her marriage ended, is not really
very relevant to any scholarship or critical
assessment of J. R. R. Tolkien.
On a point of detail, however, the date of the
separation varies in the articles about this
couple: under "Tolkien, Christopher" it is 1963,
here it is given as 1964.
Tolkien, Hilary (1894-1976)
- Colin Duriez
Comments by squire, August 8,
2007
Duriez properly focuses on Hilary Tolkien's
memories of his shared youth with JRRT, that
seem to have contributed to a few episodes or
settings in The Lord of the Rings. Other
than that, there is little enough to be said
about Hilary, but it is remarkable that he seems
not to have gone to college, and was an enlisted
man in the Great War.
In other words some kind of intellectual and
hence social gap must have opened up between the
brothers before they were well out of their
youth, which Duriez ignores or takes for
granted. His comment that the brothers kept in
contact as adults "without too much difficulty"
begs for some elaboration. I also suspect that
Duriez has not listed all of his sources:
Carpenter (the only citation) does not
specifically mention the "wenches" insult, nor
does he give Hilary's war service record.
Comments by N.E. Brigand, August 9, 2007
Duriez’s source for “wenches” is p. 21 of The
Tolkien Family Album.
Readers of Tolkien’s letters may be surprised to
read Duriez’s assertion that Tolkien and his
brother were “able to keep in contact without
too much difficulty” – that may be true, but
there are no letters to Hilary in the
collection, whose index lists only three
references to Ronald’s younger brother: two
references made late in life to their childhood,
and a cryptic reference in 1947 to fans of the
then-unpublished LotR: besides C.S.
Lewis, the late Charles Williams, and
Christopher Tolkien, these included “a
solicitor, a doctor… an elderly army officer, an
elementary school-mistress, an artist, and a
farmer”. Carpenter’s endnote to that passage
indicates that only the first three people can
be identified, as Owen Barfield, Humphrey Havard,
and Warnie Lewis, respectively, though the
artist might be Marjorie Incledon. Yet as there
is no other reference to Hilary Tolkien on that
page, the indexer (Carpenter himself?) must have
guessed that he was the farmer.
Tolkien,
John (1917-2003) - Douglas A. Anderson
Comments by squire, June 1, 2007
This bare-bones curriculum vitae of
Tolkien's oldest son tells us nothing about the
man himself until the very end, where we hear of
his affection for his father, from whom he also
derived a "passion for ecumenism". This last
would have been an interesting addition to the
articles on "Christianity" and "Church of
England", which focus on J. R. R. Tolkien's
bitterness toward or dislike for the protestant
denominations. In fact, so would the very fact
that John Tolkien was a Catholic priest, which
is not even mentioned in the "Catholicism,
Roman" article.
I believe Fr. John officiated at his parents'
funerals; and that Carpenter's biography
mentions several other instances of how he and
his father kept in touch, especially after Edith
died. But along with what John's life tells us
about his father, it would have been nice to get
a little more sense of the man himself than this
article is able to offer.
Tolkien (née Suffield),
Mabel (1870-1904) - Colin Duriez
Comments by squire, April 19,
2007
A more thorough biographical treatment of
Tolkien's mother couldn't be desired.
I would say, give us more on her influence on
Tolkien, and less on details of her various
homes - but Duriez, citing Tolkien's letters,
probably gives us whatever there is on so
indeterminate a subject.
Or does he? Where is the mention of Faramir's
memory of his late mother "who died untimely,
and was to him but a memory of loveliness in far
days and of his first grief"? And Duriez passes
on (though the "Suffield Family" article does
not) Carpenter's speculation that The
Hobbit's "Old Took and his three remarkable
daughters" refers to Mabel and her two sisters.
But any further speculation, such as why Tolkien
does not write any mature mother characters of
note, would probably be outside the scope of
this article.
Tolkien, Michael (1920-84)
- Douglas A. Anderson
Comments by squire, June 10, 2007
Anderson has assembled some remarkable sources
to put together his portrait of J. R. R.
Tolkien's second son. We get the bald facts of
his education, war service, teaching career, and
family, but beyond his obviously fond memories
of his father's storytelling ability, there is
no real evaluation of Michael's personality or
talents.
