MODES OF RETENTION AND ACCEPTANCE: THE RECONCILIATION OF PAST AND FUTURE WITHIN J.R.R. TOLKIEN S MIDDLE-EARTH

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1 MODES OF RETENTION AND ACCEPTANCE: THE RECONCILIATION OF PAST AND FUTURE WITHIN J.R.R. TOLKIEN S MIDDLE-EARTH A Thesis Presented to the Faculty of California State University, Stanislaus In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts in English By Johnathan Herold May 2014

2 CERTIFICATION OF APPROVAL MODES OF RETENTION AND ACCEPTANCE: THE RECONCILIATION OF PAST AND FUTURE WITHIN J.R.R. TOLKIEN S MIDDLE-EARTH By Johnathan Herold Signed Certification of Approval Page is on file with the University Library Dr. Anthony Perrello Professor of English Date Dr. Andrew Dorsey Professor of English Date Dr. Jesse Wolfe Professor of English Date

3 2014 Johnathan Herold ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

4 DEDICATION To my grandfather, who taught me how to learn, my grandmother, who taught me how to laugh, my mother, who taught me how to be a student, my father, who taught me how to be a man, and Erica, who taught me that I need not attempt these endeavors on my own. iv

5 EPIGRAPH Though it is a great compliment, I am really rather sorry to find myself the subject of a thesis J.R.R. Tolkien v

6 TABLE OF CONTENTS PAGE Dedication... iv Epigraph... Abstract... v vii Chapter I: Motivations and Mechanisms of Middle-Earth... 1 Introduction... 1 Methods Chapter II: Retaining the Past Carrying the Past in Song Early Curators of the Past: From Dwarves to Hobbits, Bilbo to Gollum The Primeval Titans: Tom Bombadil, Ents, and Istari Places of Past in Decay: Rohan, Gondor, Mordor, and their Inhabitants Chapter III: Embracing the Future Tolkien s Turn to the Future Narrative in Transition: From Bilbo Baggins to Frodo Baggins Seeing the Future through Dreams Signifiers of the Times: Reformed Elves and Reborn Istari Realizing the Future: Entrance into the Age of Men Chapter IV: Reconciliation of Past and Future Samwise Gamgee and the Assimilation of Time Conclusion References vi

7 ABSTRACT Historically, the thematic concerns surrounding J.R.R. Tolkien s works of Middleearth have been oversimplified as static struggles between moral absolutes, base conflicts between forces of good and evil. This narrow approach has overlooked Tolkien s initial motivations for creating his mythopoeia of Middle-earth, which were shaped in the background of two world wars and grounded in an escapist attempt to preserve an idealistic past threatened by the rapid approach of modernity in the early 20th century. However, as Tolkien collectively wrote The Silmarillion, The Hobbit, and the trilogy of volumes which form The Lord of the Rings over the course of nearly sixty years, his original attitudes toward the passing of time grew and changed. By tracing the evolution of Tolkien s pervasive use of a vast web of interconnected symbolic dichotomies centered on the concepts of past and future, a parallel shift can be seen to occur over the course of Tolkien s writing, ultimately revealing a thematic inversion from a longing to retain a fading past to an eventual acceptance of an inevitable future. vii

8 CHAPTER I MOTIVATIONS AND MECHANISMS OF MIDDLE-EARTH Introduction When, after considerable personal and professional struggle, J.R.R. Tolkien finally succeeded in publishing The Hobbit in 1937, followed seventeen years later by the first volume of its epic sequel, The Lord of the Rings, he never could have conceived that the tales centered on his fictional continent of Middle-earth would be hailed by present and future audiences as a triumph of imagination and the benchmark of all modern fantasy fiction. In fact, Tolkien s original aspirations for what later became Middle-earth were of a much humbler sort, rooted outwardly in a desire to entertain his family and closest friends and, more privately, in a deeply entrenched desire to preserve and protect the memory of an idealized past from the clutches of a fast-approaching, increasingly complex future. No more than a cursory analysis of the majority of Tolkien s fictional and nonfictional writings is required to reveal an inherent obsession with the persistent constructs and looming boundaries of time; Tolkien himself repeatedly identified a keen nostalgia for the past as a leading motivator behind his pen. By digging deeper, however, and tracing the evolution of Tolkien s pervasive use of thematic and symbolic associations relating to chronology, not only within each individual volume, but also across the whole of his vast mythopoeia, astute readers might enjoy the understanding of Tolkien s own gradual coming to terms with his mortality and that of the world in which he lived. 1

9 2 In On Fairy Stories, Tolkien s manifesto outlining the general principles of writing fantastical tales, Tolkien touches on his lifelong infatuation with the past, professing a fascination with archaic mode[s] of life (13) and explaining that his attraction to the genre of fantasy stems from its relationship with the bygone, stating that antiquity has an appeal in itself [that has] remained with me since childhood (11). Tolkien s initial turn to the crutch of nostalgia came in 1916, during his service for England in World War I. It was here, in the trenches, that he was exposed firsthand as both wide-eyed participant and shell-shocked witness to the dawn of 20 th century warfare and the daily bombardment of chaos, destruction, and death it provided. He would later characterize this devastation as the utter stupid waste of war, not only material but moral and spiritual (Letters 75). As a result, Tolkien became disenchanted with modernity and mourned the loss of simpler times, which he feared were slipping away in the wake of a march toward a bleak future. He saw, on all sides, a rising conflict coming to a head between a limping natural history and what he termed The Robot Age, the latter s ingenuity considered by Tolkien to be intrinsically connected with a means of ugliness with inferiority of result (Fairy Stories 20). Troubled by these circumstances, Tolkien retreated into thoughts of a hypothetical, idealized past, distracting his mind with the creation and maintenance of an imagined history based on a set of just principles and a reflection of natural serenity which he felt were being hopelessly washed away within his present world. Thus, at age 24, Tolkien began to formulate his first ideas that would later materialize themselves in the form of his great history of Middle-earth, The Silmarillion, writing

