Re-Writing the Past - the Pillars of Middle-Earth

Influences and origins Re-writing the past - The pillars of Middle-earth Andreas Gloge Translation from the original German by Marie-Noelle Biemer he best place to start, when Rings, no less than fifteen languages attempting to comprehend This paper is extracted in slightly edit emerge (cf. Noel 1977, 28ff). They ed form from the author’s ‘ Tolkien’s mythic dimensions, vary from the only hinted at to the T J.R.R. Tolkien’s Der Herr Her Ringe’ extensive, in conversations, names, merely hinted at in stories, songs, and published in 2002 by the Erster lore in The Lord of the Rings, is with Deutscher Fantasy Club. songs, poems, or lore. In a letter to The Silmarillion. Tolkien tried hard to W.H. Auden, shortly after the publica have both books published at the to Mathews, The Silmarillion serves as tion of the last volume of The Lord of same time because he was convinced a primary source for the actions and the Rings in 1955, Tolkien said about they were too closely linked to each motivations of different cultures and his love for languages: other to be separated (cf. Carpenter traditions in Middle-earth and thus ‘Most important, perhaps, after 1991, 182ff). But the publishers shrank explains the geographical and socio Gothic was the discovery in Exeter from his demands. They judged The political structures in The Lord of the College library, when I was sup Silmarillion unsuitable for the contem Rings. For this reason, The Silmarillion posed to be reading for Honour porary market and in any case it is included in the following examina Mods, of a Finnish Grammar. It was largely consisted still of a complex, tion of the influence of old myths and like discovering a complete wine- disordered pile of innumerable manu legends. cellar filled with bottles of an amaz scripts and revisions. In the event, The ing wine of a kind of flavour never Silmarillion was published posthu The importance of language tasted before. [...] All this only as mously by Tolkien’s son Christopher, J.R.R. Tolkien found international fame background to the stories [of who made what he thought the best as an author but first and foremost he Middle-earth], though languages choices amongst his father’s manifold was a philologist who taught for 39 and names are for me inextricable notes. A few years later, the twelve vol years at the universities of Oxford and from the stories. They are and were umes of The History of Middle-earth Leeds. Besides his penchant for Old so to speak an attempt to give followed, also edited by Christopher background or a world in which my Tolkien. It filled many gaps as regards expressions of linguistic taste could content and offered alternative ver "And now the songs have come have a function. The stories were sions to The Silmarillion based on down among us out of strange comparatively late in coming’. hitherto neglected scripts by J.R.R. places and walk visible under the (Carpenter 1995, 214) Tolkien.1 Sun." (TT, 191) Inspired by his own poems, the There will never be an authorised invention of his own grammar, and by version of The Sllmarillion, so many old mythologies (as for example the interpretative approaches should only English, he also possessed a various relatively new Finnish epic Kalevala 2), be considered with care. However its ly extensive knowledge of Latin, Tolkien began to work on private sto literary value for The Lord of the Rings Greek, Finnish, Gothic, Welsh, and ries, which would give his "taste for is beyond question. "In any case it Icelandic. According to his biographer language" a function and a sense, in served as a primary source for The Carpenter he was "well versed in all 1917. Those episodes, which were Lord [of the Rings]" (Mathews 1978, dialects of Anglo-Saxon and Middle only published after his death as The 56) and "[b]y incorporating various English” while additionally "during Silmarillion and which depict the cre epic traditions and types into one form 1919 and 1920, when he was working ation and world history of Middle-earth - and one, moreover, which closely on the Oxford Dictionary he made over a period of more than 6000 years, adheres to the requirements Aristotle himself acquainted with a number of formed an inspirational well for his two prescribed for the epic in his Poetics, other early Germanic languages” most successful books, The Hobbit including unity of action - Tolkien (Carpenter 2002, 178f). and The Lord of the Rings. devises a unique form of fantasy writ It is thus no great surprise that in Tolkien invented not only two ing" (Mathews 1978, 57f). According his great life’s work, The Lord of the elvish languages, Quenya and 1. A rough abstract of The Silmarillion can be found in Carpenter (1991a, 190-241) where a more than ten thousand word long letter from Tolkien to Milton Waldnrann (Collins publishers) in 1951 has been summarised. In it, Tolkien explains the relevance of The Silmarillion. In Garbowski (2000, 59-63) more information and explanation concerning the posthumous publication of The History of Middle-earth and Unfinished Tales of Numenor and Middle-earth (1980, George Allen & Unwin), published as Nachrichten aus Mittelerde in German, can be found. These works illuminate the mythical background of Middle-earth and have contributed consider ably to the character of the world of The Lord of the Rings. 