Perhaps nothing more is possible, but I at least
missed a note that one of Tolkien's most
interesting letters, giving his fatherly advice
on sex, marriage and the differences between men
and women, was written to Michael. In any case,
the first-person anecdotes of Michael's youthful
contributions to Tolkien's legendarium are
charming.
The 'Further Reading' list is missing
Carpenter's Biography - a mundane but
necessary source here. See also could be more
thorough too: why no reference to "Mr. Bliss",
"Hobbits", the articles on the other Tolkien
siblings, "Father Christmas", etc.?
Comments by N.E. Brigand, August 15, 2007
Anderson writes that Michael Tolkien “defended
aerodromes in the Battle of Britain, and later
in France and Germany, but was invalided out of
the Army. He returned to Oxford in 1944…”.
Confused? Scull and Hammond clarify: in 1941,
Michael Tolkien transferred from the Army's
anti-air artillery to the RAF, and up to 1944 was a rear-gunner in bombers “in
which he saw action over France and
Germany”. He was invalided out of the RAF in
1944 (i.e., well before the Royal Army saw
action in Germany itself.) (Reader’s Guide, p. 1020,
emphasis added).
Tolkien, Priscilla (1929-)
- Douglas A. Anderson
Comments by squire, June 10, 2007
Perhaps because Priscilla Tolkien has taken it
upon herself to speak more in public in her
capacity as Tolkien's daughter, this article is
able through ample quotation to give us some
feeling for her personality: independent,
sympathetic and perceptive. This is not
inconsistent with her career as a social worker!
The only thing I missed here is some discussion
of the legend that Éowyn's icy independence was
inspired by Priscilla's urging her father to
include some strong female characters in The
Lord of the Rings. If I remember correctly,
Ms. Tolkien has spent a lot of time denying that
Éowyn is "modeled" on her, but I don't remember
if the original story was ever verified.
It might or might not be relevant to this
article to note that Ms. Tolkien has also gone
on the record at Tolkien conferences as saying
that the recent New Line films did not at all do
justice to her father's books, at least from the
point of view of someone like her who grew up
with them and who had a strong sense of what her
father valued about the story. As far as she is
concerned, her father would not be pleased at
all, at all, to see the famous films.
As with the other Tolkien family articles,
Carpenter's Biography is strangely
missing; but the See also here is particularly
weak, listing only the 'Oxford' article.
Tolkien, Simon (1959-)
- Douglas A. Anderson
Comments by squire, August 8,
2007
There's little enough to recommend this article:
Simon Tolkien published his memories of his
grandfather, and some highlights are given here.
The matter of his conflict with his father
Christopher Tolkien over the policies of the
Tolkien Estate has received sensational if vague
coverage, but all that is underplayed here, to
put it mildly. The rest is window-dressing: with
all respect to Mr. Tolkien, his curriculum
vitae and recent second career as a writer
of detective novels have nothing to do with the
scope of this Encyclopedia.
The lack of a See also list perhaps
unintentionally reflects this irrelevance, but
why not add "Art and Illustrations by Tolkien",
"Bournemouth", "Catholicism, Roman", "Estate",
"Jackson, Peter", "Tolkien, Christopher Reuel",
and "Tolkien, Faith"?
Tom
Bombadil -
Gene Hargrove
Comments by squire, February 26, 2007
This is infuriating. Although there is plenty of
material here about Tom that is accurate, it is
mixed in with an unseemly amount of ill-founded
speculation, circular reasoning, repetition, and
to top it off, clumsy writing.
Without wasting
words on a complete plot summary, Hargrove could
at least have started his reader out with some
mention of Tom's role in the story of The
Fellowship of the Ring, to give context to
the rest of the article. Nor would it have been
a bad idea to cover a bit of Tom's nature like
his sing-song speech, and his semi-magical
powers; a reference to the long and meaningful
poem "Bombadil Goes A-Boating" would not be out
of place, I suggest, in an article about Tom.
Hargrove focuses almost exclusively on the
problem of Tom's identity. Although his
treatment of this question is thorough, it
unfortunately leads to the - I'll say absurd -
theory that Tom is Aulë the Vala of smithcraft
and fabrication (in disguise). This makes
Goldberry Yavanna, by the way.