10 3 the short tale titled The Fall of Gondolin during his sick-leave near the end of 1916 (Letters 215). In On Fairy Stories, he admits that his taste and fervor for fantasy, initially only a dormant seed, were quickened to full life by war (14). Years later, in a letter written to his son Christopher, who was then serving in World War II, the elder Tolkien again leaves little to the imagination in explaining the defensive origin behind his inspiration for Middle-earth, stating, I took to escapism : or really transforming experience into another form and symbol I still draw on the conceptions then hammered out (Letters 85). It is fitting, then, that the three themes that Tolkien contended to have most cared about in his writing all stem from interrelated fears invoked by witness of modern warfare: fall, the necessity of the end of one thing begetting the rise of another, mortality, the impermanence of human life in the face of the march of time, and machine, a departure from the intrinsic order of nature and thus a discarding of the past (Letters 145). Not only do all three themes directly invoke the exploration of the impermanence of the past in some form or another, but all can be seen as mournful reactions to Tolkien s formative experiences at war. Tolkien s curiosity and concern for the loss of the past seldom waned as he matured. In a 1945 letter to Christopher, Tolkien asserts that few emotions, if any, move him as supremely as the heart-racking sense of a vanished past (110). While there is no doubt of Tolkien s continued professional interest in history, as evidenced by his extensive work in the field of philology, his chief indulgence of his fascination with the archaic continued to be the expansion of his imagined bastion of

11 4 English history, in the form of Middle-earth. Nothing demonstrates this point more fully than Tolkien s conclusion at the end of On Fairy Stories, which states that one of his chief desires behind creating fantasy stories was to survey the depths of time (5). In fact, he proved repeatedly to be both consistent and frank about his fascination with connecting to the past in some form. As far back as 1938, for instance, Tolkien admitted to a fervent though failed attempt to write what he characterized as a time-journey (Letters 29). Similarly, in 1945, he wrote about his fanciful but sincere longing for a time-machine (Letters 108). Tolkien s concern with maintaining the integrity of a cemented past was held with such tenacity that he even viewed preceding drafts of his own writing as something so precious as to not be tampered with. When, in August of 1950, a change to the original version of The Hobbit, written by Tolkien himself, was published without his consent, he was outraged (Letters 141). Despite the fact that both he and his personal critics agreed and admitted that the change was an inarguable improvement to the original draft, Tolkien initially refused to even produce an introductory note to readers explaining that the change had taken place (Letters 142). When it came to Middle-earth, any evidences of modernity irked Tolkien; he lamented even the presence of umbrellas in The Lord of the Rings, not due to the illogicality produced by their status as anachronisms, but because they disrupted Tolkien s calculated idealization of Middleearth s past (Letters 196). In the wake of World War II, the second modern calamity to ravage Tolkien s understanding of the world, his relationship to the past grew from vague

12 5 preoccupation to localized concern; after the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima in 1945, Tolkien wrote that he was not only horrified [and] stunned but felt as if he were living within reach of the the destruction of the world (Letters 116). These global events coupled with an unsuccessful attempt to write a sequel to his comic fable Farmer Giles prompted Tolkien to write to his editors bearing a simple but powerful realization: It is difficult to recapture the spirit of former days (Letters 133). Rather than merely an escape into his own self-manufactured past, Middle-earth became for Tolkien a vessel with which to incorporate, and thus protect, an imaginative cultural origin. What originated as a personal form of indulgence and mental defense in the face of war became a striving effort toward harboring a fragile national lore, one in danger of being permanently lost, within a literary vessel. These sentiments of potential loss are clearly expressed in a letter to Christopher in 1944, in which Tolkien speaks on the inherit briefness of memory and the need of an external vehicle to chronicle and retain history: So short is human memory and so evanescent are its generations that in only about 30 years there will be few or no people with that direct experience which alone goes really to the heart (Letters 75-76). A mere ten years later, Tolkien would diagnose that gone was the mythological time removed from the physical world, and not reachable by material means (Letters 186). Fearing the loss of a history he held dear and seeking the preservation of what he conceived of as a purity of tradition containing an intrinsic and invaluable truth buried deep within its folds, by the late 1940s Tolkien began to view Middle-earth

