Tag Archives: tolkien studies

Book Review: Splintered Light: Logos and Language in Tolkien’s World

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I recently had the pleasure of reading Verlyn Flieger’s scholarly book Splintered Light: Logos and Language in Tolkien’s World. Well-written and thoroughly-argued, the book is a stellar example of sound literary scholarship and is necessary reading for anyone looking for a more nuanced understanding of Tolkien’s work and fantastic philosophy.

In essence, Fliger argues that, for Tolkien, the power of language and the power of light remain inextricably intertwined, with the former providing access to the latter. However, Tolkien’s acts of subcreation, especially as represented in his invented English languages, also suggest that language undergoes a never-ending process of (de)volution. While it comes to provide a more nuanced understanding of the world, it also becomes more distanced from the original light from which it originated. Given that in Tolkien’s view language constructs and springs from reality, this has far-reaching consequences.

Most compellingly, in my view, Flieger suggests that Tolkien’s work does not unambiguously elevate light over darkness. Instead, she suggests, Tolkien’s various polarities that exist within the mythos rely upon each other for their construction. Motivated by his Christian (and specifically Catholic) worldview, however, Tolkien also argues that while life, and history, is a long defeat (a Fall), it is humankind’s lot and duty to persevere and retain faith even in the certainty of that defeat.

She traces this motif through much of The Silmarillion. She has a clear, strong grasp of the nuances both of Tolkien’s invented languages (she focuses primarily on Quena and Sindarin), as well as the many branches of the Elves that emerged after their emergence in Middle-earth. She traces a number of interesting features among the most important figures in Tolkien’s most difficult yet ambitious work, including Feanor, Thingol, Beren, and Luthien.

Much of the book remains focused on The Silmarillion. It is only toward the end that Flieger shifts gears slightly and moves into a discussion of the ways in which the characters of The Lord of the Rings, pointing out how Frodo’s sacrifice is so powerful precisely because he journeys, willingly, away from the light of the West and into the encroaching dark of the East. Frodo’s fate, like so many tragic heroes, is to give up everything that he values so that others may possess them. He has given up and gone away from the light, yet there is hope, never entirely guaranteed, that he may regain it.

If there is one quibble I have with the book, it is the lack of a broader sense of the historical context in which Tolkien was writing. Admittedly, this sense may be due more to my own scholarly inclinations (I am an unashamed historicist), but to my mind it goes a long way toward explaining how Tolkien was not an escapist, but rather a writer struggling to come to terms with the world in which he lived.

For the most part, however, Flieger’s is an accessible yet nuanced exploration of Tolkien’s work. Her writing, clear and lucid throughout, makes her an ideal gateway for those non-academics seeking a richer understanding of the works of Tolkien. However, it is advisable to read The Silmarillion in its entirety before tackling Splintered Light.

There is something profoundly satisfying in reading a solid piece of scholarship. As one of those responsible for elevating Tolkien into the ranks of “legitimate” literature, Flieger’s work deserves especial praise. Rather than seeing Tolkien’s work as mere escapist fantasy, or indeed as mere fiction, Flieger allows us to see the way(s) in which it they work as a profoundly subtle and nuanced explorations of the deepest and most troubling philosophical questions haunting the 20th (and now the 21st) Century.

Reading “The Lord of the Rings:” “The Shadow of the Past”

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In this chapter, the reader finally begins to learn of the origins of the Ring, not only how it was made and by whom, but also how it came to be in the hands of two hobbits of the Shire and what should be done with it.  It is both one of the most frightening and most compelling parts of the book, because we at last begin to get a glimpse of just how much is at stake with what has transpired.

Only Tolkien could take a chapter that is, almost in its entirety, a history lesson and make it as compelling and forward driven as the more action-oriented parts of the story.  The chapter pulls us along as the story unspools and we at last learn of the many stages of the Ring, from its forging to its eventual location in the Shire.  We also learn of the danger that has now arisen, as Sauron reaches forth his hand to the supposedly safe lands of the hobbits.