Without getting too far into the problems
with this, I'll note that Hargrove's article has
in contradiction to this theory both Tolkien's
statement that Tom is meant to be an enigma (and
Tolkien in his letters was usually glad to
explain any keys to his story that were not
apparent to his correspondents); and Hargrove's
own earlier analysis that "Tom relates to the
world through pure science and poetry rather
than applied science and technology". Nor is it
effective to defy Goldberry's clear
identification as a water-spirit with the
argument that "if Tom is not Tom" then Goldberry
must not be Goldberry either, which must prove
that...Tom is not Tom.
The conclusion meanders
off into the wilds of The History of
Middle-earth and is lost therein. The
Further Reading egregiously cites two editions
of Hargrove's Tom-as-Aulë theory. There is no
See Also cross-reference.
Comments by N.E. Brigand, April 2, 2007
Hargrove’s entry is largely a reduction of his
2004 article, stripped of its inline sources.
This makes it harder for readers to check his
facts:
-
Hargrove explains, without
citation, that Tolkien integrated Bombadil
into Middle-earth by making just a few
changes, writing: “for example, the feather
in his hat was changed from peacock to
swan-wing”. Hargrove’s information here
comes from Letter #240. This actually notes
that Bombadil in LotR (his first
Middle-earth appearance) has an unidentified
blue feather; the swan’s feather only
appears in the 1962 version of the poem,
“The Adventures of Tom Bombadil”.
-
Hargrove writes that the
question “Who is Tom Bombadil?” is asked
three times in LotR. It isn’t.
-
He turns to Grimm to explain
the name “Forn”. Tolkien himself notes the
word’s Scandinavian meaning in “Nomenclature
of The Lord of the Rings”.
-
He claims that Bombadil is
“the only powerful being in Middle-earth not
worried that touching the Ring will corrupt
him”, but Sauron and Saruman also seem not
to fear that result.
Hargrove shows
some interesting similarities in Tolkien’s
portrayal of Goldberry and Yavanna, which are
too abbreviated here but clearer in Hargrove’s
earlier essay. However, Tolkien might have used
this common imagery for other purposes than to
establish a shared identity.
To Hargrove’s credit, one of the
works in his bibliography, “What is Tom Bombadil?”
by Steuard Jensen (whose name is misspelled)
argues against Hargrove’s theory that Bombadil
is Aulë.
Tour in the Alps, 1911 – Marjorie Burns
Comments by
Jason Fisher, June 29, 2007
This is a
pretty good entry on what is, after all,
rather a minor episode in Tolkien’s
life. It’s yet another example of the
fragmentation, for good or ill, of the
biographical coverage in the
Encyclopedia. But as I say, the entry is
pretty good, offering a number of
worthwhile points to justify its
existence.
Yet I still
have a few small concerns. First, the
entry could have done with some
paragraphing and better organization. As
it is, almost an entire column goes on
as one, unbroken paragraph, followed by
a second one of almost laughable
brevity. Second, there’s a rather
noticeable typographical mistake:
“Celebdril” [sic] for “Celebdil”. Third,
“Tolkien does not relate […]; nor does
he suggest […], but it is easy to
speculate.” Yes, perhaps too
easy. I find these two speculations on
Burns’ part the least convincing
material in the entry. Fourth, the
conclusion is basically a throw-away.
These are nice quotations from Tolkien,
but they offer little of substance to
leave us with.
And
finally, why did Burns omit the famous
story of the postcard of Josef
Madlener’s painting, Der Berggeist?
Admittedly, as Douglas Anderson has
pointed out, there is reason to question
that Tolkien could have gotten the
postcard on this trip; however,
Carpenter relates that he did, and the
story is well-known. The postcard (as a
famous illustrative source for Gandalf)
would seem to deserve a brief mention
here, as the association between it and
the Alps tour is a strong one. Assuming
this were added, one would also want to
put “Gandalf” into the See also.
Comments by squire, June
29, 2007
I tend to
give Burns a little more credit with her
speculation that the spiders episode and
the releasing of the flood may have
contributed to the story scenes that she
mentions. And as far as the final quotes
are concerned, Jason Fisher is correct
that in the article as it stands they're
not a particularly strong conclusion.