13 6 through the lens of mythology with fervor previously unseen. As far back as 1937, Tolkien had written about being preoccupied with the construction of [an] elaborate and consistent mythology (Letters 26). In On Fairy Stories, which was first presented at a lecture in 1939, he had equated history with myth, stating that they are both ultimately of the same stuff (10). In 1954, Tolkien showed his continued confidence in this statement, stating that his goal in writing Middle-earth was to create a kind of legendary and history of a forgotten epoch (Letters 186). All of this built toward Tolkien establishing that his focus on mythmaking had become localized to the extent that the stories of Middle-earth would collectively stand in as a mythopoeic vessel housing and protecting a sense of folklore, heritage, and history for the Anglo-Saxons: I was from early days grieved by the poverty of my own beloved country: it had no stories of its own, not of the quality that I sought, and found in the legends of other lands. There was Greek, and Celtic, and Romance, Germanic, Scandinavian, and Finnish; but nothing English Of course there was and is all the Arthurian world, but powerful as it is, it is imperfectly naturalized, associated with the soil of Britain but not with English; and does not replace what I felt to be missing. (Letters 144) Coinciding perfectly with a time in which the Anglo-Saxons had been rediscovered and praised as the ancestors of modern England, Tolkien s efforts toward this creation of a distinctly English mythology served the dual purpose of pandering to his already established thematic proclivity for the past while improving upon the scant

14 7 mythological material of the Anglo-Saxons as it existed at that point in time (Fimi 6). Above all, his goal was to use literature and mythology in tandem as a medium with which to preserve a distinctly Anglo-Saxon history: With his works [Tolkien] made an eminently successful effort to revive the decreasing interest in mythology (Noel 3), to glorify history [and] hallow tradition (Noel 4), and to form a continuation of the mythic tradition into modern literature (Noel 6). To Tolkien, it was this prevailing manifestation of a concentrated English legacy within Middle Earth which authenticated the past it represents and gave power to its mythic history (Ryan 6). The material which started out as The Book of Lost Tales in the trenches of World War I and blossomed into The Silmarillion in the years that followed was Tolkien s originally intended vessel for his appropriated English myth. However, Tolkien soon found that the obsessive nature in which he approached the task made it nearly impossible for the mythic bases of The Silmarillion not to bleed over into his other creative projects; The Silmarillion, by its association with the past it signifies, infected everything that Tolkien wrote. After finishing his initial draft of The Lord of the Rings in 1950, Tolkien wrote to his publisher bemoaning this fact: And now I look at it, the magnitude of the disaster is apparent to me. My work has escaped my control, and I have produced a monster it is not really a sequel to The Hobbit, but to The Silmarillion Worse still: I feel that it is tied to the Silmarillion (136). In light of this, Tolkien began thinking of the two works as inseparable from one another, part of one integrated progression, indivisible and [as] unified as [he] could make it

15 8 (Letters 138). So intent was he to avoid a split publication of the two works that, in 1950, he even sought a different publisher in an attempt to publish them jointly (Letters 134). Despite such aggressive attempts to publish The Silmarillion, which Tolkien repeatedly stated was his greatest desire as a writer, it remained unpublished until 1977, four years after his death (Letters 26). This denial of publication of Tolkien's virtual history would force him to incorporate mythic elements throughout all his works of Middle-earth, most notably The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings (Letters 129). To infuse his mythology with the chronological resiliency he sought, demonstrate his prowess in handling and manipulating the pillars of folklore, and exhibit his respect of mythical history, Tolkien imbued his representations of Middle-earth with the most prevalent legends found across the mythologies of the world (Letters 198). In The Silmarillion, the hero Elendil and his family are the lone survivors of a mighty flood in the wake of the sinking of their island home of Numenor and thus stand in probable reference to the Biblical legend of Noah. Tolkien s Middle-earth, too, acts as mirror of the Noachian ark, serving not only to encapsulate English myth, but also to provide a haven of rescue for the myths of the ages before a deluge of modernity drowned them beneath the waves of time. In the same vein, Tolkien described his appetite as modern mythmaker as fed on the myths of ancient men (Letters 197). J.S. Ryan characterizes this literary technique as contaminatio, or the mingling of distinct sources, and states that Tolkien s mythmaking is made more effective because the purest motivation in reproducing antiquarian themes is based on

16 9 a desperate belief that they must be rescued from oblivion, a belief that Tolkien exemplified (Ryan 14). And so, possessed of a mythopoeic imagination, Tolkien focused his efforts to create his own mythology by standing on the shoulders of a diverse array of mythic traditions from around the globe; far from weakening his structure, Tolkien s unwavering dedication to convey[ing] a sense of the past strengthened the integrity of the mythopoeic results (Ryan 14). The scope and diversity with which Tolkien applied ancient themes from mythology provides a trend-breaking emphasis on Teutonic and Celtic mythologies as opposed to Greek and Roman myths (Noel 3). As Ruth S. Noel explains in The Mythology of Middle-earth, Tolkien s mythopoeia contains over thirty-five types of living beings, nearly all of which are derived from some portion of Celtic, Norse, Christian, or other mythology originating out of or around northern Europe (57). Tolkien and his colleague E.V. Gordon s work on an edition of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight from is popularly thought to have sparked the former s interest in Celtic myth (Fimi 3). This has led to such claims from critics as the wizard Gandalf serving as a Celtic Merlin (Noel 99) and Tolkien s elves being said to resemble the Irish Sidhe and the Light Elves of the Eddas (Noel 113) while possessing generally Celtic overtones (Ryan 4). Viewing Middle-earth through a Norse lens, some critics have characterized Gandalf as a Scandinavian Odin (Noel 99), a belief corroborated by Tolkien in 1946, when he wrote of Gandalf as an Odinic wanderer (Letters 119). The character of Gollum has been linked to Scandinavian legend in the form of the dwarf Andvari, another guardian of a

