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Reconsidering Tolkien
Cormarë Series No. 8.
The languages of Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings have always
fascinated scholars and other readers. Peter Jackson's film trilogy also picks
up many of the linguistic devices and themes one encounters in the novel. The
article seeks to explore the effects created by the linguistic evocations and
the metalinguistic reflections both in the novel and in the films. The paper
discusses the effects produced by the invented languages, which have played a
particularly prominent role in linguistic approaches to Tolkien. Moreover,
further linguistic aspects of The Lord of the Rings, such as linguistic
variation on the regional, social, and individual level, reflections on the
nature and origin of language, and the association of language with magic, will
be addressed.
Tolkien as Philo-Logist
Eduardo Segura and Guillermo Peris
John Ronald Reuel Tolkien taught not only Anglo-Saxon and History of the
English Language at the universities of Leeds and Oxford, but he was also a
writer. Some think that, not being a 'professional' writer of fiction, he made
many mistakes in the composition of his narratives. Yet the question arises,
what 'professional writer' really means in this context? A producer of best-
sellers maybe? If so, he was a great professional indeed. Many others think that
the first one hundred or so pages of The Lord of the Rings are especially
'heavy' or 'hard reading'. However, it is not the purpose of this paper to
analyse the reason of this lack of appreciation for the taste of words - which
is what Tolkien mainly attempted. We will try rather to explain why, to many
readers, Tolkien, and specially The Lord of the Rings, makes difficult
reading - despite the fact that, to many of them, his are the books. That
is why we will explore Tolkien's concept of the mythic, narrative value of
words.
Tolkien Through the Eyes of a Mediaevalist
Thomas Honegger
The Lord of the Rings, ever since its publication, has been something
of a nuisance to traditional literary critics and has been maligned often and
with zest. The main reason for these strong - and often irrational - reactions
are primarily due to the fact that The Lord of the Rings does not fit
into the literary mainstream and challenges standard critical assumptions about
what a work of twentieth-century fiction should be like. The standard tool-kit
of the literary critic seems utterly inadequate. Mediaevalists, in contrast,
have often taken a more sympathetic view of Tolkien's work. My contribution will
therefore present several 'mediaeval' approaches towards Tolkien, evaluate their
critical value and discuss their contribution towards a more adequate
understanding of Tolkien's literary work.
Thoughts on J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings and History
Paul E. Kerry
The Lord of the Rings is a work of fiction. Yet, Tolkien said that he
'wanted people simply to get inside this story and take it (in as sense) as
actual history'. This essay examines what strategies are active in The Lord
of the Rings that buttress the author's intention (and indeed the claims of
the narrative itself) that it is a work of history. I start from the premise
that philology in Tolkien's day was understood to be the fountainhead of
cultural history. The Lord of the Rings invokes the Classical standard of
an eyewitness, and the prologue and appendices strengthen the historical posture
of the book by mimicking modern historical practices. The Lord of the
Rings also blends Romantic and Enlightenment modes of historical writing.
Finally, the book can be understood as a symbolic history and a genre of textual
memory.
The Knife, the Sting and the Tooth:
Manifestations of Shadow in The Lord of the Rings
Natasa Tucev
This paper will attempt an archetypal analysis of Tolkien's narrative in
order to demonstrate the centrality of the motif of shadow, a mythological
term adopted by Jung to refer to undesirable and suppressed
aspects of both the personal and collective psyche. The paper focuses on
Tolkien's treatment of this motif with a view to exposing cultural and
anthropological implications of his work, as well as his concept of personal
growth, as exemplified by his protagonist Frodo. It is demonstrated
that the collective shadow contents of Tolkien's imaginary universe,
which is predominantly patriarchal, originate in the projection of Thanatos
and the hostility towards the daemonic, orgiastic (and hence disruptive)
elements of the feminine. At the personal level, however,
Tolkien is more hopeful and examines the prospect of integrating the
shadow through the complex dynamic evolving between Frodo and
Gollum as his Other. The process whereby this integration is achieved is
gradual and the psychological experiences it entails - withdrawing
projections, relinquishing the ideological constructs which justify animosity
towards the Other, and recovering wholeness by recognizing the
disowned portion of the Self - may all be discerned in Tolkien's novel.
Mythic Space in Tolkien's Work
(The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit and The
Silmarillion)
Jean-Christophe Dufau
The recent filming of The Lord Of The Rings enabled neophytes to
realize
that one of the most down-to-earth and simultaneously enchanting
aspects of Tolkien's universe was Middle-earth, the imaginary world that
he created with faultless coherence both from a geographical and a historical
standpoint. Yet if such coherence only worked at these two rational
levels, would both the film watcher and the novel reader have been so
powerfully entranced? Presumably not, insofar as only imagination and
its medium - myth - are likely to involve so wide an audience. Once
this is understood, we may ask how far Tolkien's space is mythic, but
we shouldn't bring our questioning only this far, for then, we will also
have to determine how this mythic essence leads to enchantment by delineating
the concept of original space.
Language, Lore and Learning in The Lord of the Rings
Dirk Vanderbeke
A note of music is either right or wrong - absolutely!
Not even Time can alter that: music is God's art.
(Antonio Salieri in Peter Shaffer's Amadeus)
Within the framework of fantasy literature, aspects of magic may take on
the garb of science and serve as functional explanations of the principles
and laws by which the world is governed. This raises the question of
how knowledge about the world and its natural laws is acquired, used,
transmitted or hidden. Knowledge, of course, is inevitably connected
with language, and the basically creationist origin of Tolkien's world
indicates the existence of a true language with a non-arbitrary form of
signification, the knowledge of which equals the knowledge of the world
and its underlying principles. The quest for true knowledge then turns
into a kind of archaeological endeavour, piecing together the fragments
of ancient language and lore, while the search for new knowledge is inevitably
destructive and thus linked to evil. This presentation of knowledge
unquestionably adds to the internal coherence of the texts, but
undermines all claims that Tolkien's work might offer useful solutions
to pressing modern problems, as the premises of his fictional world and
ours are ultimately irreconcilable.
The Lord of the Rings in the Wake of the Great War:
War, Poetry, Modernism, and Ironic Myth
Martin Simonson
This paper takes a look at the influence of World War I on the literary
imagination in general, and on Tolkien's creations in particular. The aim
is to take a closer look at an aspect of The Lord of the Rings which has
not been much studied: its relationship to what Northrop Frye calls
'ironic myth'. For this purpose, Tolkien's best known work will be
compared with some of the poetry written by poets who took part in the
First World War, and with three well known writers of 'high
modernism'.
'A Man, lean, dark, tall':
Aragorn Seen Through Different Media
Connie Veugen
The release of the Peter Jackson film trilogy has renewed interest in both
the original Lord of the Rings by Tolkien and in old and new adaptations
of the book. Because of the film the character of Aragorn has, at
least for the present-day film-going audience, become a prominent figure
in Tolkien's Lord of the Rings. In this article I will illustrate how
Aragorn is portrayed in the original work and how his character is shown
in other versions across several media. As every medium has its own
narrative techniques and technical limitations, I will use theories by
Wendy Doniger and Northrop Frye to establish the fundamental elements
of Aragorn's character. These will then be used to examine how
well every adaptation has succeeded in portraying the essence of the
character.
209 pages, Walking Tree Publishers 2005, Cormarë No. 8, Editor: Thomas Honegger, ISBN: 3-905703-00-9.
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