2. The Finnish national epic was finished in its complete revision in 1849. See http://virtual.finland.fi/english/kalevala.html (13.4.2002)for more details. 44 Re-writing the past... Sindarin (cf. RK, 493-530), with vocab And then his tongue was loosed does not accord with the phonetic ulary, grammar, and pronunciation but and his voice cried in a language structure of English and sounds too he also supplied his fictitious peoples which he did not know: outlandish for the Shire. with appropriate language patterns A Elbereth Gilthoniel It [‘tobacco’] is an import from some that clearly distinguished them from o menel palan-diriel, unknown Caribbean language via one another in the story: le nation si di’nguruthosl Spanish, reaching English only Tolkien used English to represent A tiro nin, Fanuilos! after the discovery of America, the Common Speech, Westron, (TT, 425) sometime in the sixteenth century. spoken by the hobbits and most of Even though neither Sam nor the [...] ‘Pipe-weed’ shows Tolkien’s the Free Peoples of Middle-earth. reader can grasp immediately the wish to accept a common feature of The relationship of English to the exact meaning of these words, the English modernity, which he knew languages of other peoples indi passage has a certain effect and could not exist in the world of elves cates those peoples’ relationships meaning because of the strange lan or trolls, and whose anachronism to the hobbits. Throughout most of guage. Helmut W. Pesch ascribes this would instantly be betrayed by a LOR, Anglo-Saxon based English function to a reflection of the magical word with the foreign feel of ‘tobac is used to give the effect of simple character of language as well as to its co’. (Shippey 1982, 53) dignity and proximity to nature. In function as a medium of creation In contrast to all the special and the Shire, the English Tolkien used which in turn determines the magical magical moments of the newly-formed was informal and often unsophisti character (cf. Pesch 1982, 183). language elements, Tolkien also cated and provincial. In Rohan, Tolkien himself felt that the creative proves his ability to deal critically with actual Old English words, names use of language was almost equal to the use of language. Thus he portrays and phrases were used to show an act of creation, which would bring Saruman, the head of the White that their relationship to Modern us closer to God (cf. Tolkien 1987, Council, who in the end falls prey to English reflects the similarities 157). The imagination of the reader at his own lust for power, as a master of between the tongues of the Shire this is as much engaged as by the cre manipulation using only the sound of and the Mark. These two languages ative power of words. his voice: had a common source in the During the long years of writing ‘Suddenly another voice spoke, low speech of Wilderland, where both and revising Tolkien reconsidered and and melodious, its very sound an the hobbits and the Rohirrim origi rewrote almost every single word in enchantment. Those who listened nated. In Gondor, French and other LOR and he grew very fond of his own unwarily to that voice could seldom Latin-based words were used to creations, such as the newly devised report the words that they heard; suggest a language still more plural of dwarf (dwarves instead of and if they did, they wondered, for removed and noble than the dwarfs). Even though the publisher’s little power remained in them. Common Speech used elsewhere. typesetters corrected ‘dwarves’ to Mostly they remembered only that it This was because the inhabitants of ‘dwarfs’,’ elvish’ to ‘elfish’ and ‘further’ was a delight to hear the voice Gondor spoke not only Westron but to ‘farther’ at first, Tolkien showed an speaking, all that it said seemed Elvish as well.’ (Noel 1977, 29) impressive determination concerning wise and reasonable, and desire While the language diversity in his own Middle-earth orthography and awoke in them by swift agreement Middle-earth is often only hinted at, it grammar, finally managing to establish to seem wise themselves.

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