17 10 precious ring of doom (Noel 65). In addition, the origin of the wolf-like warg is said to be derived from variety of backgrounds, including Old English, Old High German, and Old Norse (Annotated Hobbit 111). What s more, nearly all of the names of the dwarf company in The Hobbit, as well as Gandalf s name, are thought to have originated either from the Prose Edda (Noel 108) or from the Gylfaginning catalogue of Norse mythology (Ryan 8). Similarly, the Volsungasaga is thought to have influenced the name and core characteristics of Tolkien s shape-shifting character of Beorn (Noel 90). The Balrog of Moria has also been referenced as resembling the adversary of the Scandinavian gods and wielder of fire in Ragnarok, Surt (Noel 101). Even Mordor can be traced to the Scandinavian concept of Muispell, a southern land, light, hot, and impassable (Ryan 11). Not surprisingly, in the aftermath of Tolkien s influential essay The Monster s and the Critic s and his self-proclamation of Beowulf as among [his] most valued sources, many have also cited the Old English epic poem as having a distinctive influence on the mythology of Tolkien s Middle-earth. (Letters 31). Most frequently, critics have highlighted that the sequence of events surrounding Smaug the dragon in The Hobbit and that surrounding the Beowulf dragon come together to form an incongruous and conscious parallel (Noel 60). As Noel notes, they each guard an underground golden horde, lose a precious cup to an unlikely thief, recognize the absence of the single item from their respective hordes, and finally take out their subsequent anger by seeking the destruction of a nearby city (60). For what it is worth, Tolkien, in 1949, addressed questions of this proposed parallel by criticizing

18 11 the Beowulf dragon as one that is not frightfully good and instead endorsing a connection between Smaug and Fafnir from the Norse versions of the Sigurd-story, stating that Smaug and his conversation obviously is in debt there (Letters 134). It would be neglectful to not also mention the numerous associations of Christian elements frequently cited to Middle-earth; Tolkien, who himself was Catholic and whose son John was a Catholic priest, admitted to being influenced by Catholic sources in a straightforward fashion: The Lord of the Rings is of course a fundamentally religious and Catholic work; unconsciously so at first, but consciously in the revision (Letters 172). Additionally, Tolkien s attempt at a distinct Anglo- Saxon history is most directly aided by a use of the Old English language, as many names in Tolkien s mythical stylistic are formed from Old English roots, such as Bilbo s jeer to his spider adversaries in The Hobbit of attercoop meaning poison head, Shelob meaning she-spider, and the Balrog meaning evil-exciter (Ryan 7). Finally, some of Tolkien s mythic sources are more generic or universal in origin. For example, his Ents have been characterized as the European spirit of trees, while Trolls have accordingly been designated as the European spirit of stones. Still, even in lesser impactful creations such as the trolls, Tolkien claimed to have used elements of old barbarous mythmaking (Letters 191). It is because of this unique diversity of source material that Tolkien has been called the most complex of the modern myth-makers (Ryan 16). The vestiges of Tolkien s mythological inspirations are well-chronicled in scholarship. The resultant rendering of most of these mythic associations as

19 12 superficially individualized all too commonly provides fleeting entertainment at best and, at worst, shells already emptied of their acumen; the details of these mythic sources lack contemporary significance unless they are providing insight across a larger web of overarching themes. These deficiencies are a result of critics failing to illuminate Tolkien s personal ardor for the past and the profound influence it had on his shaping of Middle-earth; it is not merely Tolkien s use of myth to retain the past, but an eventual wavering conviction for that cause, that proves most enticing. Despite the initial obstinacy of his passion for the archaic, Tolkien s views about the past gradually evolved over the course of his writing The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings; the ripple effect of these changes can be seen thematically over course of Middle-earth s history. This fits seamlessly with critical interpretations of Tolkien s lack of consistency, as he was said to fluctuate, sometimes defending, sometimes rejecting one or another view (Burns 2). For instance, Tolkien initially vehemently denied the presence of any trace of Celtic myth in Middle-Earth, despite ample evidence to the contrary; nearly twenty years later, Tolkien was perplexingly shown not only to admit but to embrace the use of Celtic myth in his works (Fimi 13). The assertion that Tolkien was not only able, but apt, to shift the ideals and perspectives of his writings is not, then, without precedent he has often been cited for exhibiting such tensions of doubleness in his writing, particularly when it comes to tradition and change but it has never before been explored on thematic matter so holistic in scope. In this way, Tolkien s mythopoeia, in its simplest form, proves to be more than a mere stagnant manifestation of its author s obsessive desire to horde and protect a