But on reading them I recalled as many
others must have too, the famous Bilbo
line: "I want to see mountains again,
Gandalf -- mountains". The simple
addition of that quote from The Lord
of the Rings would have made a
perfect ending to a perfectly good
article.
Towers –
David D. Oberhelman
Comments by Jason Fisher, September 4,
2007
This is a
very good entry on towers and their
meaning and larger symbolic and thematic
functions in Tolkien’s fictive
Middle-earth. In addition to some
analysis clearly his own, Oberhelman
also deploys a broad assortment of
published critical perspectives.
Two
observations were especially welcome:
the connection to the tower metaphor in
“Beowulf: The Monsters and the
Critics” and the comparison to the tower
in David Lindsey’s Voyage to Arcturus
– though Oberhelman could have
strengthened this point still further by
noting that Tolkien “read ‘Voyage to
Arcturus’ with avidity”, as he wrote to
his publisher in 1938.
For a
fairly short entry, Oberhelman does a
good job of covering most of the towers
one could wish to see confronted. A
couple of exceptions, had the editors
granted him a more generous word count:
the beacon-hills of Gondor and the
earlier Minas Tirith (built by Finrod on
Tol Sirion, later called Tol-in-Gaurhoth).
The
'Further Reading' is really quite good.
The See also is fairly
complete, but I could see adding
“Mountains” and “Palantíri” to
it.
Treason -
Matthew Dickerson
Comments by squire, June 29, 2007
Dickerson's article is sound overall, but he
attacks his topic with a shotgun, or as he puts
it, "Treason, taken in the widest possible
sense". I feel that treason should be defined
more narrowly, along the lines of active
betrayal of duty or faith, otherwise every act
of villainy or even moral weakness in Tolkien's
fiction becomes "treason".
So while I agree with Dickerson that Gorlim,
Uldor, Maeglin, Mîm, and Gríma are guilty of
treason, I feel that Denethor's case is more
complex; he does not so much betray Minas Tirith
as fail it. As for treason that is justifiable
when held to the standard of a 'higher law,'
to Huan's case I wish Dickerson had added the
more well-known example of Beregond, who is
exonerated of treason by just such reasoning.
The best sections here are Dickerson's
comparison of Maeglin's melodramatic betrayal of
Gondolin in "The Book of
Lost Tales II: The Fall of Gondolin", with the same scenario as presented in the drier
The Silmarillion; and the observation that
the instances of treason mentioned invariably
turn out to be "instruments toward good" from a
larger or more removed point of view.
Treason of Isengard, The – John F.G. Magoun
Comments by
Jason Fisher, September 25, 2007
Fantastic! This is certainly one of the best of
the
History of Middle-earth entries, and
for once, I am at a loss to find anything to
complain about! Magoun covers the most important
aspects of the contents of the book –
differentiating between Tolkien the father and
Tolkien the son when necessary. Even better, he
summarizes the reception of the book and offers
some examples of how it has been used, both
successfully as well as unsuccessfully, by
scholars. The 'Further Reading' is sensational.
The See also
may be overly broad;
though all of the items in it appear to be
relevant, at least in the main, this fact may
not be readily apparent to the Encyclopedia’s
readers.
Tree and Leaf - Matthew Dickerson
Comments by squire, August 8,
2007
This is very strange. Sometimes you get what you
wish for, and...
Dickerson takes a rare opportunity
presented by the physical edition of Tree and
Leaf, which (in its second edition) joins
"On Fairy-stories", "Leaf by Niggle", and
"Mythopoeia". He attempts an integrative summary
of Tolkien's philosophy of subcreation as it
applies to his own mythmaking aspirations. If
one of the complaints about the Encyclopedia is
that too many of the articles are too limited in
scope, here is one that tries for more.
A couple of things get in the way. One,
Dickerson is competing with existing articles on
"On Fairy-stories" and "Mythopoeia". He both
refers readers to those articles and attempts to
summarize their arguments himself. Two, "Leaf by
Niggle" has no separate article, and Dickerson
writes as if it does. As a result, "Leaf by
Niggle" gets no really thorough consideration in
the Encyclopedia. Three, Dickerson seemingly
twice gives us his "quick summary of the three
pieces", once briefly in the third paragraph,
and once again with slightly more detail in the
fourth and fifth paragraphs (in the fourth, his
transition from "Mythopoeia" to "On
Fairy-stories" is not consistently highlighted).