This chapter also reveals some of the deep philosophical questions that will continue to percolate beneath the surface for the rest of the novel.  If Bilbo was, as Gandalf believes, meant to find the Ring, and if Frodo in his turn was meant to have it, who is the one that is doing the meaning?  The chapter doesn’t really answer the question.  Indeed, the novel as a whole keeps in tension the possibility of agency and the submission to a higher power that gives mortals the opportunity to make those choices that are for the greater good, without ever knowing for certain what that great good entails in its entirety.

The question of pity and mercy is also one of the deeper philosophical issues raised in this chapter, and now we learn that it is precisely because Bilbo refused to give in to the dark temptation to strike Gollum down when he had the chance that the Ring did not manage to have a greater hold on him.  It is a valuable lesson, and one of those that allows this novel to withstand the test of time.  When Gandalf reprimands Frodo for being too harsh to proclaim death and judgment upon Gollum, he seems to also be addressing us as readers, reminding us all to hold in check our most violent and emotional impulses (a valuable lesson, particularly in the course of an election year).

Thus, while we will not meet Gollum for many more pages, we are already intended to understand him in a more complex and tragic way than we did in The Hobbit.  Learning that he is, however distantly, related to the hobbits that we have already come to know and love so well, grants us the opportunity to see him as something more than just an evil, disgusting, murderous creature.  While he is certainly those things, there is still hope (however faint) that he might still gain at least some measure of salvation, even after all he has done.

Even now, after all the numerous times I’ve read The Lord of the Rings, this remains one of my favourite chapters, not just because of the layers of history, but also because of the depth of philosophical rumination that it reveals.  While it will be several chapters more before we get the same level of reflection (“The Council of Elrond” is also one of my favourite chapters for that very reason), this chapter helps us to understand the larger stakes of the chapters to follow).  After this moment, nothing that the hobbits have so long taken for granted will ever be the same.

Are Tolkien’s Orcs Really THAT Evil?

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In the moral universe Tolkien created, good and evil, at least on the surface, appear fairly cut and dry.  Races like Hobbits and Men (at least certain types of them) are unequivocally good, while races like Orcs, Trolls, and the lesser types of men are transparently evil.  Anyone who has read his work with any level of attention to detail and depth, however, soon realizes that these moral divisions quickly break down; Gollum was in origin a Hobbit, and even many of the much-vaunted Numenoreans fell under the sway and influence of evil.  But what of the Orcs, those seemingly utterly dispensable minions of both Morgoth and Sauron that periodically emerge to scourge the rest of Middle-earth’s inhabitants?  Can anything even remotely redeeming or laudatory be said of them?

I would like to argue that it can.

For one thing, we must remember the origins of these terrible creatures.  The Silmarillion suggests that the Orcs were once Elves, taken by Morgoth and tortured until they became something utterly alien to their original natures.  When one considers the extraordinary physical and spiritual agony these Elves must have endured in order to produce the twisted, baneful creatures that we meet several times in the various tales of Middle-earth, one cannot help but feel at least a pang of sorrow and remorse that creatures as fair and beautiful (if often prideful and stubborn) as the Elves should be turned so thoroughly to evil and destruction.

Even though Orcs are cruel and seemingly immoral, hating all things (including, it would seem, themselves), they are not always obedient, nor indeed loyal, to the dark powers that constantly command them (usually through a form of intimidation and the threat of physical violence and pain).  Take, for example, the conversation between Shagrat and Gorbag in The Two Towers.  It quickly becomes clear that these two Orcs, at least, do not wish to be in service to Sauron, for they broach the subject of one day setting up on their own, out of the control and out of the reach of those who have so consistently dominated them and made their lives a misery.  While they will, it is suggested, maintain their Orcish ways, plundering and pillaging those around them, there is something in this particular passage that speaks of a desire to escape from the bonds set about them, that they do not, necessarily, enjoy being evil (though they clearly enjoy the idea of doing evil and violent things).  While they are clearly unrepentantly evil, it is not clear that they are, necessarily, irredeemably so.

