Doctor of Philosophy in ENGLISH LITERATURE

ECOLOGY, MYTHOLOGY AND HISTORIOGRAPHY IN THE WORKS OF J.R.R. TOLKIEN

THESIS SUBMITTED FOR THE AWARD OF THE DEGREE OF

Doctor of Philosophy In ENGLISH LITERATURE

By SUMAIYAH NAAZ Faculty No.: Ph.D.-370-EN Enrolment No.: GA 6654

Under the supervision of PROF. SEEMIN HASAN

DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH ALIGARH MUSLIM UNIVERSITY ALIGARH - 202002 (INDIA) 2019

Professor Seemin Hasan Department of English Phone no.: 9837326553 Aligarh Muslim University Email: [email protected] Aligarh, 202002

Dated: ......

Certificate

This is to certify that the thesis entitled “Ecology, Mythology and

Historiography in the Works of J.R.R. Tolkien” submitted by

Sumaiyah Naaz in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the award of the Degree of Ph.D. in English Literature has been completed under my supervision. This is a result of her independent efforts.

Prof. Seemin Hasan

(Supervisor)

ANNEXURE-I

CANDIDATE’S DECLARATION

I, Sumaiyah Naaz, Department of English, certify that the work embodied in this Ph.D. thesis is my own bona fide work carried out by me under the supervision of Professor Seemin Hasan at Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh. The matter embodied in this Ph.D. thesis has not been submitted for the award of any other degree.

I declare that I have faithfully acknowledged, given credit to and referred to the research workers wherever their works have been cited in the text and the body of the thesis. I further certify that I have not wilfully lifted up some other’s work, paragraph, text, data, result, etc. reported in the journals, books, magazines, reports, dissertations, theses, etc., or available at websites and included them in this Ph.D. thesis and cited as my own work.

Date: ...... Sumaiyah Naaz

......

CERTIFICATE FROM THE SUPERVISOR

This is to certify that the above statement made by the candidate is correct to the best of my knowledge.

(Signature of the Supervisor)

Professor Seemin Hasan

Department of English

A.M.U, Aligarh, 202002

(Signature of the Chairperson)

ANNEXURE-II

COURSE WORK/COMPREHENSIVE EXAMINATION/PRE- SUBMISSION SEMINAR COMPLETION CERTIFICATE

This is to certify that Ms. Sumaiyah Naaz, Department of English has satisfactorily completed the course work/comprehensive examination and pre-submission seminar requirement which is part of her Ph.D. programme.

Date: ...... (Signature of the Chairperson)

ANNEXURE – III

Title of the Thesis: Ecology, Mythology and Historiography in the Works of J.R.R.Tolkien

Candidate’s Name: Sumaiyah Naaz

The undersigned hereby assigns to the Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh copyright that may exist in and for the above thesis submitted for the award of the Ph.D. degree.

Date: ...... (Signature of the Candidate)

Note: However, the author may reproduce or authorize others to reproduce material extracted verbatim from the thesis or derivative of the thesis for author’s personal use provided that the source and the University’s copyright notices are indicated.

Acknowledgements

Roads go ever ever on Under cloud and under star, Yet feet that wandering have gone Turn at last to home afar.

- J.R.R. Tolkien

The Hobbit Thesis writing can often seem like an endless road that will never reach the journey’s end. But no journey is complete, no quest achieved, without the bonds of fellowship. There are many people whose support and encouragement were instrumental in helping me to complete my thesis and it is my privilege and pleasure to thank them.

I am indebted towards my supervisor Prof. Seemin Hasan, whose guidance and advice were indispensable to my research. Her observations and suggestions broadened my horizons, and her faith in me bolstered my confidence. I am grateful to the Chairperson, Department of English, AMU, Prof. Rizwan Khan, for his support regarding the official fulfilments of the thesis. I am also thankful to the Staff of the Office and Seminar Library of the Department of English, AMU, for all the help they have given to me.

No task can be completed without the reassurance of being loved and understood. My mother, Ms. Sabiha Naaz Lari, not only provided the comforts that saw me through the difficult days of research, but also remained a fellow-enthusiast in all my interests and endeavours. I owe thanks to Prof. Masud Anwar Alavi, whose words of encouragement always motivated me to do my best, and Naila Alavi, whose companionship was the best of interludes.

I have constantly been inspired by the conversations I have had with Syed Suhaib, Mariyam Ilyas Siddiqui and Shaiqa Shaukat and I am grateful to them for giving me their love and friendship.

Finally, my cats, Major Tom and Totoro, whose companionship kept me cheerful through the long nights before looming deadlines, have my deepest and fondest gratitude.

Sumaiyah Naaz

ECOLOGY, MYTHOLOGY AND HISTORIOGRAPHY IN THE WORKS OF J.R.R. TOLKIEN

ABSTRACT OF THE THESIS SUBMITTED FOR THE AWARD OF THE DEGREE OF

Doctor of Philosophy

In ENGLISH LITERATURE

By SUMAIYAH NAAZ Faculty No.: Ph.D.-370-EN Enrolment No.: GA 6654

Under the supervision of PROF. SEEMIN HASAN

DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH ALIGARH MUSLIM UNIVERSITY ALIGARH-202002 (INDIA) 2019 Abstract

Ecology, Mythology and Historiography

in the works of J.R.R. Tolkien

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien is best known as the author of three of his most famous works of high fantasy, The Silmarillion, The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. Apart from his identity as one of the most beloved and influential writers of fantasy fiction, Tolkien was also a university professor and accomplished philologist. His literary career spans many decades, throughout which he meticulously composed and formulated his elaborate and interconnected body of work that would come to be known in its entirety as his legendarium. Tolkien’s legendarium is a product of his mythopoeic sub- creation, an imaginative and inventive process that led to the conception of a secondary world that exists within his fictional universe and serves as a setting for his narratives. Tolkien used mythical language and tropes to weave the fabric of his secondary world. His intention to create a mythology arising from and typical to English culture is realised in the historical consciousness inherent in his fictional construction. One of the most important themes in Tolkien’s narratives is his representation of nature in terms of its place within the material and ideological society of his mythopoeia. This thesis is an exploration of Tolkien’s works, particularly his three major novels, in light of the mythological and historical elements within them and through an ecocritical perspective.