Surely he could have consolidated this part of
his essay.
Most importantly, Dickerson attempts to show
that all three works convey the same message --
despite their different genres (a qualification
he spends too much time on). But equally
important, I should think, would be some
critical estimation of how these works' messages
differ as well. For instance, "Leaf by Niggle"
may be an allegory, but it is clear to readers
that Niggle is a "mythmaker", i.e., like
Tolkien? Or is he any artist whose reach exceeds
his grasp? In other words, is "Leaf by Niggle"
really just an autobiographical story that
illustrates the arguments of "On Fairy-stories"
and "Mythopoeia", as Dickerson maintains?
Dickerson is on solider ground in pointing out
the similarities between the other two pieces,
but I would have liked a little more
investigation into Tolkien's understanding of
the differences between "Myth" (treated in the
poem) and "Fairy-story" (treated in the essay).
Although he calls both "subcreations", did he
really think they were the same thing with the
same purpose, merely going by (I suppose)
different names?
Dickerson's conclusion is pretty well done,
though. There are some interesting tidbits I
would like to know more about. What's this about
the existence of "seven different versions" of
"Mythopoeia" (no mention of this in its own
article)? Why Tolkien did not think to include
this poem in his edition of Tree and Leaf,
while his son did 24 years later? Did either
Tolkien write any kind of foreword or preface to
Tree and Leaf that might have given us
their angle on why this collection was published
in the first place? (I know JRRT mentions the
project in the published Letters.)
In fact, except for publication dates, Dickerson
does not treat Tree and Leaf as a Tolkien
book per se, but as a collection of previously
written pieces (making its inclusion in the
category of Tolkien's "Works of Literature" a
little questionable). So mightn't this article
have shed its nominal guise and just treated its
subject under the Thematic title "Subcreation"
or "Mythology"? And then "Leaf by Niggle" might
have gotten its own article.
Treebeard -
Matthew Dickerson
Comments by squire, April 14, 2007
Dickerson covers many of the most important
points about Treebeard as a character: his
symbolism as a spokesman for nature versus the
forces of industrialism and utilitarianism; his
essential neutrality in the "politics" of the
War of the Ring; even his development as a
character who was first envisioned as a hostile
"giant". What is omitted is his gentility, his
poeticism, his conservatism, and his amoral
realpolitik once aroused.
The key factor here is the distinction
between the Ents as a race, and Treebeard as an
individual character, which Dickerson does not
always seem to keep clear - at least in part
because Tolkien does not do so either. It is too
bad, though not entirely unexpected, that
Dickerson's only 'Further Reading' source
(besides Carpenter's Biography - ?) is
his own and Jonathan Evans's article on Ents in
an environmental context.
Trees -
Matthew Dickerson
Comments by squire, April 15, 2007
Some
parts of this article just sing, such as
Dickerson's discussions of the Two Trees,
Tolkien's self-identification with trees as seen
in Leaf by Niggle and his Letters,
and Shippey's thesis that Oaks and Birches are
allegories for Lit. and Lang. in Tolkien's
lifelong struggle to preserve a philological
approach to studying English literature.
Other parts are less clear, such as the
characterization of Mirkwood as a positive force
in The Hobbit (an example of the
occasional and confusing mixing up of the
concepts of trees and forests), and the related
explanation of how trees are part of a "state of
hostility between Man and Nature" in
Middle-earth. This issue could have been the
launching-pad for a review of the critical
literature on Tolkien and trees, which tends to
show a deeper ambivalence in Tolkien than
Dickerson reports here, and which Dickerson
pretty much ignores in his impoverished 'Furher
Reading' list.
It is admirable that Dickerson
goes past The Lord of the Rings, and
devotes so much attention to the tree allegories
in Smith of Wootton Major, though I find
his conclusion about quasi-Christian
tree-symbolism in Tolkien unconvincing. But
there are many other examples of important or
meaningful trees in Tolkien, often drawn from
medieval literary archetypes, that Dickerson
might have included in his analysis had he
devoted less space to the examples he focuses
on. And shouldn't the Encyclopedia have some
discussion of the mallorn tree somewhere?