Of course, one cannot ignore the fact that, with a few exceptions, the Orcs are rarely given anything remotely resembling character development.  Yet even this, I think, contributes to the reader’s understanding of them as a race victimized and abandoned by those who created them and continues to exploit their labours (which, of course, are not at all appreciated).  In one of his letters, Tolkien referred to them as the rank and file (a clear echo of his own experience in the trenches of World War I), suggesting to me at least that he intended the reader to view them with at least something of a sympathetic eye.  These are creatures, it seems, whose lives have no value and whose deaths (unlike those of Elves, Men, and Dwarves) receive no marker nor memorial from either their own side nor their enemies.

Some of this even bleeds over into Jackson’s adaptation of The Lord of the Rings, particularly in The Fellowship of the Ring.  Saruman, the traitor, asks his Uruk-hai henchman Lurtz whether he knows how the Orcs first came into being.  He notes that they were taken, tortured and mutilated, and rendered into a ruined and terrible form of life.  Indeed, Jackson’s adaptation does an excellent job of showing us the squalour and agony from which the Orcs (or at least this particular breed) are created.

Whatever else one can say about the Orcs, these few vignettes do allow us to see that they are more complex than many have them credit for being.  All of this, of course, raises significant questions about nature and about just how much sympathy we as readers are supposed to have for the alleged nature of these creatures.  I know that I, at least, am moved to at least some measure of…pity?…understanding?…empathy?…I can’t quite decide how to classify my emotions.  The Orcs are, in a way, the abject of Tolkien’s universe, the castoff and the refuse that has to exist in order for the moral order to make sense.  As with most cases of abjection, however, they evoke a complex and often contradictory range of emotional responses from readers, myself included.  But then, it is precisely moral complexity and questions of agency that Tolkien’s work always creates, and that is definitely a good thing.

Teaching Tolkien: Biographical, Textual, and Historical Approaches

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Though I have not yet had the chance to teach an entire course on Tolkien, his works, and his legacy, I have still given a lot of thought to the numerous ways in which I might do so, as well as what aspects would be most fruitful pedagogically. As it happens, his is an immensely rich ouvre, and there are numerous ways one can use his work to address a wide variety of reading and interpretive practices key to the study of various aspects of literature and culture.

One could, of course, teach a course on Tolkien as an author. I’m thinking here not just of a biographical study (though Humphrey Carpenter and Michael White have both written compelling biographies of Tolkien), but also of a nuanced and careful consideration of those things that most influenced his writing.  Tom Shippey has made a compelling case for reading Tolkien in the context of his scholarship and academic works (in both Tolkien:  Author of the Century and, to a greater extent, in his very learned The Road to Middle-earth).  Indeed, one of the richest courses I took on Tolkien in undergrad was titled “Tolkien in Context.”   Such a course, I think, would almost certainly have to include Tolkien’s noteworthy translations, and we are very fortunate that Christopher Tolkien has provided us at last with his father’s translation of Beowulf, as well as the already in-print collection of Sir Orfeo, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and The Pearl.  However, I would also include such works as The Elder Edda in a course such as this, and I might even consider throwing in some of the work by other Inklings such as C.S. Lewis (though probably not The Chronicles of Narnia, both because I think it is far inferior to LoTR and because Tolkien was known to have hated it).  This course would,  I think, enable students to get a really nuanced and complex sense of who Tolkien was an author, as well as the various contexts and frames within which he wrote as both an author of fiction and a well-respected academic.

Likewise, I would also love to teach a course on the textual history on Tolkien’s work.  Shippey has shed a great deal of light on the ways in which Tolkien often used his fiction to fill in gaps in various Old English works, and it would be fascinating to do a literary archaeology of Tolkien.  Again, Christopher has done a great service by publishing the magisterial History of Middle-earth (and John D. Rateliff has done the same for The Hobbit), and it would be a really compelling class to look through both the works themselves and their respective histories.