20 13 dwindling past. Instead, Tolkien s division of Middle-earth can be seen as predicated on a progressive struggle between an effort to retain an idealization of the past and accept an inevitable future. Tolkien s feelings toward the workings of time, though gradually evolving throughout his writing of The Silmarillion, The Hobbit, and The Lord of the Rings, finally reach a climax after the latter s publication in the mid- 1950s; where Tolkien s attitude towards the passing of time settles, whether he decides to hole up and retain the past or turn his back on it and march forward, ultimately forms the thematic background that pervades throughout all of Middle- Earth. Methods The paths to understanding the thematic foundations present in Tolkien s Middle-earth are far from friendly to the unseasoned traveler, winding, unkempt, and riddled with false-starts and dead-ends; attempts to synthesize and make sense of Tolkien s themes on a holistic level often leave both causal readers and seasoned critics wanting. Early scholars of Tolkien s texts often oversimplified Tolkien s message to a conflict of good and evil, as did Tolkien s friend W.H. Auden in his 1968 article The Quest Hero (Auden 56). Another article, written the same year, spoke similarly, saying that Tolkien s readers are confronted basically by a raw struggle between good and evil (Fuller 24). Such generalizations fail to take into account the complexities at play in Tolkien s world, complexities that Tolkien himself was fain to both emphasize and defend. In fact, over the course of regular correspondence with Auden, Tolkien repeatedly refuted the idea that his writings

21 14 dealt in unmoving fundamentals of any kind, whether it be good versus evil or otherwise, once stating: In my story I do not deal in Absolute Evil. I do not think there is such a thing (Letters 243). Unfortunately, even recent scholarship has done little to provide any satisfying alternative interpretations, instead remaining largely mute on the issue of Tolkien s themes, in part because Tolkien himself famously condemned the exercise of examining his own background as a potential source of information: I do not like giving facts about myself other than dry ones. Not simply for personal reasons; but also because I object to the contemporary trend in criticism, with its excessive interest in the details of the lives of authors and artists. They only distract attention from an author s works, and end, as one now often sees, in becoming the main interest. (Letters 288) Left without direction and quelled by these lingering words of Tolkien, scholarship attempting to explain the intricacies of the multi-layered themes and motifs of Middle-earth has been inconsistent and incomplete. Neil Isaacs, in his article On the Possibilities of Writing Tolkien Criticism, goes so far as to claim that Tolkien s imagination has produced a game of symbol-tease (5). Tolkien once stated that he purposely kept all allusions to the highest matters down to mere hints, perceptible only by the most attentive (Letters 201). It is the fundamental goal of this investigation to respond to this challenge and eradicate this fissure of thematic ambiguity once and for all, putting forth in its place a logical, reasonable, and well-supported means of understanding not only the symbolic and

22 15 thematic unity that Tolkien injects in his works of Middle-earth, but also the evolution of his themes over time. Despite Tolkien s entrenched resistance to biographical criticism, and the failure of most critics to suggest a feasible thematic arc linking the texts of Middle-earth, there are curious parallels that can be found between the gradual change in Tolkien s personal attitude towards the passing of time and his fictional treatment of chronology. These parallels provide an important starting point outside of the text, an angle of analysis for interpreting the motivations for thematic evolution as it pertains directly to the author. In order to fully trace Tolkien s struggle from resisting the relinquishing of the past to accepting the inevitable coming of the future, however, a thorough understanding of the vast, sophisticated, and diverse array of interconnected symbolism used to represent time in Middle-earth is not only desirable but necessary. The following chapters exploration of Tolkien s fluctuating themes of chronology will rely heavily on the novel observation that Tolkien used a varied series of inherently linked symbolic dichotomies to present the general concepts of past and future as continually at odds with one another. Nearly every individual character, race, location, and even several objects in Middle-earth can be found to have potent links with either past or future in a series of contrasting time motifs, and can thus be neatly categorized as representations of one side or the other. According to The Silmarillion, the earliest years of existence within Tolkien s fictional universe lacked a concrete concept of time. Instead, two momentous lamps, called Illuin and Ormal, shined constantly over the earth, so that all was lit as it were a changeless

23 16 day (Silmarillion 35). When Melkor, the Tolkien equivalent to Milton s interpretation of Lucifer, pridefully rebels against his fellow gods, the Valar, he breaks the two lamps, leaving only darkness. As a remedy to this disaster, another of the Valar, Yavanna, creates the Two Trees of the Valar to light the world again. The first of these trees, called Telperion and known as Tree of Silver, is said to possess countless leaves of the silver, and from each of his countless flowers a dew of silver light was ever falling (Silmarillion 38). In contrast, the second tree, Laurelin, is characterized as the Tree of Gold, sporting leaves with edges of glittering gold, which spilled a golden rain upon the ground (Silmarillion 38). It is from these two divine trees that most of the recurring motifs of the past and future stem. The first of Tolkien s numerous symbolic dichotomies of time is a contrast of silver and gold. On one side is the notable repetition of the color silver, which, over the course of The Lord of the Rings, will be shown to be synonymous with the coming of new days; even in this initial description, Telperion is said to have shone with the white glimmer of a silver dawn (Silmarillion 38, emphasis mine). On the other side is the equivalent repetition of the color gold, which will be shown to be synonymous with the deterioration of the past, akin to the old and rusty gold in Beowulf which becomes the title character s final prize in his defeat of the dragon (Beowulf 221). It is from the rhythm of the Light of the Trees of the Valar that begins the Count of Time in Middle-earth, whereas before, time had not been measured (Day 245). In this way, it is shown that time begins as a form of cohesion between past and future. However, it is not long before this harmony is disrupted. Sent by