The only reference to the mallorn in the
index points us to the "Lothlórien" article,
where it is fully described but not analyzed,
and which does not refer to this "Trees"
article.
Finally, it is noticeable that the
trees in The Silmarillion do not get much
play here on any level. Did Dickerson truly feel
that aside from the key image of the Two Trees,
Tolkien did not emphasize trees much in his
early mythologizing? Could it be that Tolkien's
protective or associative attitude towards trees
increased as he got older?
It is no longer
surprising for me to report that, as with "Lothlórien",
this article does not refer to the highly
relevant "Two Trees", "Art and Illustration by
Tolkien" or "Environmentalism and Eco-criticism"
articles, which in turn do not refer to this
one. But the twin "Environmentalist Readings of
Tolkien" (why?) article, which Dickerson also
ignores, does at least point its readers to
"Trees".
Comments by N.E. Brigand, May 27, 2007
There is a
second reference to mallorn trees in the
index, for the entry on “Plants” (where the
subject is given just a little more attention
than in the “Lothlórien” article), but it is
easy to miss, because the page number is
incorrectly given under the index listing for
Mallorn the journal, not the tree.
I agree that
Dickerson’s article is promising. I like that
he stretches to consider metaphorical meanings,
and would have liked a little more, both from
LotR (“Deep roots are not touched by the
frost”) and elsewhere (Letter #306 on
primitivism and the Catholic Church: “The wise
may know that it began with a seed, but it is in
vain to try and dig it up, for it no longer
exists, and the virtue and powers that it had
now reside in the Tree”). Since Dickerson lists
Tree and Leaf among his cross-referenced
articles, and since he notes Tolkien’s use of
the tree “as a symbol of subcreative art” in
“Leaf by Niggle”, it would have been nice for
him to add the reference to the “Tree of Tales”
from “Niggle” latter-day companion piece, “On
Fairy-stories”.
Finally, though
Dickerson is careful to note Tolkien’s portrayal
of hostile forests (in general contrast with
friendlier images of particular trees), he might
have additionally mentioned their status as
symbols of earthly life, here on “tree-tangled
Middle-earth”, as identified by Tom Shippey.
Trench Fever - Elizabeth A. Whittingham
Comments by N.E. Brigand, March 26, 2007
Whittingham
gives a good short description of the miseries
of trench life and the lice-borne disease that
Tolkien contracted there, clearly explaining the
symptoms of trench fever and its treatment, in
1916 and now. She also gives a chronology of
Tolkien’s convalescence, and notes that some of
his earliest legendarium material was
written during this period.
This article
has no bibliography, which should include at
least the Biography by Carpenter and
Tolkien and the Great War by Garth. It also
lacks a See also list, where “World War
I”, “Great Haywood” and the “Book of Lost
Tales” entries should appear. Whittingham
might also have referred the reader to “Health
and Medicine”; would it be too much to speculate
on whether Tolkien's experience manifested
itself in his fiction?
Comments by squire, March 26,
2007:
N.E. Brigand
has a nice point about Tolkien's experience with
trench fever:
the symptoms might be the source for some of the
Black Breath episodes in LotR. I also
wish Whittingham had taken the time to identify
more exactly which parts of the Lost Tales
and Qenya language Tolkien worked on during this
period, compared to what he had written before.
I think it's been remarked that trench fever
very likely saved Tolkien's life, or at least he
may have seen it that way. Certainly how he
survived the war is more complex than is
sometimes stated. Garth, as N.E. Brigand notes,
is very good on all these matters, but
Whittingham doesn't cite him -- or any other
critics who may have tried to relate Tolkien's
invalid episode to his state of mind about war,
the TCBS, his scholarship and his mythology in
the years that followed.
Túrin -
Richard C. West
Comments by squire, January 13, 2007
This
is an excellent precis of Túrin's career and
literary history.