More interesting, perhaps, would be a course on Tolkien’s cultural influence, the ways in which his works, including but not limited to The Hobbit and LoTR, have had an effect on 20th and 21st Century culture. One could have units devoted to fandom, film adaptations, and appropriation by the meme culture of the Internet (it’s hard to watch The Fellowship of the Ring and not chuckle at either “One does not simply walk into Mordor” or “You shall not pass!)  This could, of course, be part of a larger course discussion on the adaptation of beloved literary works to film (and the hotly debated status of Jackson’s The Hobbit films would make for some very fiery class discussions), as well as the ways in which fans can exert a measure of ownership over their chosen text (which is one of the ways in which I have used Tolkien in my own courses on popular culture and popular appropriation).  Or, one could even have an entire course devoted to his (substantial) influence on the fantasy genre, looking at authors such as Terry Brooks and even George R.R. Martin (seeing A Song of Ice and Fire, for example, as a sort of commentary/homage to Tolkien).

Of course, some of these ideas would probably never make it to the light of day in the standard English curriculum, but they do show how rewarding and compelling teaching Tolkien can be.  What’s more, I think a lot of these ideas could be adapted to appeal to a more general audience, one that does not necessarily have the investment in Tolkien that an avowed fan might have.  That, for me, is one of the most compelling things about bringing Tolkien into the classroom; his works, with all of their density and richness, provide a number of ways to think about fantasy literature and its relevance and inclusion in the larger field of literary study.  Hopefully, Tolkien’s literary reputation will continue to grow and many more generations can come to appreciate the beauty of his works, while also learning the invaluable skills associated with critical and thoughtful engagement and critique of texts.

Who Owns Tolkien?

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In case you missed it, Peter Jackson recently announced that, unless the Tolkien Estate grants permission to utilize any of Tolkien’s published works (other than The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings), there will no more Tolkien films made in the foreseeable future.  This should come as no surprise to any of us who have kept up with the Tolkien family’s responses to Jackson’s adaptations of J.R.R.’s work.  Christopher Tolkien, his father’s appointed literary executor and hagiographer, has been very vocal about his disdain for Jackson’s films, as well as what he views as the ultimately destructive force of his father’s popularity.

The deep ambivalence, and often outright hostility, expressed by the Tolkien Estate, and Christopher Tolkien in particular, reveals the vexed status that Tolkien’s original works represent in the world of literature and literary study.  Almost from the moment that The Lord of the Rings was published it ignited a firestorm of debate among literary critics, with some defending it as a work of literary genius and others (unsurprisingly) dismissing it as exactly the opposite.  Indeed, it is largely thanks to the tireless efforts of Christopher Tolkien that we have as much as we do of Tolkien’s voluminous unpublished work, both that associated with Middle-earth, such as The Silmarillion and the more recent The Children of Hurin–as well as his translation work, such as the newly released Beowulf.  We likewise have him to thank for the many volumes of The History of Middle-earth, which chronicles the laborious process by which his father brought his miraculous world to such detailed and exquisite life.

Small wonder, then, that Christopher expresses such vexation at what he perceives as the banal nature of the appropriations of his father’s work and the subsequent sullying of his literary reputation (and the Estate’s resultant efforts to solidify and protect Tolkien’s legacy).  While I sympathize with the desire to render Tolkien a respectable and accepted figure of literary study–there is something validating, after all, in having one’s favourite author finally accepted into the canon–I also worry that much is being lost, and overlooked, by these attempts to assert ownership over Tolkien’s work and legacy.  For one thing, it buys into the very ideological system that sets up an artificial, and ultimately stultifying, distinction between the popular and the literary, between the vulgar pleasures of the masses and the loftier intellectual pursuits of the intelligentsia.  After all, just because a text is popular does not mean that it cannot be literary (whatever the hell that means) and have something significant and meaningful to say about the world.  For another, this denies the agency, the pleasure, and the complexity of various types of fan production, of which Jackson’s films stand as one of the foremost exemplars (say what you will about Jackson, there is no doubt that he is a Tolkien fan and that his films are made for fans).

