'A FAR GREEN COUNTRY' : AN ANALYSIS OF THE PRESENTATION OF NATURE IN WORKS OF EARLY MYTHOPOEIC FANTASY FICTION Mark J. Langwith A Thesis Submitted for the Degree of PhD at the University of St. Andrews 2007 Full metadata for this item is available in Research@StAndrews:FullText at: http://research-repository.st-andrews.ac.uk/ Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: http://hdl.handle.net/10023/313 This item is protected by original copyright This item is licensed under a Creative Commons License ‘A FAR GREEN COUNTRY’: AN ANALYSIS OF THE PRESENTATION OF NATURE IN WORKS OF EARLY MYTHOPOEIC FANTASY FICTION MARK J. LANGWITH A Thesis for the Degree of Doctorate of Philosophy University of St. Andrews 21 December 2006 ii ABSTRACT This study undertakes an examination of the representation of nature in works of literature that it regards as early British ‘mythopoeic fantasy’. By this term the thesis understands that fantasy fiction which is fundamentally concerned with myth or myth-making. It is the contention of the study that the connection of these works with myth or the idea of myth is integral to their presentation of nature. Specifically, this study identifies a connection between the idea of nature presented in these novels and the thought of the late-Victorian era regarding nature, primitivism, myth and the impulse behind mythopoesis. It is argued that this conceptual background is responsible for the notion of nature as a virtuous force of spiritual redemption in opposition to modernity and in particular to the dominant modern ideological model of scientific materialism. The thesis begins by examining late-Victorian sensibilities regarding myth and nature, before exposing correlative ideas in selected case studies of authors whose work it posits to be primarily mythopoeic in intent. The first of these studies considers the work of Henry Rider Haggard, the second examines Scottish writer David Lindsay, and the third looks at the mythopoeic endeavours of J. R. R. Tolkien, the latter standing alone among the authors considered in these central case studies in producing fiction under a fully developed theory of mythopoesis. The perspective is then widened in the final chapter, allowing consideration of authors such as William Morris and H. G. Wells. The study attempts to demonstrate the prevalence of an identifiable conceptual model of nature in the period it considers to constitute the age of early mythopoeic fantasy fiction, which it conceives to date from the late- Victorian era to the apotheosis of Tolkien’s work. iii I, Mark Jonathan Langwith, hereby certify that this thesis, which is approximately 90, 500 words in length, has been written by me, that it is the record of work carried out by me and that it has not been submitted in any previous application for a higher degree. Date: Signature of Candidate: I was admitted as a research student in September 2002 and as a candidate for the degree of Ph.D. in September 2003; the higher study for which this is a record was carried out in the University of St. Andrews between 2003 and 2006. Date: Signature of Candidate: I hereby certify that the candidate has fulfilled the conditions of the Resolution and Regulations appropriate for the degree of Ph.D. in the University of St. Andrews and that the candidate is qualified to submit this thesis in application for that degree. Date: Signature of Supervisor: In submitting this thesis to the University of St. Andrews I understand that I am giving permission for it to be made available for use in accordance with the regulations of the University Library for the time being in force, subject to any copyright vested in the work not being affected thereby. I also understand that the title and abstract will be published, and that a copy of the work may be made an supplied to any bona fide library or research worker, that my thesis will be electronically accessible for personal or research use, and that the library has the right to migrate my thesis into new electronic forms as required to ensure continued access to the thesis. I have obtained any third- party copyright permissions that may be required in order to allow such access and migration. Date: Signature of candidate: iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I wish to acknowledge the great debt I owe to several people for their support during the production of this thesis. Firstly, I wish to express my gratitude to my supervisor, Dr. Christopher Maclachlan, whose guidance has been invaluable. I am grateful, too, to the various members of staff associated with the School of English at St. Andrews who have helped me during this time. I would also like to thank my friends, who have offered advice and much- needed distraction in equal measure; I single out Dave and Caroline, my flatmates for much of the duration of the writing of this study. Finally