The only tragic flaw is that it is entirely
West's (superb) summary. He does not give us any
indication of what various critics have made of
Túrin and his place in Tolkien's legendarium. I
recall off the top of my head Rosebury's comment
that the tale of Túrin has too much plot to
be the equal of the classic tragedies it
emulates. The lack of a critical bibliography,
starting with West's own seminal article on
Túrin, is also dismaying.
Turville-Petre, Joan - Jane Beal
Comments by N.E. Brigand, February 21, 2007
Beal’s short
article lists the titles of thirteen of
Turville-Petre’s works, as well as the titles of
four journals to which she contributed. It also
gives the first and middle names of her husband
and three children. Only in the final sentence
does Beal explain why Turville-Petre merits an
article in a Tolkien encyclopedia: she published
Tolkien’s unfinished edition of the Old English
poem, Exodus, in 1981. So why wasn’t
this article folded into L. J. Swain’s much
longer entry on that book?
Two Trees -
Patrick Curry
Comments by squire, August 7,
2007
This drops below the weakness of adopting a
"Middle-earth studies" approach and flirts with
being "fan fiction", or perhaps, "fan
scholarship": Curry's writing actually attempts
to echo Tolkien's own flowery and romantic prose
in The Silmarillion. The sopping result needs to
be wrung out and allowed to dry, so that there
might be some room for some analysis of why the
Two Trees are so important in Tolkien's fiction.
Curry gives us nothing in the way of critical
thinking beyond "The Two Trees...reveal the
iconic status of trees in both [Tolkien's] work
and his life." I would have liked some more of
the history of Tolkien's idea of the Two Trees
across forty years of writing, some
consideration of the meaning of the two colors
of their light, their relationship in the
stories to the earlier Lamps and the later Sun
and Moon, their relationship to the two sexes,
Tolkien's use of trees in general to represent
light in his invented Elvish languages, and
perhaps some research into the possible sources
for what seems like quite a mythological
innovation by Tolkien.
It is as usual unfortunate to realize that Curry
does not refer us to the article on "Trees",
which at least deals with some of these
questions; but then the "Trees" article does not
refer to this one either. See also also
omits, at the least, "Astronomy and Cosmology",
"Colors", "Darkness", "Elves", "Fëanor",
"Gondor", "Light", "Morgoth and Melkor", "Ungoliante
etc.", and "Valar". There is no 'Further
Reading' list at all.
Comments by N.E. Brigand, January
5, 2008
Douglas Anderson has
quoted Tolkien as identifying Middle English
stories of Alexander the Great as a source for
the Two Trees.
Tyranny -
Christopher Vaccaro
Comments by squire, August 7,
2007
Superficial. After a vague introduction, Vaccaro
restricts himself to describing examples of
tyrants in Tolkien's Middle-earth stories, and
ends with a trite cliché.
Even within this limited scope, he works too
hard with too little insight. He gives pride of
place to Sauron over Morgoth, perhaps because
The Lord of the Rings is better known than
the Silmarillion tales. The example of the Mouth
of Sauron as the proposed tyrant of the defeated
West is overstated; one wonders if Vaccaro
simply wished to give a quotation with the
actual word. And finally, Tolkien makes it clear
that almost none of the hobbit-shirriffs are
tyrants; it's Lotho and a few like Ted Sandyman
who "take to despotism" in their pathetic
hobbit-fashion, and even they are overshadowed
in actual evil deeds by the ruffians and the
true tyrant of the Shire, Saruman.
Within so short an article, a better approach
might have been to focus on the "Thematic"
importance of tyranny to Tolkien, as an
institutionalized manifestation of the will to
Power. One of Tolkien's central concerns is the
morality of power, and he uses tyrannical
regimes as concrete examples of moral failure in
a ruler. In the mid-twentieth century, an era of
terrifying dictatorships, it's not surprising he
was accused of making simplistic political
allegories.
Vaccaro's most interesting statement is that
Tolkien in his fiction associated tyranny with
mechanized industry and the destruction of the
natural environment. These are not particularly
associated with classical or medieval ideas of
tyranny; nor is it easy to identify the modern
tyrant who was destroying Tolkien's beloved
English countryside. Vaccaro's perception, as
imprecise as it is, highlights how
individualistic and retrospective was Tolkien's
reaction to contemporary political and economic
forces.