The desire to lift Tolkien’s fantasy works above the allegedly vulgarizing tendencies of the masses (of whom Jackson is seemingly the exemplar par excellance), permeates not only responses to the films, but also the ways in which Tolkien critics and scholars have tended to view the enthusiasm of the legions of fans who have sought to claim Tolkien’s work as their own.  Indeed, the popularity of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings has proven to be a double-edged sword, for it is precisely their popularity with the masses (often referred to with the usual round of derogatory labels associated with fandom) that has made them so susceptible to the charges of non-seriousness and mere escapism that have long haunted it (as well as the fantasy genre more generally).  Even Neil D. Isaacs, one of the foremost Tolkien critics and an important founding figure of Tolkien Studies, somewhat dismissively referred to the climate of fandom as “faddism and fannism, cultism and clubbism,” a not uncommon set of pejoratives for those who dare to engage to enthusiastically with their chosen text of reference (as Henry Jenkins has often pointed out in his scholarly defense of fandom).  Fan devotion, in this schema, interferes with and may actually undermine an attempt to engage with genuine criticism.  Seemingly, neither fans nor filmmakers have the true right to an appreciation of Tolkien’s work; that honour apparently belongs to the Tolkien Estate and to the lofty efforts of those trained in literary criticism.

So, to return to the question that titles this blog post:  who owns Tolkien?  Or, putting it perhaps somewhat differently, who should own Tolkien?  While I do not want to dismiss the value of Christopher Tolkien’s work (nor that of the Tolkien Estate more generally), nor that of the many literary critics who have done much to show the philosophical and philological depths of Tolkien’s work, I would like to suggest that the legions of fans of Tolkien’s work also have a stake in their beloved fan object (whether that be Tolkien himself or any of his works).  Acknowledging the meaningfulness of their modes of engagement–whether or not you agree with the types of pleasures they take or in the meanings they produce–will not, I think, take away from the grandeur and the genius of Tolkien’s creation, nor will it sully his literary reputation.  In fact, I would argue that it will do exactly the opposite.  Granting fans (including Peter Jackson!) their due as producers of culture, meaning, and value, I suggest, would do much to enhance Tolkien’s reputation.  After all, he wanted to produce a legendarium, a mythology, for his beloved England.  What better way to pay homage to that majestic vision and purpose than by allowing those who devote much of their time and their mental and intellectual energies to delving into Tolkien’s work–whether in the form of fan-fiction, fan videos, or work of amateur or scholarly criticism–a greater stake in Tolkien’s legacy?  I can think of no better tribute to this “Author of the Century” (as Tom Shippey calls him), than allowing everyone to have their own piece of that inheritance.

Why Blog About Tolkien?

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When I first decided to devote the entire month of December (and, obviously, the latter part of November) to posting strictly about Tolkien, my first thought was:  What do I have to offer that hasn’t already been said?  Why should anyone read anything that I post about the venerable Tolkien and his voluminous corpus?  After a while, however, I finally decided that my decades-old fandom of Tolkien gave me enough credentials to talk about my favourite elements of his work, and so here I present the inaugural entry in what I hope will be an annual event:  Tolkien Appreciation Month, here on Queerly Different.

My love affair with Tolkien began when I was somewhere between 8 and 9 years old, when my Mom gave me a very old and battered copy of The Hobbit.  It was something of a rite of passage, as she had been waiting to share her love of Tolkien with me (her only child) for quite some time.  I quickly devoured that book and moved into The Lord of the Rings.  Since that fateful reading, I have since revisited Middle-earth countless times in both the written and film form, ranging from Tolkien’s works themselves to works of criticism, from Jackson’s films (all of which I have seen in the theater 3 times each) to message boards devoted to picking apart those films.  I have even had the privilege of both taking and teaching courses on Tolkien’s material.