Tolkien’s desire to create a fictional mythology arose from his philological interests. From an early age he was engaged with the creation of artificial or constructed languages. With this came the impulse to assign a cultural framework, for the expression of these languages, in the form of a fantasy world with a rich and diverse social structure. Tolkien’s interests in ancient mythologies and cultures led him to the use of tropes and motifs inherent in mythical narratives, in formulating his own mythopoeia. He drew inspiration from various real world mythologies such as Germanic and Norse traditions, as well as medieval and Biblical sources. His Christian faith, in particular, influenced the design of the moral landscape of his secondary world. Tolkien populated his fictional universe with a plethora of races and species, each exhibiting their own unique set of

1 characteristics and distinct cultural identities. The Silmarillion is a culmination of Tolkien’s life-long undertaking of creating a mythology, complete with cosmological and religious complexity. It contains creation myths, eschatological beliefs, descriptions of a rich pantheon of gods and goddesses, as well as epic narratives that illustrate an intermingling of mythical, historical and fantasy elements. Both The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings narrate tales that use the mythical framework outlined in The Silmarillion as a backdrop. They are adventure stories that are structured as quest narratives that merge the mythical with the familiar and disseminate Tolkien’s thematic concerns through a fantasy narrative. The stories set within the mythopoeic world of Tolkien stretch through a period of mythic time that is meant to be identified as the fictional past of the real world. Tolkien’s attempts to link the real or primary world with the secondary world of his stories involve the adoption of various conceits and techniques that create the impression of a feigned history. This imbues his texts with a historical consciousness that makes a historiographical analysis of them appropriate, in spite of their not being concerned with real history or fact. This thesis studies Tolkien’s works with reference to the historical imagination that contributed to the creative process of the author and enabled him to successfully imitate real world mythologies.

This study contains an examination of Tolkien’s themes specially in context of their relationship with his personal environmental ethic. Tolkien’s love for nature greatly influenced the moral and social concerns in his narratives. One of the most remarkable aspects of Tolkien’s secondary world construction is how he uses morality derived from the values of the natural world to govern the design of his socio-political landscape. Good and evil are identified in terms of their relationship with and treatment of nature. In The Silmarillion this is illustrated in the binary of order and chaos in the natural world that is expressed in mythical terms through interactions between different forces representing good and evil. Nature is intertwined with the basic myths of Tolkien’s secondary world. Myths of the land develop in tandem with the myths concerning the races and individual characters, and Middle-earth, the land itself, becomes a principal character in the overarching narrative of the legendarium. In The Hobbit, with its identification of natural community with idealized Englishness, the concept of home; in its various forms and definitions, is revealed as a major element . The theme of greed and covetousness as the

2 most potently destructive force is recurrent in Tolkien’s works. The lust for power, whether through the acquisition of material wealth or the forceful seizing of socio- political control, is seen in direct opposition to a morality built through a sense of harmony and communion with the natural world. This theme, present in The Hobbit, is further expanded in The Lord of the Rings. The most famous of Tolkien’s works, it exhibits the best of his literary talents and realizes his environmental themes with the greatest complexity. Characters in Tolkien’s stories assume the role of guardians and preservers of nature, or destroyers of it. This establishes their position within the all- encompassing metanarrative concerns of good and evil in the legendarium.

Tolkien was deeply opposed to unchecked industrialisation and mechanisation that augmented the horrors of war and led to the exploitation and destruction of the natural world. In his narratives, he expresses this opposition by assigning nature and its allies to the realm of good, and the machines of industrialization and war to the realm of evil. Ecocriticism is a theory with moral and political underpinnings, especially in context of the current ecological problems of the real world. Applied to Tolkien’s works, it identifies in them a strain of environmentalism and conservationism that dictates the narrative threads of the plot. The effects of the characters’ moral decisions are felt upon the land, which acquires the characteristics of those that inhabit it. This thesis studies the various kinds of lands described in the works of Tolkien in association with the races that live in them. Race within Tolkien, is expressed through the fantasy mode in the form of various imaginary creatures, both humanoid and bestial. Nature plays an important role in determining the positions of individuals and races within Middle-earth community. Their relationship with each other and the land, defines the social hierarchy of the races. Racial politics is one of the most important aspects of the narrative. It is tied to the fundamental ethical concerns which underlie the theme of good versus evil within the plot.

The entire body of Tolkien’s legendarium demonstrates his genius in sub-creative mythmaking. There is immense complexity and attention to detail in the numerous stories that span his mythopoeic universe. This complexity can be observed both on narrative and thematic levels. In spite of the dense and intricate mythic construction, Tolkien’s works maintain a sense of familiarity that contributes to their widespread appeal. He

3 utilizes established tropes and archetypes of fantasy and mythic fiction, reinvigorating them with his own brand of imaginative creation, and in the process becoming one of the major proponents of the genre. His themes are of a universal nature and explore ethical concerns common to human life. This thesis attempts to explore these fundamental themes in Tolkein’s works and identify their literary, as well as, socio-political relevance.