24 17 Melkor, the voracious spider Ungoliant drains the two trees of their potency, leaving them unable to be fixed or regrown by the Valar. In response, the two trees are transformed: Telperion bore at last upon a leafless bough one great flower of silver, and Laurelin a single fruit of gold (Silmarillion 98-99). The silver flower becomes the moon, fittingly raised first into the sky by Tilion, a lover of silver and possessor a silver bow (Silmarillion 99); the ascension of the silver flower of Telperion is also accompanied by the blow of silver trumpets (Silmarillion 100). In turn, the golden fruit becomes the sun, guided by Arien, a maiden of the Valar who had tended the golden flowers in the gardens of Vana (Silmarillion 99). Here, the second of Tolkien s symbolic dichotomies of time is revealed as a contrast between a coupling of moon and night on one side and of sun and day on the other. On a basic level, the pairing of the silver and gold, established as harbingers of future and past respectively, with moon and sun, creating a coupling of silver nights and golden days, might seem natural or even insignificant, but it serves an invaluable purpose in its power of association regarding past and future (LOTR 984). The distinction between day and night was an ever-important one to Tolkien; he admitted to paying special attention to times when the moon appears within his texts (Letters 80). The concept of death, for instance, the process of a living being entering into the past, is frequently associated by Tolkien with the image of a setting sun. A notable instance of this occurs with the death of Morwen in The Silmarillion, who, after a long awaited reunion with her husband Hurin, states that she shall go with the sun before clasping his hand and dying instantaneously with the sunset (Silmarillion 229).

25 18 In line with and stemming from this foundation, a natural string of subsequent symbolic time-based dichotomies can be seen to occur repeatedly through Tolkien s writing. In terms of future motifs, as silver led to moon and night, night proves to extend this influence to sleep, and from sleep it reaches its climax in dreams and visions. From dreams, which are used by Tolkien as a medium through which a sight of, or connection to, the events of the future may be attained, the association of future finally extends to the act of seeing in general, including anything involving the ocular, before dissipating. In terms of past motifs, as gold led to sun and day, day proves to extend this influence to sleep s antithesis, waking. In contrast to the future s association with the ocular, the past also associates itself with the oral, especially oral history and song. It is important to note here that these symbolic dichotomies of the concepts of future and past, which might perhaps be initially viewed as stretched thin, serve only the purpose here of being recognized as specific categories for use in subsequent analysis; the examples that ensue from this introduction of methods will hopefully prove more than adequate justification for their establishment by showing both their accuracy and consistency. The chief and most compelling of these contrasting associations used by Tolkien, those of dream with future and song with past, will be highlighted in great depth in introducing the respective past and future chapters that follow. It is through the application of these symbolic vehicles in particular that both scholars and causal readers alike might find clues of Tolkien s personal growth and changing ideals on time within the pages of his fantasy world.

26 CHAPTER II RETAINING THE PAST Carrying the Past in Song Tolkien penned his early tales of Middle-earth with an underlying longing to fossilize and preserve a simpler time, which he saw swiftly dissolving in lieu of 20th century modernity. In his foreword to the second edition of The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien corroborates this, stating bluntly that his story was drawn irresistibly towards [an] older world (LOTR xxii). Similarly, renowned Tolkien scholar Tom Shippey notes in J.R.R. Tolkien: Author of the Century that one of Tolkien s characteristic activities was the antiquarian one of showing old words and beliefs and habits persisting in modern times (169). While the symbolism and motifs that Tolkien applies to invoke the pathos of the past have been shown to be diverse, Middle Earth s origin as a mode of retention is best traced along his use of oratory and speech as sources of oral history. Tolkien considered Middle-earth fundamentally linguistic in inspiration, with the invention of languages [as] the foundation (Shippey 219). For him, the organic growth and uses of language were predisposed to act as vessels for maintaining the past. In a similar vein to the epic traditions of oral history established by medieval scops, Tolkien used the words of his characters to help establish and chronicle the history of the world they inhabit, utilizing what he called the archaic language of lore (Letters 176). This has prompted some scholars, like Patrick J. Callahan in Tolkien, Beowulf, and the 19

27 20 Barrow-Wights, to claim that the Beowulf poet and Tolkien symbolically inhabit the same universe (5). Unlike the scops, however, Tolkien expands the bounds of oratory, placing special emphasis on occurrences of music and song. A connection between music and past is welded at the heart of Tolkien s mythology; the oldest event in The Silmarillion, the creation of the entirety of existence or visible history, is said to take place all at once through means of divine music (Letters 284). The supreme being of Tolkien s mythology, known at various times as Eru, Illuvatar, and The One, gifts the Valar, his divine creations, themes of music which detail all of the events that will take place over the course of history; in response they [sing] before him, and he [is] glad (Silmarillion 15). Previously rendered inert in the Timeless Halls (Silmarillion 20), the history of the world is set in motion by this action of initiation, placing it within the Deeps of Time (Silmarillion 18). In association with music, the significance of songs as indicators of the past cannot be understated. An anomaly within the whole of Tolkien s fiction, songs are set aside from the text and rendered in italics, greatly affecting not only the pace of the narrative but the formal presentation of the text itself. Despite the widespread variation in number of races and species in Tolkien s Middle Earth, nearly every culture featured in its early installments places some premium on the use of song, whether it be dwarves, hobbits, elves, men, or even evil races such as goblins. Estelle R. Jorgensen asserts that this connection, stating that constant and continuing is the role of singing in their lived experience All the peoples of the free world sing,

