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Tolkien: Monsters, Midgard, and Medieval Origins

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Tolkien: Monsters, Midgard, and Medieval Origins TOLKIEN: MONSTERS, MIDGARD, AND MEDIEVAL ORIGINS A Thesis Presented to the Faculty of California State University Dominguez Hills In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Arts m Humanities by Aaron M. Brown Spring 2016 Copyright by AARON M. BROWN 2016 All Rights Reserved To those that love me for me. To those that see better in me than I see in myself. Most of all, to my wife, Heather, who knows and loves me better than all others. IV TABLE OF CONTENTS PAGE COPYWRITE PAGE ............................................................................................................................................ 11 APPROVAL PAGE ................................................................................................................iii DEDICATION ........................................................................................................................ iv TABLE OF CONTENTS ......................................................................................................... v ABSTRACT ....................................................................................................................................... vi CHAPTER 1. MONSTERS, WORDS AND MEANING ......................................................................... I Abbreviations ............................................................................................................... 5 2. DRAGONS .......................................................................................................................... 6 3. DARK AND LIGHT ALFAR .......................................................................................... 22 Dwarves ....................................................................................................................24 Elves .......................................................................................................................... 30 4. SHAPE-SHIFTERS ........................................................................................................... 36 5. HEROIC HUMANITY VS. MONSTROSITY. ............................................................... 43 6. THE GREAT WARS AND TOLKIEN' S WAR OF THE RING ................................... 48 7. CONCLUSION .................................................................................................................. 54 ENDNOTES .......................................................................................................................... 58 WORKS CITED .................................................................................................................... 62 WORKS CONSULTED ........................................................................................................ 66 v ABSTRACT This study explores the concept of mythic monstrosity and how John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (J.R.R. Tolkien) used it within his own literature. It analyzes the concept of evil in literary creatures by looking at the traits that they exhibit in medieval literature, in their modem variants, and the meanings of the words used to describe them. Monstrous mythic creatures examined include dragons, light and dark alfar, shape- shifters and humans. Tolkien's use of monsters, relative to his experiences during the World Wars, is also examined. 1 CHAPTER I MONSTERS, WORDS AND MEANING The word is not the thing, but names are a lot closer to things than are other classes of word. Tom A. Shippey J. R. R. Tolkien's literature contains a multitude of creatures and races that, by name, extend back to medieval literature. However, Tolkien changed these creatures to suit his literary purposes and, in some cases, his creatures reflect the mythic predecessor by name only. The temperament of such creatures does not mirror the mythic standard set by the Poetic Edda, Prose Edda, Beowulf, and other literature from the Middle Ages. Rather, transformation of the medieval creatures reflect, in his fictional literature, the hon-ors that he experienced as a soldier in World War I and living in Europe during World War II. As a medievalist himself, J. R. R. Tolkien was heavily influenced by his lifelong study of medieval languages, literature and Norse mythology, yet Tolkien does not apply a medieval template directly to the creatures about which he writes. He often changes them enough to make them likable or lovable when, historically, they are anything but agreeable. Tolkien's modified creatures are no longer purely the creature of myth and legend. Instead, Tolkien gives each of his characters, creatures, and races depth so that they are dynamic, rather than the static creatures with which a heroic character had 2 limited interaction, or who appeared only as a brief mention in a footnote. Tolkien brings these beings to life. During Tolkien's career as a professor he taught Old English and fought arduously to teach Old Norse to the younger generations entering his classrooms. Philology as an art was in serious decline, and despite Tolkien's love for Old Norse literature, it was not popular amongst his colleagues or the general reading population. Therefore, the question must be asked: what did he use directly from his sources and what did he modify? Furthermore, one must ask, why change one creature race for the better and not another? Is this a matter of literary prejudice towards particular types of creatures from antiquity? On the other hand, are the creatures of the medieval model more innately and linguistically appropriate for the types of monstrosity and unwavering evil that Tolkien wished to show? Tolkien understood that historical underpinnings oflanguage give words a depth of which most people are unaware. Old origin words often have hidden or lost meanings that Tolkien delighted in playing with. If the reader wants to understand the author and see where it is that he is coming from, then it is important to look at Tolkien's sources and how he understood them. For this reason, one must look at medieval literary creatures closely when exploring how Tolkien uses monsters in the landscape of the mythology he creates. Just as corporeal creatures mark on the landscape of history, the mythic and literary creatures touch upon the archetypes of a culture and mirror the honors of an age. Such is the case with Tolkien's creatures. 3 Three blockbuster movies based on Tolkien's Lord of the Rings trilogy and the more recent three movies based on The Hobbit have introduced many new readers to the literature of J. R. R. Tolkien. A great deal of written material critiques Tolkien's work, and his literature has been published consistently since the first printing of The Hobbit. 1 However, not all of his literature was fiction. Tolkien is an acclaimed philologist, but most people also do not know what philology is. The Second Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary provides the following useful definition of "philology": The branch of knowledge that deals with the structure, historical development, and relationships oflanguages or language families; the historical study of the phonology and morphology of languages; historical linguistics. [note] This sense has never been current in the United States, and is increasingly rare in British use. Linguistics is now the more usual term for the study of the structure of language, and (often with the qualifying adjective, as historical, comparative, etc.) has generally replaced philology [First example dated 1716]. (sic, qtd. in Gilliver 46) In the literal sense, philology can mean "the love of words," but for Tolkien, it was more than love: it was an obsession. It filled his life. In the trenches of World War I, Tolkien manipulated words in his head and on scraps of paper. Until the end of his life, the meaning, provenance, and history of words were his life's work. In his novels, hidden under the guise of fantastic imagery and pseudo-historical settings, Tolkien played with words. 4 Many scholars have observed the sources of Tolkien's borrowed plot points and character traits. Most notably, as T. A. Shippey in .!. R. R. Tolkien: Author of the Century observes, "Tolkien did take from Beowu/f the idea of the thief stealing a cup, and then returning, eventually in a company of thi11een" (36). However, exploration into the changes that Tolkien made to source texts is lacking. Taking a template and adding to a creature in a novel is one thing; to modify that same creature and depart from the model is another. This is especially true when the story is a tale of good versus evil, and some of the good characters in the tale are not historically set as protagonists because of their monstrous race. The purpose of this study is to explore the concept of mythic monstrosity and how J. R. R. Tolkien used it within his own literature. The specific aim is to analyze the concept of evil in literary creatures by looking at the traits that they exhibit in medieval literature, in their modern variants, and the historical meanings of the words used to describe those creatures. It will also look at the idea that evil is relative to the situation by connecting Tolkien's use of monstrous creatures to his experiences during the World Wars. The methodology being employed in this study is a practice of comparative literature. An initial examination of J. R. R. Tolkien's literature shows a variety of creatures found in medieval literature. From this study, lists have been compiled detailing the traits of creatures and races that Tolkien uses. Next, an assortment of medieval literature was examined,
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