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Contents

Chapter 1 Introduction 1 - 22

Chapter 2 “In the Deeps of Time and in the midst

of the innumerable stars”: The Silmarillion 23 - 64

Chapter 3 “Under the Hill and over the Hill”: The Hobbit 65 - 112

Chapter 4 “Where many paths and errands meet”: The Lord

of the Rings 113 - 172

Chapter 5 Conclusion 173 - 182

Bibliography 183 - 194

Chapter 1

Introduction

Chapter 1

Introduction

The poet's eye, in a fine frenzy rolling,

Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven;

And as imagination bodies forth

The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen

Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing

A local habitation and a name. (124)

William Shakespeare

The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the eyes of others only a green thing which stands in the way. Some see Nature all ridicule and deformity ... and some scarce see Nature at all. But to the eyes of the man of imagination, Nature is Imagination itself. (62)

William Blake

Imagination is the fount of all of humanity’s creative endeavours. The infinite ability of the human mind to create ideas and images, springs forth from the realm of imagination and imaginative experience is as relevant to the artist’s act of creation as is practical experience. Literatures of imagination, particularly those that deal with the fantastic and the sub-creative, envision a world which though removed from the spheres of what is considered ‘real’ and transplanted into an imagined reality; mirrors the socio- political concerns of the real world rather than being distanced from them. Fantasy as a genre then becomes a canvas upon which the real and the imagined merge together to create a picture that superimposes upon the facts of real-life experiences; fantastic imagery that contextualizes those experiences. This thesis is a study of the works of John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, who is widely considered one of the proponents of the modern

1 fantasy genre and especially the father of high fantasy. My choice of subject, besides arising from an academic interest in Tolkien’s writings, was also a personal one. My interest in fantasy fiction came at an early age through the writings of Enid Blyton, Lewis Caroll, J.M. Barrie, J.K. Rowling and many others. I was also deeply interested in the science fantasy of George Lucas’ Star Wars film series. As a child, the works of Rowling and Lucas in particular, left me with a lasting fascination with the tropes and themes inherent in their narratives. The courageous young hero, the wise old wizard, the loyal friend, the righteous quest and the universal struggle between good and evil – all stimulated my imagination in a way that no realistic fiction ever had. This was before the time that I was aware of Tolkien’s creative influence upon both Rowling and Lucas. When Peter Jackson released his trilogy of films based upon The Lord of the Rings from 2001 to 2003, I was, with the rest of the world propelled into the world of Tolkien’s imagination and became aware of how it contained all the themes and elements I loved best in fiction. This naturally led to the reading of the original source – The Lord of the Rings novel and later The Hobbit. Though with this thesis I have forayed into an academic understanding of Tolkien, I consider myself first and foremost an ardent admirer of his works on a personal level; and therefore must be careful of any bias entering into my analysis. Nevertheless, for this study I have chosen three aspects of Tolkien’s writings which, in my opinion, represent the best of his creative talents and philosophical concerns. These are his sub-creative mythmaking, the historical imagination in his created mythology and most importantly; his environmental vision.

Myths have been part of human imagination and culture since ancient times. They operate in a mode that is a mixture of the familiar and the fantastic. They merge history with an imagined reality to create a space inhabited by the products of fantasy. Fantasy has therefore existed as a genre in artistic expression since pre-history. Early humans painted what they saw of the world around them on the walls of caves, however they depicted not only what was seen but also what was imagined. Ancient myths and legends, which belonged to the earliest belief systems of human communities, were expressed in fantastic imagery. Oral traditions consisted of tales about supernatural and otherworldly creatures. The advent of written language and literature gave form to ancient mythologies. The Greco-Roman epics of Homer and Virgil and the Icelandic and Norse

2 sagas, with their detailed religio-mythic narratives, and collections of fantasy tales from Eastern traditions, such as the Indian Panchatantra and the Middle Eastern One Thousand and One Nights; have continued to exercise considerable influence upon the tropes of Western fantasy literature. During the Middle Ages chivalric romances and quest narratives which pitted the hero against fantastic creatures like fire-breathing dragons became popular. The Renaissance saw an increased interest in mythological writings, and fantasy and fairy tales were embraced as important elements in literary fiction. Sir Thomas Malory published his Le Morte d'Arthur in the late 15th century, compiling and reworking earlier accounts of the Arthurian legends. Works such as John Milton’s Paradise Lost and Christopher Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus incorporated Biblical myths in their narratives. William Shakespeare, in plays like A Midsummer Night’s Dream and The Tempest, explored the world of faerie and magic. Fantasy literature lost favour during the Age of Enlightenment with its commitment to realism and rationality. The Romantic era however emphasized the role of the imagination in creative expression and saw resurgence in popularity of the genre. The Grimm Brothers published their collection of fairy tales in 1812. Fantastical elements can be found in the poetry of the age, such as the dream-visions of Coleridge or the mythological landscapes of Keats. The modern concept of fantasy fiction emerged in Victorian literature with the writings of George MacDonald and William Morris. Various classics of children’s fantasy literature such as, Lewis Caroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, L. Frank Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, E. Nesbit’s Five Children and It and J.M. Barrie’s Peter Pan were written during this period. The 20th century saw a boom in fantasy writings and they began to be considered part of the canon of serious literature. The works of J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis were integral in popularizing fantasy fiction that appealed to both children and adults. In recent years fantasy literature has grown significantly both in terms of content and popularity. Writers such as Ursula K. Le Guin, Terry Pratchett, J.K. Rowling, Neil Gaiman, George R.R. Martin and others have continued to explore and expand the genre.

Fantasy and myth, as artistic expressions, draw upon the deepest impulses of the human mind. The reason why mythical imagination is at the core of most religious belief systems is because of its ability to communicate through a universal language of symbols

3 and archetypes. Myths are present in the cultural and literary traditions of almost all human civilizations that can trace their roots to ancient times and they have continued to influence subsequent literary and socio-political discourse. Therefore, apart from their use in literature, the study of myths and mythology as an academic discipline emerged. Jacob Grimm published his exhaustive work on Germanic mythology, the Deutsche Mythologie in 1835. Anthropologist Sir James George Frazer’s The Golden Bough, published in 1890, discussed religious myths as arising from the practice of magical rituals based upon a false understanding of natural laws that were in turn ascribed to divine powers in the form of gods and goddesses. Psychoanalysts Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung interpreted myths as reflective of fundamental, unconscious aspects of the human psyche. Conversely, Claude Lévi-Strauss developed the structuralist theory of mythology, which applies the structuralist methodology used to study language upon mythology, and views myths as structural units that exist in the mind, which are manifest across individuals and cultures and occur in polar oppositions such as good and evil. Post-structuralist approaches to myths began to study them in terms of their representation in culture. Roland Barthes in his Mythologies defines myth as “a type of speech” (108). He elaborates –