28 21 and their songs serve to remember people and events (5, 8). For example, when goblins chase Bilbo, Gandalf, and the dwarves up into trees in The Hobbit, they proceed to taunt them with song, and even ask why those they pursue do not sing back in return: Sing, sing little birds! Why don t you sing? (Hobbit 106). In the context of Tolkien s early conceptions of Middle Earth, the use and creation of song is presented in connection with the natural world, a core component of life itself. When Bilbo and his party first encounter goblins singing in The Hobbit, for instance, their song is implied to be naturally aligned with their movements, keeping in time with the flap of their flat feet on the stone (Hobbit 60). On other occasions, songs are mentioned in the same context of necessities such as food, drink, or rest. Merry comments while in route to Rivendell, for instance, Won t somebody give us a bit of song, while the sun is high? We haven t had a song or tale for days (LOTR 206). At some points in Tolkien s narratives, song is even mentioned as a legitimate form of currency. A prime example of this is occurs in the aftermath of the auction sale at Bag-End, which takes place after a long-absent Bilbo is presumed dead; here it is stated that, most of the things had already been sold, for various prices from next to nothing to old songs (Hobbit 303). In a 1944 letter to his son Christopher, Tolkien quotes the Exeter Book, saying, Less doth yearning trouble him who knoweth many songs How these old words smite one out of the dark antiquity! (Letters 66). Fittingly, Tolkien ends up using song as his key vehicle of retention in his writing, a vehicle for maintaining a connection to the past and keeping it alive in the present, far from the reaches of

29 22 dark antiquity. Establishing it as a suitable vessel for the carrying of both memory and historical knowledge, he uses song as a tool to stave off the approach of time. Most mentions of song in Tolkien s texts group together story [and] song, (LOTR 154) or songs and tales (LOTR 562) as if they are one and the same. At other times, songs as presented as the fittest of tools for any loremaster (Silmarillion 63). The connection of songs as medium for commemorating the past can be seen from the earliest pages of The Hobbit. When Bilbo and the dwarves reach the city of Dale, for instance, they find that the men of that town use songs to retain fragments of the city s past; when the men sing of the king s return to the mountain, it is insinuated that they only maintain the historical information they have by snatches of old songs (Hobbit 197). In The Fellowship of the Ring, the first of Tolkien s three volumes of The Lord of the Rings, it is shown that song s ability to keep the past alive does not even rely on the thorough understanding of the listener. When Gildor Inglorion and the other High Elves are heard singing in an unfamiliar tongue by Frodo and company as they set off on the early stages of their journey, it is stated that The sound blending with the melody seemed to shape itself into words which they understood. More fitting still, the song reverberates with the nostalgic line, We still remember (LOTR 79). Time and time again, song is shown to be used by Tolkien as a potent source of remembering, granting the ability to bring the past back into the present even to the previously unexposed. For example, the surprising amount of knowledge that the dwarf Gimli has about layout of the Mines and Moria despite never having traversed

30 23 them before is convincingly explained in an instant when he merely tells his comrades, [Moria] is still remembered in our songs and proceeds to sing the refrain which has guided him (LOTR 315). Similarly, when the Fellowship enters the Elvish haven of Lothlorien for the first time, they find that Legolas is already familiar with the setting; he explains that the elves made many songs long ago remembering the rainbow on its falls [to] the golden flowers that floated in its foam (LOTR 339). Songs are also used as measuring sticks to show the limitations of the history keeping and memory. Archaic entities that are not or cannot be chronicled or remembered are said to be in the years beyond the reach of song (LOTR 794). In speaking of the men of Dunharrow, for instance, the narrator states that their name was lost and no song or legend remembered it (LOTR 795). In some rare instances, readers are even shown the beginning stages of the historicizing process in the form of the impromptu creation of new songs as an active cataloguing of immediate past; as Aragorn tells Eomer when they first meet, For not we but those who come after will make the legends of our time (LOTR 434). For example, when Boromir falls at the hands of orcs at the start of The Two Towers, Tolkien s second installment of The Lord of the Rings, both Aragorn and Legolas immediately sing dirges for the fallen Boromir, memorializing him in song (LOTR 417). Similarly, when Frodo hears elves speaking Gandalf s name while in Lothlorien, they are said to be, making songs of lamentation for his fall (LOTR 359). Ultimately, songs serve not only to honor those they are composed for, but to gift a sliver of oral immortality in a culture that possesses written forms but still