Every time the Tolkien bug bites me, I can literally think of little else than that magical world that so enchanted me all those years ago (and my numerous copies of the films and the books tells you how often that bug bites me).  While my original love of Tolkien stemmed from The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, I have subsequently gained a richer and deeper understanding of not only Tolkien’s literary genius, but also his incredible devotion and intense affection for his created world, its peoples (especially the Elves), and its languages (especially the various strands of Elvish).  More than that, however, I have also come to appreciate Tolkien’s academic works, such as his magisterial essay “The Monsters and the Critics,” as well as his lesser-known fictional works such as Leaf by Niggle and Farmer Giles of Ham.  

Imagine my excitement when, in 2001 (my senior year of high school) I discovered that a film version of my beloved novels was at last being brought to complete fruition.  Like many others, my only cinematic Tolkien experiences had been with the dreadful Rankin/Bass The Hobbit and the slightly better The Return of the King, as well as Ralph Bakshi’s compelling but flawed The Lord of the Rings.  When I saw Jackson’s Fellowship, I was immediately smitten, and I have remained so ever since.  While I do have some misgivings about a few of Jackson’s choices, as a whole I think he has done a wonderful job translating Tolkien’s work into his own particular vision.

As I got older and made my way through my undergraduate years, my understanding and appreciation for Tolkien’s genius only grew, as I took courses that deepened and enriched my understanding of Tolkien and the context out of which he sprang.  Though I have yet to teach a full course devoted to Tolkien, I frequently incorporate the fandom of his work into my course on popular culture, in order to show how sophisticated his work is, as well as how complex and nuanced fan production can be.

Now that I’ve had a chance to teach my own students the joys of Tolkien (or at least a very small part of it), I now realize there is so much more I could do (pedagogically) with him.  Though my own scholarship (as some of you may know) focuses on representations of history and issues of gender and sexuality, there is much in Tolkien’s legendarium that fits well with those interests.  Indeed, so rich is the vast web of Tolkien’s creation that one can find something there for any interpretive lens to investigate.  Though the broader fields of literary criticism and film studies still possess some reluctance into admitting either the work of Jackson or of Tolkien into the canon of significant works, I think there is definitely a case to be made for an interdisciplinary area known as Tolkien Studies.  After all, his influence upon the 20th and 21st Century has been vast, so why not reward that influence by giving him his own field of study?  If Shakespeare has one, why not Tolkien?

There is, then, much still to blog about when it comes to Tolkien, far more than even an entire month’s worth of blog posts can accommodate.  Nevertheless, I still feel the compulsion to share my love and my reflections on Tolkien and his work with the world.  I don’t really have a plan as of yet, but I hope to share my thoughts on The Hobbit (which I am re-reading in anticipation of the upcoming release of the final film, The Battle of the Five Armies), as well as on the various pieces of Tolkien criticism that I find enjoyable (I particularly love Tom Shippey’s two magisterial works, Tolkien:  Author of the Century and The Road to Middle-earth).  However, I’ll also probably make some notes about The Hobbit film trilogy (including a review of the last film), as well as some thoughts about the workings of history as revealed through The Lord of the Rings.  As you all know by now, my mind is voracious and roving, so it’s really hard to say what all might appear (all of this is to say that I have blog ADD).

Though much has been written about Tolkien, his work, and his fans, I am of the opinion that there is still much more to explore and much more to be appreciated about the ways in which his works continue to posses relevance for many types of audiences.  What’s more, Jackson’s interpretations of Tolkien’s work, as well as the numerous critical pieces devoted to both Tolkien and Jackson, provide even more rich fodder for delving into the increasingly complex web of texts surrounding Tolkien’s work.  So, for the next month, I will be blogging about various Tolkien-related things.  I truly and sincerely hope that you will share your own thoughts and experiences with his work in the comments section, as I greatly look forward to engaging with others, whether to agree or disagree.  Here’s to a month of Tolkien!