Myth is a system of communication, that it is a message. This allows one to perceive that myth cannot possibly be an object, a concept, or an idea; it is a mode of signification, a form. Later, we shall have to assign to this form historical limits, conditions of use, and reintroduce society into it: we must nevertheless first describe it as a form. (108)

Mythical speech, in Barthes’ view, therefore naturalizes the intent and ideology of the narrator of the myth. In this perspective mythmaking is a process of using mythical language to propagate certain ideas, be it in traditional mythologies like those of religion or the more modern mythologizing in all forms of art. Northrop Frye’s third essay in his Anatomy of Criticism titled ‘Archetypal Criticism: Theory of Myths’, defines the world of myth as –

An abstract or purely literary world of fictional and thematic design, unaffected by canons of plausible adaptation to familiar experience. In terms of narrative,

myth is the imitation of actions near or at the conceivable limits of desire ... The world of mythical imagery is ... a world of total metaphor, in which everything is potentially identical with everything else, as though it were all inside a single infinite body. (136)

Frye’s idea of myth as the primary source of literary invention places it in an inescapable relationship with literature. The question then is about the role myths play in the lives of human beings and how this role is reflected in the literature produced by them. Robert Graves outlines two main functions of myth –

The first is to answer the sort of awkward questions that children ask, such as: ‘Who made the world? How will it end? Who was the first man? Where do souls go after death?’ ... The second function of myth is to justify an existing social system and account for traditional rites and customs. (v)

Myths therefore deal with the cosmogonic and eschatological on one hand and the political and cultural on the other. Together these elements combine to form an ideology that is reflected in a particular religious belief system in traditional mythology. Other forms of mythical writings imitate this structure, in part or as a whole, to create fictional mythologies. This process of mythmaking is called mythopoeia. This term, which also refers to the narrative genre to which such works belong, had been used before to refer to mythmaking but was popularized in its present meaning by Tolkien. Significant portions of fantasy writing, particularly those which incorporate secondary world creation, belong to the genre of mythopoeia.

Tolkien taught at the Oxford University, first as the Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon at Pembroke College from 1925 to 1945, and then the Merton Professor of English Language and Literature at Merton College from 1945 to 1959. One of Tolkien’s regular activities while at Oxford was his involvement with the Inklings. It was a literary discussion group composed of Oxford academics like Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams and others who met regularly at Lewis’ Magdalen College rooms or in the local pub The Eagle and the Child to read their own works and discuss various literary ideas. In 1931 Tolkien wrote the poem ‘Mythopoeia’. It culminated from a

5 discussion he had with fellow Inkling Lewis concerning the nature of myths. Lewis believed that myths, though artistically and thematically important, were essentially lies. Tolkien disagreed with this view and argued that myths spring from the imagination which is bestowed upon the human mind by God and therefore must essentially contain truth. He believed that “legends and myths are largely made of ‘truth’, and indeed present aspects of it that can only be received in this mode; and long ago certain truths and modes of this kind were discovered and must always reappear” (Tolkien, Letters 147). The idea is that myths contain universal truths that are expressed not only within factual narratives but also through traditional accounts like myths, legends and fairy tales. Humphrey Carpenter records the discussion between Tolkien and Lewis in his book The Inklings. He elaborates upon Tolkien’s opinions –

In making a myth, in practising ‘mythopoeia’ and peopling the world with elves and dragons and goblins, a storyteller, or ‘sub-creator’ as Tolkien liked to call such a person, is actually fulfilling God's purpose, and reflecting a splintered fragment of the true light. Pagan myths are therefore never just ‘lies’: there is always something of the truth in them. (43)

Tolkien in his poem ‘Mythopoeia’ writes –

Man, Sub-creator, the refracted Light

through whom is splintered from a single White

to many hues, and endlessly combined

in living shapes that move from mind to mind. (Tales 369)

Tolkien has recurrently used light as a powerful motif in his mythology to express the idea of creation. Light acts as a symbol for the process of sub-creation. The human being’s ability to imagine and produce ideas and images are therefore seen as a reproduction of the fundamental matter in the mind, bestowed upon it by God. Tolkien’s deep religiosity interprets artistic creativity through the metaphor of a prism that does not create but rather refracts already existing light, the original source of which is God. The creation of myths is hence a godly activity in its imitation of Divine Creation. Tolkien

6 was a devout Roman Catholic and his literary principles were informed by his religious ideology. Sub-creation, which is the basis of his mythopoeic universe, is then viewed by him as not just a literary endeavour but a fundamentally religious undertaking. The Biblical idea of Man being made in the image of God extends to the most primary quality of godhood; that of creation. Tolkien’s essay On Fairy-Stories, which was first delivered in 1939 at the University of St Andrews as the Andrew Lang lecture and later published in 1947, delves extensively into Tolkien’s ideas regarding sub-creation, myth-making and fairy stories. Sub-creation was for Tolkien a manifestation of the imagination, an artistic expression of the images existing in the mind that are given form through language. In On-Fairy Stories, he writes –

The mental power of image-making is one thing, or aspect; and it should appropriately be called Imagination. The perception of the image, the grasp of its implications, and the control, which are necessary to a successful expression, may vary in vividness and strength: but this is a difference of degree in Imagination, not a difference in kind. The achievement of the expression, which gives (or seems to give) ‘the inner consistency of reality’, is indeed another thing, or aspect, needing another name: Art, the operative link between Imagination and the final result, Sub-creation. (Tolkien, Tales 361-362)

Tolkien expresses a similar sentiment in his short story Leaf by Niggle. The protagonist Niggle is like Tolkien a sub-creator who is endeavouring to paint a tree that exists within his imagination. The tree remains unfinished until his death but it is discovered in the afterlife that the sub-created tree is a part of God’s primary creation itself. Therefore in Tolkien’s view sub-creation is the fulfilment of God’s creative vision and the human sub- creator thus becomes an instrument of God’s will.