31 24 thrives by use of the tongue. Late in The Hobbit, after Bard the Bowman succeeds in dealing the final, deadly blow to Smaug, the dragon that has spread terror across the land for decades, the Master of Dale bestows this highest of honors upon Bard, stating, He has tonight earned an eminent place in the roll of benefactors of our town; and he is worthy of many imperishable songs (Hobbit 253). Perhaps the most interesting dynamic at play with the songs of Middle-earth is their deep-seated propensity for the fantastic; they appear to have an intimate connection with the concept of magic and a considerable role in salvaging the mysticism of the past before it falls from the present into the annals of the history. For example, Thomas W. Smith claims that through the use of song, Tolkien's fantasy is an attempt to re-enchant a world (11). Magical incantations, like songs, are distinguishable from the rest of Tolkien s text, presented in the form of italics. The most common example of this likeness can be ascertained wherever Gandalf is shown casting a spell, such as when he causes a tree to into flame so as to help fight off a host of oncoming Wargs (LOTR 299). By relegating magic as an oral documentation of incantation, as when Gandalf needs to remember the secret password in order to open the grand doors of the Mines of Moria, Tolkien equates magic with not only with song but with oral history at large, in a sense ensuring not only a re-enchantment of Middle-earth but also of the presence of the fantastic within its bounds. Ultimately, allowing magical elements to be documented as a part of oral history grants them a metaphorical immortality, avoiding the loss of the fantastic that would take place with their demise. In a more general sense, songs are as often associated with the

32 25 inducement of magic as they are with the tales that they tell. When Bilbo first hears the dwarves song of the Misty Mountains in The Hobbit, for example, the narration explains that, As they sang [Bilbo] felt magic moving through him (Hobbit 15). Similarly, during Frodo s stay at Rivendell, it is said that the beauty of the melodies and of the interwoven words held [Frodo] in a spell (LOTR 233). In The Fellowship of the Ring, when Frodo is stabbed by the one of the Nazgul, Aragorn s only remedy at hand is to sing a slow song in a strange tongue over the wound (LOTR 198). Both through literal and symbolic means, Tolkien used his earliest figures of Middle-earth to reflect his initial thematic obsession with the retention of the past. Starting with The Hobbit, Tolkien s Middle-earth is saturated with a multitude of symbols and motifs representing and promoting the past and its conservation. As has been shown, the chief of these methods, both in number and effectively, is that of songs, which attempt to freeze into permanence the glory of the past (Zimbardo 106). Whether it be the Dwarves, Hobbits, Ents, Elves, or others, nearly all of Tolkien s early characters embody this conservation of an idealized past, meant to be pitied for its weathering and longed for in its serenity. It must also be emphasized, however, that Tolkien s treatment of the past changes drastically over the course of his works. As his personal ideals of past and mortality are shaken, Tolkien goes from seeking to promote and maintain an idealized past, depicted as powerful and beautiful, to ostracizing the remnants of a demonized version of the past, depicted with striking contrast as impotent and grotesque. Each subsection of this chapter

33 26 follows the early strength of Tolkien's theme of retention in The Hobbit and The Fellowship of the Ring, to its earliest signs of in instability in The Two Towers, through to the maturation of its inversion in his final volume of The Lord of the Rings, The Return of the King. Through examining the means and regularities by which Tolkien intermittently ascribes the motifs of past to his various races, individuals, locations, and even objects of Middle-earth, a foundational understanding of his shifting ideologies of time can be obtained. Early Curators of the Past: From Dwarves to Hobbits, Bilbo to Gollum The hardy dwarves dominate the early pages of The Hobbit in both in quantity and impact; unsurprisingly, they are also one of the races of Middle-earth most intricately connected to a positive representation of the past. Dwarves were not part of the planned creation of Middle-earth s supreme being, Eru, and were instead shaped at the hands of the impatient Aule, smith of the Valar and master of crafts, so as to serve him as receptacles of the past, learners to whom he could teach his lore (Silmarillion 43). This natural disposition of dwarves is elaborated on at length in Tolkien s appendixes to The Lord of the Rings, which characterize the dwarves as retentive of memory (Annotated Hobbit 47) and emphasize their propensity to partake in song (LOTR 1072). Whether it be sporting the chorus, Back to the lands you once did know! while riding in barrels during an aquatic escape of the elves of Mirkwood (Hobbit 182) or singing The mountain throne once more is freed! after hearing of the death of the dragon Smaug (Hobbit 264), the dwarves show time and

34 27 time again that they understand and record their history through song. Near the start of The Hobbit, when the dwarves are cleaning the dishes after their unexpected meeting at Bilbo s residence, they demonstrate their proclivity for song for the first time, breaking out into a tune with the surprisingly specific chorus of That s what Bilbo Baggins hates (Hobbit 12). What is so rattling about these otherwise prosaic lyrics is their collective creativity; they are sung in impromptu unison by the dwarves without hesitation or prior consultation. It is only a few pages later that another memorable song is uttered in harmony by the dwarves, as suddenly first one and then another [begin] to sing (Hobbit 14). The difference, however, is that this latter melody, the haunting song of the Misty Mountains, takes full advantage of the medium s prowess for the past. Here, over the course of two pages, an opus of nostalgia is presented, issuing not only literally from the dwarves throats but also metaphorically from the deep places of their ancient homes (Hobbit 14). The chorus of the song, repeated before the chapter s end, encapsulates the mindset of the backward-looking dwarves, speaking of the haste needed to remember and return to caverns old and long-forgotten gold before the breaking of too many new days (Hobbit 27). As has been established, the mention of gold also serves as a reference to the past, so that readings of long-forgotten gold and long-forgotten past might be seen as interchangeable. While others in possession of the One Ring or its brethren are consistently shown to be taken hostage and subsequently possessed by their power, the hearts of the dwarves are said to be inflamed only by a greed of gold (LOTR 1076). As a result, Tolkien s dwarves enhanced longing for past restoration