Volume 18 Number 4 Article 6 Fall 10-15-1992 Donaldson and Tolkien William Senior Follow this and additional works at: https://dc.swosu.edu/mythlore Part of the Children's and Young Adult Literature Commons Recommended Citation Senior, William (1992) "Donaldson and Tolkien," Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature: Vol. 18 : No. 4 , Article 6. Available at: https://dc.swosu.edu/mythlore/vol18/iss4/6 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Mythopoeic Society at SWOSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature by an authorized editor of SWOSU Digital Commons. An ADA compliant document is available upon request. For more information, please contact [email protected]. To join the Mythopoeic Society go to: http://www.mythsoc.org/join.htm Mythcon 51: A VIRTUAL “HALFLING” MYTHCON July 31 - August 1, 2021 (Saturday and Sunday) http://www.mythsoc.org/mythcon/mythcon-51.htm Mythcon 52: The Mythic, the Fantastic, and the Alien Albuquerque, New Mexico; July 29 - August 1, 2022 http://www.mythsoc.org/mythcon/mythcon-52.htm Abstract Takes exception to the assertions of some critics that Donaldson is derivative of Tolkien. Sets out to show that “Donaldson’s chronicles differ from Tolkien’s trilogy in their intent, in their use of the shared materials of fantasy, and in their contemporary, American vision.” Additional Keywords Donaldson, Stephen R. The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant; Tolkien, J.R.R. The Lord of the Rings This article is available in Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature: https://dc.swosu.edu/mythlore/vol18/iss4/6 CPyTHLORe Issue 70 - Autumn 1992 Page 37 (JJilliam SenioR lohn Clute daims that "Donaldson's use of Tolkien's The Created Worlds: Opposite Visions I mythopoeic method and plot structures" and his In Epic Fantasy in the M odem World Donaldson pays ^heavy-handed paraphrases" of Tolkien's names tribute to Tolkien, who "restored the epic to English litera­ demonstrate Stephen R. Donaldson's excessive depend­ ture." But Donaldson states that in Tolkien's view we can ence on The Lord of the Rings; yet he also admits that dream epic dreams again "only if we understand clearly Donaldson's work is "essentially his own, fundamentally that those dreams have no connection to the reality of who different from Tolkien's in tone, texture, and spirit" (Clute we are and what we do." The saga of a past and lost beauty 267). It could reasonably be said that no serious modem and grandeur, The Lord of the Rings has no direct connection fantasy would be possible without Tolkien's accomplish­ to our day to day world, and we can apply Eric Rabkin's ment, so in one sense John Clute is correct. Yet, the depend­ assessment of W illiam Morris to Tolkien: ence of The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant on The Lord of Morris distances history beyond the gulf of a discontented the Rings that John Clute sees as a "critical truism" does not and impassable historical gap, and thus creates a history have the eclat of a proverb that he assigns it. Some early in a fairy land so that we can escape into a history that is reviews of Donaldson's Chronicles do compare the trilogy demonstrably not progressive because it is not connected to Tolkien's The Lord o f the Rings: Christine Barkley argues with our own times(93).3 that "Donaldson carries on the task Tolkien had begun .... The historical intent of The Chronicles is the reverse of Thomas Covenant, Donaldson's unusually reluctant hero, The Lord of the Rings and underscores the difference be­ is the logical heir to Frodo Baggins as the unlikely common tween the British and American perspectives. The weight man upon whom the fate of the world rests" (50). Michael of the history of Middle-earth lies in the past so that any Moorcock grumbles that he owes "rather more to Tolkien actions which take place in the present of the text are than I find tolerable" (90).1 But others reject such connec­ continuations of a plan sprung from previous ages. Con­ tions. Gordon Slethaug says that Donaldson never allows versely, Donaldson uses historical background to establish complete escape for anyone and that "It is this refusal to a story in which all looks to the future, not back to the past. permit escape gives the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant Since Foul is the reigning, immutable demon of the Land, the Unbeliever its special message, interest, and distinc­ we know that he will return continually. Thus, each battle tion. It is this Quality that separates it from TolkienesQue with Foul exists more as a preparation for the future than fantasy" (22). Brian Aldiss places