According to Tolkien the definition of fairy stories cannot be narrowed down to their common understanding as stories about fairies – diminutive beings that flit about in gardens and hide inside flowers. Faerie is in fact a mode, a type of story, which is concerned with a variety of elements and its qualification as a fairy story depends less upon its subject matter and more upon its treatment of the elements within it. Tolkien writes –

Faërie contains many things besides elves and fays, and besides dwarfs, witches, trolls, giants, or dragons: it holds the seas, the sun, the moon, the sky; and the earth, and all things that are in it: tree and bird, water and stone, wine and bread, and ourselves, mortal men, when we are enchanted. (Tales 322)

Tolkien created his legendarium – a word used for the entire body of his interconnected universe – to include all manner of tales, from great mythic narratives to intimate everyday stories. He executes the conventions of fantasy literature in his writings in a way that combines the mythical universe with that of fairy-tales and folklore. His mythopoeia includes creation myths which outline in mythical language the origins of the material world and describe a rich pantheon which has characteristics that are a mixture of pagan and Christian ideals. The conception of Tolkien’s legendarium arose from a desire to create a mythology for England. He recognized that English culture was lacking in a mythology like Greek, Celtic, Germanic, Scandinavian, and Finnish mythologies. Arthurian legends provided some manner of mythical background; however they were associated more with British culture rather than English culture specifically. Tolkien also did not believe that the obvious Christian themes of the Arthurian tales qualified them as traditional mythical narratives in the vein of other European mythologies. In a letter to Milton Waldman he writes that, “Myth and fairy-story must, as all art, reflect and contain in solution elements of moral and religious truth (or error), but not explicit, not in the known form of the primary ‘real’ world” (Tolkien, Letters 144). Tolkien’s legendarium, though built upon Christian principles, does not display obvious religiosity. Rather it uses these principles to create a moral framework which is used as a touchstone to shape the society of his secondary world. In Tolkien’s desire to craft a mythology specifically for England can be seen a strain of the earlier Romantic nationalism which derived legitimacy from a shared language and culture. The Brothers Grimm collection of fairy tales was a product of Romantic nationalism as it arose from the belief that fairy tales represent an unchanged aspect of culture that has been handed down from an ancient, shared past. When Beowulf was rediscovered as a single manuscript and transcribed in 1818, it was hailed as a national epic. The idea that a culture shared a primordial past, cosmogonic and eschatological beliefs, beyond the relatively recent Abrahamic traditions, rooted that culture in a sense of unified belonging. It is what constitutes a

8 particular ethnie, which Anthony D. Smith in Myths and Memories of the Nation defines as –

A named human population with myths of common ancestry, shared historical memories and one or more common elements of culture, including an association with a homeland, and some degree of solidarity, at least among the elites. (13)

Tolkien, himself a scholar of Anglo-Saxon literature and an admirer of that period of culture in English history, was reaching towards a particular ideal of Englishness in the creation of his legendarium. By populating his secondary world with aspects of myth, language, geographical identity and racial and ethnic diversity he created a sub-creative universe that was meant to represent the mythical past of England.

Tolkien’s belief that sub-creation of a secondary world is inspired by Divine Creation is expressed in his assertion that his narratives were a form of reporting rather than simple invention. In a letter to Milton Waldman, Tolkien wrote about the nature of his stories that “They arose in my mind as ‘given’ things, and as they came, separately, so too the links grew ... I had the sense of recording what was already ‘there’, somewhere: not of ‘inventing’” (Letters 145). Later in a letter to W.H. Auden he wrote –

I daresay something had been going on in the ‘unconscious’ for some time, and that accounts for my feeling throughout, especially when stuck, that I was not inventing but reporting (imperfectly) and had at times to wait till ‘what really happened’ came through. (Letters 212)

The impression of authenticity in Tolkien’s legendarium as an artificial mythology of England is then not just an authorial conceit deliberately constructed, but arose organically from the mind of the author himself. It can be said that Tolkien was inspired by a sense of historical imagination. The historicity of his texts is second only to their fantastical and mythical nature. When analyzing Tolkien’s works historiographically it is important to understand that one is dealing with a feigned history and the process of writing that history, unlike traditional historical accounts, is not through multiple sources but through a single source; the author, who makes a deliberate attempt to give the impression of multiple sources. Tolkien has throughout his narratives used various

9 methods to present his writings as historical fact one of which is portraying himself as a narrator and recorder of real events rather than their original creator. By using myths as the primary mode of his narratives Tolkien imbues in his writings a sense of a pre- historical past – one that is recorded not through formal historical accounts but through myths, legends and folktales. The relationship between myth and history is a complex one. The intertwining of religion with mythology further complicates this relationship, as religious myths, regardless of concrete evidence, are often regarded as historical fact by the communities with which they are associated. Today large portions of the world’s population view the stories contained within religious texts as undisputed history, including the magical and supernatural elements. Similarly ancient mythologies were viewed in a similar light by the civilizations in which they were practiced as religious beliefs. Mary Lefkowitz in her essay ‘Historiography and Myth’ writes –

Despite their remoteness in time and their references to places which no one had ever seen, as long as they believed in the existence of the gods, they were not prepared to accept that myths, even when unrealistic, were without serious value. Thus myth in antiquity could not have the meaning that it has since acquired, of a narrative that is purely fictional or fanciful, as distinct from historiography. (353)

Therefore mythology, in ancient times, was treated as a kind of historical writing that, in the absence of scientific knowledge particularly, gave people information about the origins of the world and all that was contained within it. The question however arises that, keeping aside religion, do myths contain some semblance of historical value or are completely devoid of it and may be dismissed as simple fictional fancy. This recalls Tolkien’s discussion with Lewis regarding myths as lies or truth. Hayden White in his Metahistory argues that pitting history against myth to judge the realism contained within a particular text presents the problem of ignoring various facets of both history and myth which prove contrary to their commonly accepted definitions. He writes –