I would like to thank my parents, Ken and Eve, whose support, love, and patience, in this as everything, have been unqualified. The thesis is dedicated to my maternal grandparents, Everett and Rose. v CONTENTS Introduction: Myth, Nature, and Fantasy Literature…..1 I: Victorian Anthropology and Mythopoeic Fantasy…..5 II: Rider Haggard and the ‘Primitive’ Quest Romance…..47 III: David Lindsay: The Nature of the Sublime…..94 IV: The Shadow of the Past: The Presentation of Nature in the Works of J. R. R. Tolkien…..154 V: The Presentation and Role of Nature in the Wider Early British Fantasy Tradition…..248 Conclusion: The Mythopoesis of Nature in Mythopoeic Fantasy…..284 Bibliography…..294 1 INTRODUCTION: MYTH, NATURE, AND FANTASY LITERATURE Mythopoeic fantasy, as this study has named it, is conceived to be that mode of fantasy writing that draws in some measure on the structures, archetypes, or imagery of myth, or engages in mythopoesis, raising the value of symbol above such matters as character development. Universal human fears and desires are represented through characters, rather than individual identities, in order to attempt to present, or to access, truths about the human condition. It would seem that ‘mythopoeic fantasy’ is a particularly pertinent label beneath which to seek understanding of the fantasy belonging to the period examined in this thesis, due to its concern with myth as a mode of conveying or contacting spiritual truth, as well as its frequent use of traditional mythic literature as source material. The use of the term indicates the importance ascribed by this study to the prevalent concepts of myth and mythopoesis operative in the fantasy fiction it examines. From inception, the aim of this study was to provide an ideational background to the presentation of nature in the apparently singular fantasy world of J. R. R. Tolkien, and in doing so it identifies a common vision of nature in the wider sphere of early British fantasy fiction. Tolkien undertook a defence of the mythic mode in his seminal essay ‘On Fairy-stories’ (1947),1 and this study understands the work of the other authors discussed here as similarly defending the value of mythopoesis. This defence of myth is part of a wider resistance that characterizes mythopoeic fantasy, which sees the 1 Although this essay, critical to an understanding of Tolkien’s theory of fantasy, was first published in 1947, it was previously delivered in shortened form as an Andrew Lang Lecture at the University of St. Andrews in 1939. INTRODUCTION: MYTH, NATURE, AND FANTASY LITERATURE 2 mythic, the natural, and the spiritual pitted against the realist, the artificial, and the scientific or the material. The opening chapter looks at the intellectual background provided by the late-Victorian era, which inculcated the interrelated understandings of myth and of nature that this thesis regards as conditioning mythopoeic fantasy. There follow several case studies that seek to establish a pattern in such fantasy of the presentation of nature in the context of an understanding of myth drawn from this conceptual background. The works of Henry Rider Haggard are examined in the second chapter, followed in the third by those of the Scottish writer David Lindsay. Lindsay’s work is seldom studied at all, very rarely in terms of wider fantasy fiction, and certainly not in the context of an ideational correlation with that of Haggard and Tolkien. However, despite an idiosyncratic dualist metaphysic, Lindsay’s work is fully interpretable within the understanding of nature and of myth set out in this study, and proves valuable in helping establish a conceptual correlation between otherwise disparate writers, only loosely connected elsewhere as writers of fantasy fiction. The fourth chapter is a case study of the works of Tolkien, and demonstrates the vision of nature presented in his fiction as falling into the pattern already established, rather than being a unique expression of a personal philosophy. To this point, the study progresses chronologically; the works of Haggard (1856 – 1925) are followed by those of Lindsay (1876 – 1945), and subsequently those of Tolkien (1892 – 1973). In the final chapter this chronological approach is dispensed with as the scope of the study is broadened to incorporate corroboratory material from the wider field of early British fantasy fiction, reference being made to the works of William Morris INTRODUCTION: MYTH, NATURE, AND FANTASY LITERATURE 3 (1834 – 1896) and H. G. Wells (1866 – 1946), along with those of the Irish writer, Lord Dunsany (1878 – 1957). Tolkien’s work is so much of an epiphany in terms of the development of fantasy that many later exponents of the genre rely heavily on it in their own ideational and thematic choices. Consequently, this study does not choose to examine the work of later writers of fantasy fiction.