Donaldson among those as a reflection of the past. The Second Chronicles occur writers, "who do not think generically; they are not forty thousand years later than the First, and their resolu­ received generically" (277). From another reference comes tion points to the future: Covenant's timeless battle against this: "This is not a Tolkien-like fantasy with a great hero Foul. Donaldson has said that he has a third series in mind, eager to do service for a troubled land" (Tymn 74). although he may never write it.4 Moreover, Tolkien and Donaldson have attended on Kenneth Zahorski and Robert Boyer propose a four­ the same muse2 and use the elves, dwarves, wizards, and fold classification of high fantasy worlds which spells out so on that belong to the library from which fantasy writers the distinction between Tolkien and Donaldson. Middle- borrow their materials. Both trilogies are works of vast earth belongs to the class which is "clearly set in a primary scope rooted in common traditions and inhabitants; cor­ world of the very distant past" and which is mythic and responding symbolic geographies; circular voyages by un­ legendary in nature (60). Donaldson's Land falls into those likely protagonists; animated, vigorous, teeming worlds; "works set in secondary worlds vaguely defined in terms rings of doom; and the power of song and tale. The leper of their relationship to our world and to our time" (59). To Thomas Covenant and the hobbit Frodo Baggins are Thomas Covenant, the Land is a dream and its inhabitants curious cousins of dissimilar background and tempera­ attributes of his life in the "real" world; thus, its "relation­ ment but of related Quests, shared hardships, and mutual ship to our world and to our time" is specific in terms of experiences. However, it would be a mistake to see the central character in a way that Tolkien's historical tales Donaldson's work as merely another of the myriad—and cannot be. Zahorski and Boyer further assert that fan- invariably inferior— imitations of The Lord of the Rings. tacists set the secondary world "in some sort of more direct Donaldson's Chronicles differ from Tolkien's trilogy in relationship to the primary world enabling them to further their intent, in their use of the shared materials of fantasy, define their secondary worlds by comparison with this and in their contemporary, American vision as opposed to one" (63), while Gary Wolfe points to die "deeper belief, Tolkien's medieval British ethos. Page 38 Issue 70 - Aurumn 1992 CPyTHLORC which permits certain fantasy works to become analogues daydreaming. This alternate view of reality offered by the of inner experience" ("Encounter" 13). Thus, the quintes­ Land counterpoints the prescribed perspective of his sential change between Tolkien and Donaldson is that the world, and through his experiences in the Land, Covenant inhabitants of the Land and the Land itself are closer to us, is edged back to his lost humanity. Dream or not, this more reflections of our "real world" than the mythical and world provides what he lacks. folkloric characters of Middle-earth because they grow out of Thomas Covenant, the "one real man," as exponents of The Inhabitants his condition as a leper. A comparison of the Lords of the Land and the wizards of Middle-earth illustrates Tolkien's and Donaldson's dif­ Donaldson's aim is, in part, to make us all look at the ferent uses of a common source: Tolkien's traditional issues of our present world through the magnifying glass hierarchic and mythic approach as opposed to of fantasy. His vision is not limited to simply a spiritual Donaldson's American democracy and focus on one "real" refreshing; it asks us to consider the manifold ills of our man. From The Silmarillion we discover that the wizards world and constitutes an attempt "to bridge the gap be­ are actually angelic ministers sent to oppose one of their tween reality and fantasy" (Epic). Thus, The Chronicles own, Sauron (299-30U)6 Among them, only Gandalf ap­ begin not only in contemporary America but with an pears in any depth. Of the original five who sailed to appeal to formal realism. At the leprosarium, a doctor Middle-earth, two have left the knowledge of the others impersonally educates Covenant, and concomitantly the entirely. Gandalf's wanderings, Saruman's isolation in his reader, about leprosy and its more subtly scourging ef­ tower, Radagast's affinity for animals and solitude, and fects: the disappearance of the others underscore their separate the leper has always been despised and feared — outcast natures and distance from even the peoples of Middle- even by his most loved ones because of a rare bacillus no one earth.