The whole discussion of the nature of “realism” in literature flounders in the failure to assess critically what a genuinely “historical” conception of “reality” consists of. The usual tactic is to set the “historical” over against the “mythical,” as if the former were genuinely empirical and the latter were nothing but

conceptual, and then to locate the realm of the “Active” between the two poles. Literature is then viewed as being more or less realistic, depending upon the ratio of empirical to conceptual elements contained within it. (White 3)

The struggle is then between the empirical nature of history and the conceptual nature of myth. The belief in the fixedness of their particular natures must be challenged and both history and myth revaluated in terms of their relationship with truth. It is often said that history is written by the victors and must be carefully evaluated and judged. The reliability of recorded history is always in question. Especially before the advent of the internet and other forms of mass media, historiographical production was largely in the hands of a privileged few who were associated with authority. Much of what was perceived rather than known, and propaganda as opposed to fact, has been known to have crept into many historical accounts. Myth has a similar relationship with truth, except at the opposite end of the spectrum. While it is essentially composed of fictional narratives, it imbibes much of the historical consciousness of the time and place in which it was written. It is particularly an important and accurate source of the language and culture of the civilization with which it is associated. A mythical legacy becomes an important aspect of the value of a culture from which a sense of identity is derived, much in the way it is derived from history. In fact in The Birth of Tragedy, Friedrich Nietzsche argues for the precedence of the mythical over the historical. He writes –

It may be claimed that a nation, like an individual, is valuable only insofar as it is able to give to everyday experience the stamp of the eternal. Only by doing so can it express its profound, if unconscious, conviction of the relativity of time and the metaphysical meaning of life. The opposite happens when a nation begins to view itself historically and to demolish the mythical bulwarks that surround it. (139)

Nietzsche views the value that a mythical consciousness imparts upon society as diametrically opposite to the value of a historical consciousness; however it can be argued that they are related in their connection with the past. Both draw from the past and derive from it a sense of belonging within a culture. In mythopoeic writings like Tolkien’s, this sense of belonging is duplicated by embracing an historical imagination that informs the creation of the secondary world in the narrative.

In the construction of his secondary world Tolkien very obviously meant for Middle-earth to be the geographical and historical past of our present day Earth. He was fascinated by the intermingling of history and myth within narratives. Writing about C.S. Lewis’ Out of the Silent Planet he said that he “found the blend of vera historia with mythos irresistible” (Tolkien, Letters 33). He has, to a certain degree, been able to correlate various aspects of Middle-earth geography and culture with real world counterparts. Tolkien extensively drew maps of his secondary world which superimposed upon the real world map of Europe reveal various geographical parallels, such as roughly placing the Shire in the same region as England. At the same time he also recognized the limitations of such parallels within the fictional mode. In a letter Tolkien wrote –

As for the shape of the world of the Third Age, I am afraid that was devised ‘dramatically’ rather than geologically, or paleontologically. I do sometimes wish that I had made some sort of agreement between the imaginations or theories of the geologists and my map a little more possible. But that would only have made more trouble with human history. (Letters 224)

Tolkien’s intention was not to create direct cultural parallels; however various racial identities within his narratives represent cultural and historic aspects of the real world. By using devices of historiographical writings in his works such as maps and genealogical tables, he instils a sense of historicity in his writings. Tolkien further emphasizes the authenticity of his secondary world by supplying it with a sizeable amount of philological information. Time within the legendarium is measured and recorded and calendars are used with dates being consistently noted for all important events. Apart from the main stories he includes appendices which give additional information about the internal history of the legendarium including a chronological list of historical happenings. This use of the historiographical method furthers the impression of the mythopoeic universe being a feigned history. The methodology of including within a fictional narrative various documentation practices which are typical to historiographical research gives to the mythical landscape a historical flavour. It is as Lefkowitz writes – “If historiography could acquire depth and dimension by assimilating some of the structures of myth, it follows that myths could also acquire credibility by assimilating some of the detailed

12 information conveyed by historiography” (357). Historical imagination is crucial in the production of texts that aim to have an identity that ties them to the culture and geography of a particular place. In Tolkien’s case this place is first and foremost England, along with references to a wider Euro-centric civilization. Tolkien intensely disliked allegory and avoided direct representations of real-world events in his fictional universe, however his usage of universal themes that draw upon the currents of human nature and civilization, inevitably draw his works into metaphorical comparisons with historically significant incidents such as the World Wars. Roland Barthes is of the opinion that, “What the world supplies to myth is an historical reality, defined, even if this goes back quite a while, by the way in which men have produced or used it; and what myth gives in return is a natural image of this reality” (142). By using myths as the basic building blocks in his secondary world construction, Tolkien produces a narrative that represents a real-world historical consciousness envisioned in a fantastical, fictionalised format.

Tolkien’s preoccupation with myth, history and the process of sub-creation through which he carefully and intricately designed his secondary world is often symbolised by him in the form of a tree. It is a metaphor he himself uses to describe the sub-creative process within his mind. He called The Lord of the Rings his “internal Tree” (Tolkien, Letters 321) and in Leaf by Niggle a tree is used to represent sub-creation. In a letter to Rayner Unwin, Tolkien wrote –

I have among my ‘papers’ more than one version of a mythical ‘tree’, which crops up regularly at those times when I feel driven to pattern-designing. They are elaborated and coloured and more suitable for embroidery than printing; and the tree bears besides various shapes of leaves many flowers small and large signifying poems and major legends. (Letters 342)

Tolkien’s love for trees permeated all aspects of his life, from the artistic to the personal. After the death of his friend C.S. Lewis, he described himself as “an old tree that is losing all its leaves one by one: this feels like an axe-blow near the roots” (Tolkien, Letters 341). Trees, in addition to being metaphors for artistic creation for Tolkien, were also considered by him to be the embodiment of the most beautiful aspects of the natural world. Trees in particular, and nature as a whole, present important thematic elements in

