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The Roots of Middle-Earth: William Morris's Influence Upon J. R. R. Tolkien

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The Roots of Middle-Earth: William Morris's Influence Upon J. R. R. Tolkien University of Tennessee, Knoxville TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange Doctoral Dissertations Graduate School 12-2007 The Roots of Middle-Earth: William Morris's Influence upon J. R. R. Tolkien Kelvin Lee Massey University of Tennessee - Knoxville Follow this and additional works at: https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_graddiss Part of the Literature in English, British Isles Commons Recommended Citation Massey, Kelvin Lee, "The Roots of Middle-Earth: William Morris's Influence upon J. R. R. olkien.T " PhD diss., University of Tennessee, 2007. https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_graddiss/238 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange. It has been accepted for inclusion in Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized administrator of TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange. For more information, please contact [email protected]. To the Graduate Council: I am submitting herewith a dissertation written by Kelvin Lee Massey entitled "The Roots of Middle-Earth: William Morris's Influence upon J. R. R. olkien.T " I have examined the final electronic copy of this dissertation for form and content and recommend that it be accepted in partial fulfillment of the equirr ements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, with a major in English. David F. Goslee, Major Professor We have read this dissertation and recommend its acceptance: Thomas Heffernan, Michael Lofaro, Robert Bast Accepted for the Council: Carolyn R. Hodges Vice Provost and Dean of the Graduate School (Original signatures are on file with official studentecor r ds.) To the Graduate Council: I am submitting herewith a dissertation written by Kelvin Lee Massey entitled “The Roots of Middle-earth: William Morris’s Influence upon J. R. R. Tolkien.” I have examined the final electronic copy of this dissertation for form and content and recommend that it be accepted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, with a major in English. _____________________________ David F. Goslee, Major Professor We have read this dissertation and recommend its acceptance: Thomas Heffernan _______________________________ Michael Lofaro _______________________________ Robert Bast _______________________________ Accepted for the Council: _____________________________ Carolyn R. Hodges, Vice Provost and Dean of the Graduate School (Original signatures are on file with official student records.) THE ROOTS OF MIDDLE-EARTH: WILLIAM MORRIS’S INFLUENCE UPON J. R. R. TOLKIEN A Dissertation Presented for the Doctor of Philosophy Degree The University of Tennessee, Knoxville Kelvin Lee Massey December 2007 ii DEDICATION This dissertation is dedicated to the memory of my parents, Charles Marion and Irene Cook Massey iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I wish to thank Dr. David Goslee, Dr. Thomas Heffernan, and Dr. Michael Lofaro for all their years of support and encouragement. Without them this dissertation would not have been possible. I would also like to thank Dr. Robert Bast for serving on my committee. iv ABSTRACT This study examines the influence of William Morris (1834-1896) upon J. R. R. Tolkien (1892-1973). It concentrates specifically upon the impact of Morris’s romance, The Roots of the Mountains, upon Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. After surveying the scholarly literature pertaining to this topic, it proceeds to discuss their work within the context of the nineteenth-century revival of interest in the medieval period and in folkloric and mythological narratives. It then analyzes numerous parallels between the two works in characterization; plot motifs; archaic diction, syntax, and semantics; and topographical description and reanimation are then analyzed. These parallels demonstrate that Morris’s work had a profound influence upon The Lord of the Rings. Significant differences that do occur between the two texts are evaluated within the context of the Romantic tradition and the divergent ways the two authors interpret the paradigm of the Fall. The study concludes that, while Tolkien’s work surpasses Morris’s in many respects, its achievements would not have been possible without the example of The Roots of the Mountains to build upon. It closes with possibilities for future directions of research pertaining to this topic. v TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter One.........................................................................................................................1 Chapter Two......................................................................................................................54 Chapter Three..................................................................................................................111 Chapter Four....................................................................................................................179 Chapter Five.....................................................................................................................246 Works Cited.....................................................................................................................312 Vita...................................................................................................................................329 1 CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION On the face of it, a study of literary influence such as this would almost certainly meet with the disapproval of J. R. R. Tolkien (1892-1973). Toward the end of his life he wrote: I fear you may be right that the search for the sources of The Lord of the Rings is going to occupy academics for a generation or two. I wish this need not be so. To my mind it is the particular use in a particular situation of any motive, whether invented, deliberately borrowed, or unconsciously remembered that is the most interesting thing to consider. (Letters 418) Tolkien feared that searching for the sources of a work oftentimes can cause one to lose sight of its meaning and significance. He therefore thought that folkloristic studies of fairy tales frequently miss the mark. In his essay “On Fairy-Stories,” he approvingly quotes George W. Dasent and then elaborates: ‘We must be satisfied with the soup that is set before us, and not desire to see the bones of the ox out of which it has been boiled’. By ‘the soup’ I mean the story as it is served up by its author or teller, and by ‘the bones’ its sources or material. (19-20) Although here Tolkien is discussing fairy stories, the same sentiment could apply to his own writings, which are fairy stories of epic proportions. 2 To a reader seeking help with an academic analysis of his writings, Tolkien once replied in a letter with a proverbial quote from Gandalf: “He that breaks a thing to find out what it is has left the path of wisdom” (Letters 424)1. His warning certainly resonates with truth. The violent image of an object being smashed serves as a warning that overanalyses of works are fraught with danger—the last century of Formgeschichte in biblical criticism possibly provides a relevant example. So the question remains, how can one justify a source study such as this in the face of such reasonable objections from an author? In response, one may argue that Tolkien himself implies such studies are legitimate, as long as one is not hampered by “ignorance and forgetfulness of the nature of a story” (“On Fairy-Stories” 18). He also confesses to feeling “the fascination of the desire to unravel the intricately knotted and ramified history of the branches on the Tree of Tales” (19). A similar desire to unravel the history of one of the branches on Tolkien’s own Tree of Tales has led this author to this study. The influence of William Morris (1834-1896) upon Tolkien has long been noted, although no comprehensive survey heretofore has been undertaken. In many ways it is not surprising that Tolkien would have found Morris interesting, given the similarities in their interests as well as the fact that Tolkien attended the same college at Oxford, Exeter, as Morris had more than fifty years earlier. The differences between the two authors and the greater resonance of Tolkien’s world, Middle-earth, for modern readers ultimately derive from and reflect their divergent life experiences, intellectual interests, and 1The original is found on p. 259 of The Lord of the Rings. 3 attitudes toward religion. Surprisingly, however, Tolkien’s letters reveal an aversion toward mechanization, industrialism, and capitalism that runs at least as deep as Morris’s. Both authors felt a need to express this antipathy by creating fictionalized settings that both suggest the shortcomings they perceived within their contemporary societies and point to the possibility of alternatives. In creating an alternative vision in his romances, Morris turns to narratives from the past. He utilizes elements from mythology, folklore, and medieval literature to deepen the veracity of his fiction, which contains characters who use proverbs, ballads, and legends in much the same way as people have actually traditionally used them: as means of interpreting truth and meaning in their daily lives. In his romances at least the possibility of the supernatural is also realized, quite surprisingly for an author with Marxist sympathies. Tolkien, inspired by Morris’s example, uses these techniques in his fiction, modeling them in some cases quite closely upon Morris. In particular, Tolkien’s fiction contains numerous echoes of Morris’s The Roots of the Mountains (1890) in form, characterizations, names, topography, literary
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