13 his writings. While Tolkien cannot be specifically categorised as a nature writer, nature in his texts occupies an essential role that governs the ethical implications of his themes. Tolkien’s basic morality that defines the universal struggle between good and evil in his works takes inspiration from how nature is treated by the characters in his books. It therefore becomes a yardstick through which the morals of a particular individual or community are judged. In doing so, Tolkien emerges not just as a writer who uses nature as a theme and subject matter in his works, but also one who displays a strong conservationist approach to nature. During the time that Tolkien wrote the bulk of his works in the 30s and 40s, nature conservation was not yet a topic of widespread concern that it is today. The implications of the destruction of the natural world were not fully understood and the impact of human activity upon the global ecosystem was not extensively explored as a major problem. However the Industrial Revolution from the late 18th to mid 19th century had left a lasting and very visible impact on the environment that was keenly felt by many writers of the age. William Wordsworth in his poem ‘The Tables Turned’, declares –

Sweet is the lore which nature brings;

Our meddling intellect

Misshapes the beauteous forms of things;

—We murder to dissect. (104)

William Blake’s famous expression “dark Satanic Mills” from his poem ‘And did those feet in ancient times’ represents a deep distaste for the kind of distorted landscape that was created as a result of industrial activity which threatened to overtake and destroy the natural environment that had flourished mostly undisturbed for millennia. Tolkien’s childhood was spent both in industrial towns and in rural England which still retained the utopian beauty of his ideal landscape. He inherited his love of nature from his mother, Mabel Tolkien, who inculcated in the young Tolkien a deep love of nature that would continue to be part of his personal philosophy throughout his life. Humphrey Carpenter, in his J.R.R. Tolkien: A Biography, writes –

His mother taught him a great deal of botany, and he responded to this and soon became very knowledgeable. But again he was more interested in the shape and feel of a plant than in its botanical details. This was especially true of trees. And though he liked drawing trees he liked most of all to be with trees. He would climb them, lean against them, even talk to them. It saddened him to discover that not everyone shared his feelings towards them. (25)

Tolkien was devastated by the treatment that was met to the natural world at the hands of human beings, particularly in the name of progress and development. He deplored the deliberate felling of trees and destruction of natural habitats declaring that “Every tree has its enemy, few have an advocate” (Tolkien, Letters 321). He affirmed his love for trees, writing that, “I am (obviously) much in love with plants and above all trees, and always have been; and I find human maltreatment of them as hard to bear as some find ill-treatment of animals” (Tolkien, Letters 220). During the First World War Tolkien was on active duty and experienced firsthand its destructive effects upon the natural world. Carpenter describes Tolkien’s experiences during the War – “Grass and corn had vanished into a sea of mud. Trees, stripped of leaf and branch, stood as mere mutilated and blackened trunks. Tolkien never forgot what he called the 'animal horror' of trench warfare” (Biography 86). Both industrialization and war were then viewed by Tolkien as threats, as they embodied a rampaging, bulldozing kind of attitude that had no regard for the delicate balance that existed between nature and human life. Consequently, much of the ethical debate within his works hinges upon how nature is treated and the machines of both industrialization and war are represented in a negative light. The implications of the treatment of nature extend to the social and political landscape of Tolkien’s secondary world, which is governed by ethical principles identical to those of Tolkien regarding nature. His championing of the rights of nature in his narratives comes across as an obvious call of the conservationist, one who actively advocates for the preservation of nature by outlining how important a role it plays in maintaining harmony and beauty in society. Tolkien’s opinions are an instance of proto-conservationism in literature, written at a time when such problems were not widely discussed in context of the need to address them immediately and take affirmative action. His texts therefore present an opportunity to analyze them through an ecocritical lens.

An ecocritical study of a text essentially evolves into a multidisciplinary reading involving an analysis of race, gender and other socio-cultural phenomenon with respect to their relationship with the environment they inhabit. The influence of ecological factors upon the social structures of a human civilization and in turn the influence of these structures upon their immediate physical environment is an important branch of anthropology that evolved in the latter part of the 20th century. This ecological anthropology is defined by Patricia K. Townsend as “The study of relationships between a population of humans and their biophysical environment” (120). Various aspects of human society from religious practices to scientific inquiry can find their basis in humanity’s association with the natural world. Human evolution itself is a product of a direct intervention of the physical environment. When Homo sapiens evolved and began a process of geographical migrations between the African and Eurasian continents they came into cultural and sexual contact with their genetic cousins, the Homo neanderthalensis. The Neanderthals with their barrel chests and stocky limbs had bodies which were better suited to the cold climate of Europe’s last Ice Age. With the advent of modern humans, after a period of cohabitation, Neanderthals gradually became extinct. There are several theories regarding Neanderthal extinction and it is widely believed that a combination of factors, which include climatic changes and competition with Homo sapiens, contributed to their demise. Such an example would seem obscure with regard to modern socio-cultural interactions; however it clearly outlines the close link between the cultural development of a sentient species and the environmental factors it comes in contact with. In the present context it also mirrors the cross-cultural relationships that decide the cultural currents of a developing civilization. Millennia of migration, along with periods of relative social isolation, as well as conflict; have resulted in the development of vastly diverse human cultures. Each of these cultures can arguably be said to be the product of the natural environment they have evolved in. Indigenous people in various parts of the world developed their cultures through a close relationship with nature. Folk music and dance evolved through various tribal rites and rituals which were often related to religious invocation of what were perceived as forces of nature. The mythologies of both the Western and Eastern worlds anthropomorphized nature in the form of deities and the concept of cultural identity incorporated the natural elements

16 revered by a particular culture. Traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) found in various indigenous cultures refers to knowledge inherited by each generation through the transmission of various traditional cultural practices like songs and stories that define the relationship between humans and the natural world. The Māori concept of kaitiakitanga is a holistic approach towards environmental guardianship and is an intrinsic part of their cultural identity. Certain religious groups like the Jains of India have a rigorous belief system which strictly adheres to a policy of non-violence towards the living environment, to the extent that it recommends fruitarianism for its followers. Native American tribes revered the natural world, ascribed to it spiritual powers and followed a policy of conservation. Their contact with imperialist European powers proved to be devastating not only to their culture but also to the balance between the natural and human world in the North American continent. In Europe, the 19th century saw the advent of industrialization and rapid mechanization in ordinary human life. This age gave rise to a new category of the modern human being who was moving away from the earlier pastoral way of life towards a detachment from the natural world. While the Industrial Revolution forms the basis of contemporary technological advancements it is also a precursor of the global climate change problem. The World Wars, with increasingly mechanized forms of combat, further destabilized the relationship between humans and nature. In the 21st century climate change hastened by environmental pollution is one of major causes for concern and has given rise to international debate and action. The sustainable use of natural resources has become a crucial need, upon which hinges the survival of the human race. The increased understanding of environmental issues among society in recent years led to the development of ecocriticism as a branch of study that evaluates texts on the basis of their importance to the themes of nature and conservation.

Ecocriticism is one of the most recently developed branches of literary criticism that evolved into its present understanding during the 80s and 90s. Some works of ecocritical significance had been published in the previous decades; such as Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring in 1962, which exposed the harmful effects of excessive pesticide use upon the environment. The impact of Carson’s book on the environmental movement was immense and it served as an inspiration for later works about ecological concerns. In 1974 Joseph Meeker published his The Comedy of Survival: Studies in Literary Ecology

17 in which he defines literary ecology as “the study of biological themes and relationships which appear in literary works. It is simultaneously an attempt to discover what roles have been played in literature in the ecology of the human species” (9). Ecocriticism was first coined as a term to define a specific kind of critical genre by William Reuckert in his 1978 essay ‘Literature and Ecology: An Experiment in Ecocriticism’. In the essay he declares his intention to –

Experiment with the application of ecology and ecological concepts to the study of literature ... discover something about the ecology of literature, or try to develop an ecological poetics by applying ecological concepts to the reading, teaching, and writing about literature. (Reuckert 107)

Laurence Buell, in his The Environmental Imagination: Thoreau, Nature Writing, and the Formation of American Culture (1995), defines ecocriticism as a “study of the relationship between literature and the environment conducted in a spirit of commitment to environmentalist praxis” (430). By laying emphasis on praxis, Buell clarifies the strain of activism inherent in ecocriticism. Like Marxism or feminism, ecocriticism is a political genre of criticism that does not only critique literature but also uses the themes of nature within texts to formulate theories that lead to environmental conservation. One of the definitive works in the field of ecocriticism is The Ecocriticism Reader published in 1996 by Cheryll Glotfelty and Harold Fromm, which is an anthology of various essays on the topic. In the introduction to the book Glotfelty defines ecocriticism simply as “the study of the relationship between literature and the physical environment” (xviii). She goes on to list various kinds of questions that are the concern of ecocritics –

How is nature represented in this sonnet? What role does the physical setting play in the plot of this novel? Are the values expressed in this play consistent with ecological wisdom? How do our metaphors of the land influence the way we treat it? How can we characterize nature writing as a genre? In addition to race, class, and gender, should place become a new critical category? (Glotfelty xviii-xix)

All of these questions are very relevant in a discussion of the role of nature in Tolkien’s works. Much of his writings include the politics of place, metaphors of land, detailed

18 natural settings and anthropomorphisation of nature. Most remarkable is how he intertwines his environmental beliefs with the very basic structure of his mythology and permeates his texts with moral considerations that are centred on an ethic based upon the preservation of nature. By studying the mythological structure of Tolkien’s narratives through an ecocritical lens, it allows one to identify the importance of his environmental ethics at the very core of his sub-creative imagination.

In conclusion, the purpose of this study is to trace in the works of J.R.R. Tolkien elements of ecology, mythology and historiography, and in doing so explore the possibility of their interrelatedness in the author’s sub-creative vision. In order to understand the development of Tolkien’s mythical construction over time and the evolution of his ecological themes, I have adopted a chronological approach for the study of his three major texts – The Silmarillion, The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. This approach takes into account the actual creative chronology of when the texts were written rather than their date of publication, therefore it places The Silmarillion in the beginning in spite of it being the last of the three to be published. The chapter divisions in this thesis serve the purpose of tracing the progression of Tolkien’s ideas and individually examining the place of each text in the overarching narrative of his legendarium, however his entire body of work is treated as a single thematic and narrative unit. Chapter 2 examines The Silmarillion’s position within Tolkien’s legendarium as a mythical framework upon which most of his later fictional narratives are based. It explores the historical imagination in Tolkien’s mythmaking and his deliberate construction of a mythology that works as a feigned history of England. The various mythical narratives in The Silmarillion are studied in context of their real-world counterparts, like Norse mythology and Biblical themes, and their influence upon Tolkien’s writings is traced. The role of nature in Tolkien’s secondary world creation and its thematic and ethical importance within the mythopoeic universe is also discussed in detail. Chapter 3 studies The Hobbit as a work of children’s literature and a nature-text. The text follows a quest narrative which allows for an episodic plot that accompanies progressive character development in the protagonist. The idea of home is explored in context of its place within the natural world. Its multi-faceted significance to various characters and their individual attitudes towards home are studied through an ecocritical perspective. The

19 theme of greed that emerges in the narrative is viewed in terms of its opposition to Tolkien’s environmental vision. Chapter 4 is a study of the coming together of the mythical and the familiar in The Lord of the Rings. The adoption of various medieval narrative techniques is traced and the character and plot elements in the text are examined through the lens of Jungian archetypes and tropes of quest narratives. Various kinds of spaces in Tolkien’s mythopoeic landscape are explored in context of their relationship with nature. There is also a special focus upon questions of race and gender within the socio-political universe of the novel. Since most of Tolkien’s fictional writings form a thematically and narratively interconnected oeuvre, references have been made to his other works wherever required. I have also extensively referred to Tolkien’s non-fictional writings, including essays and letters, for their value in providing insight and commentary about the author’s creative and philosophical intent.

Works Cited