Romance Tropes in JRR Tolkien's the Lord of the Rings
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Romancing the Ring: Romance Tropes in J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings by Brett Steele A dissertation submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree Magister Artium in the Department of English at the UNIVERITY OF PRETORIA FACULTY OF HUMANITIES SUPERVISOR: Professor Molly Brown October 2015 Contents Contents................................................................................................................................1 Acknowledgements...............................................................................................................2 Abstract and Key Terms........................................................................................................4 Chapter 1: ‘The Road Goes Ever On And On, Down From The Door Where It Began’: An Introduction…………………………….…………………………...............................................5 Chapter 2: ‘A Great Force of Character’: An Introduction to Characters in Romance………………………….……………………………………………….…….................21 Chapter 3: The Hero With Two Faces: The Hero..................................................................25 Chapter 4: ‘An Old Grey Man, Bent and Troubled’: The Master……..….……………..……...33 Chapter 5: The Hero Continued….………………...................................................................41 Chapter 6: Our Lady of Romance: The Lady………………………………..………….............61 Chapter 7: The Golden-Haired Heroine: The Heroine...........................................................89 Chapter 8: The White Lady of the Woods: The White Goddess..........................................107 Chapter 9: Where the Shadows Lie: The Shadow...............................................................116 Chapter 10: The Lady in Shadow: The Villainess….............................................................143 Chapter 11: ‘The Road Goes Ever On And On, Down From The Door Where It Began’: The Conclusion...........................................................................................................................167 Bibliography.........................................................................................................................170 1 Acknowledgements I would firstly like to thank Professor Molly Brown for her unwavering support and the much- needed guidance that she offered me during the writing of this thesis. It is not an exaggeration to state that this thesis would not exist without the considerable encouragement and wisdom that I received from her. I would secondly like to thank my mother, Theresa, for her patience and her support (and for her threats when she ran out of patience). She was steadfast that I pursue this path in my studies and to stay the course, even when it seemed much easier and wiser to surrender than to persevere. I owe both of these remarkable women a great debt of gratitude for seeing me through one of the most challenging pursuits in my academic career. 2 UNIVERSITY OF PRETORIA FACULTY OF HUMANITIES RESEARCH PROPOSAL & ETHICS COMMITTEE DECLARATION Full Name: Brett Steele Student Number: 24116085 Degree/Qualification: Magister Artium in the Department of English Title of Thesis: Romancing the Ring: Romance Tropes in J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. I declare that this dissertation is my own original work. Where secondary material is used, this has been carefully acknowledged and referenced in accordance with university requirements. I understand what plagiarism is and am aware of university policy and implications in this regard. BRETT STEELE 6 SEPTEMBER 2015 __________________________________ ________________________________ SIGNATURE DATE 3 Abstract This dissertation is an exploration of the Romance tropes that exist in J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. It concentrates on the numerous Romance tropes and details evident in Tolkien’s characters and setting while focusing on how these tropes function within the greater Romance genre. Examples from various other Romances are used to augment the argument, but particular mention is made of the Romances or pieces of literature that Tolkien translated and worked on in his lifetime, including: Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Sir Orfeo, The Pearl, The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrún, The Fall of Arthur, and Beowulf. The dissertation focuses on Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, which has been responsible for the renaissance of modern fantasy in the twentieth-century. It begins by raising the contentious issue of whether Tolkien’s book may be regarded as a Romance. The work of Helen Cooper (2009), Gillian Beer (1970) and Northrop Frye (1973 and 1976) forms the basis of this theoretical discussion. The Romance tropes evident in the analysis of the characters and setting of The Lord of the Rings provide an interesting starting point for further discussion of the Romance tropes that exist elsewhere in Tolkien’s work, and one hopes that more research into this will follow. Key Terms: J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings; Romance literature; Fantasy; Medievalism; Romance Characters; Romance Setting; Romance Tropes; Hero; Lady; Heroine; Shadow; Master; White Lady; Secondary World; Helen Cooper; Gillian Beer and Northrop Frye. 4 ‘The Road Goes Ever On And On, Down From The Door Where It Began’ (Tolkien, 2001: 34): An Introduction Gillian Beer (1970: 78) in her work, The Romance, and Helen Cooper (2009: 80-81) in her text, The English Romance in Time: Transforming Motifs from Geoffrey of Monmouth to the Death of Shakespeare, deem The Lord of the Rings to be an exemplar (or perhaps even the renaissance) of twentieth century Romance1. This is unsurprising considering that The Lord of the Rings exhibits so many traits and tropes of a literature that for centuries has been associated (if not become synonymous) with Romance literature (Cooper, 2009: 80). This dissertation will analyse the tropes and traits of Romance literature that are apparent in The Lord of the Rings, paying particular attention to the tropes and traits that are exhibited in the characters and settings that Tolkien uses in his book. The dissertation will also focus on Tolkien’s famous translations of Romance and proto-Romance texts, such as The Fall of Arthur (written in 1930 but published posthumously in 2013), which is Tolkien’s reworking of Thomas Malory’s Le Morte Darthur, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (1929), The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrún (published posthumously in 2009 but written in 1926), Sir Orfeo (1929), The Pearl (1929) and Beowulf (translated in 1937 but only published posthumously in 2014), 1 The word Romance is a highly ambiguous term because of the various different classes or classifications of Romance. The genre of Romance can of course be viewed depending on a variety of factors: first, by geographical setting and the culture of the Hero (the Romances of Rome vary to those of Britain and France, and vice versa; second, by the audience (the high or chivalric Romances written for the nobility or aristocracy differ greatly from the more popular Romances that were intended for a much wider audience of the lower gentry; third, by the subject matter (chivalric or heroic Romances focus on martial prowess and pursuits while courtly Romances focus more on romantic love and the service of a Lady by the Knight). As such in my discussion I will focus more on the Romance structures – those mentioned by Cooper (2009), Beer (1970) and Frye (1976) – which exist in the majority of Romances. 5 as well as the influence that these texts had on the writer and his work. The tropes and traits that are inherent in these translated texts will be viewed in relation to Romance theory, with a specific focus on the work of Helen Cooper (2009), Gillian Beer (1970) and Northrop Frye (1973). Addressing The Lord of the Ring’s connections to Romance, Cooper (2009: 4) states that: ‘[i]t is no coincidence that the authors who kick-started the modern equivalent of the Romance, C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien, were two of the leading medieval scholars of the mid-twentieth century.’ This affinity for Romance and Medieval literature is to be expected, especially since the height of Romance literature coincides with the Medieval period (that era of knights and ladies from the sixth to the sixteenth century [Sweeney, 2000: 2]). Tom Shippey (2001: 223) in his book, J.R.R. Tolkien: Author of the Century, also states that: ‘In brief, then The Lord of the Rings is a Romance,’ and even, when speaking on Tolkien’s originality and how he led the way forward in fantasy literature, Shippey (2001: xviii) compares Tolkien to Chrétien de Troyes, who ‘…in the twelfth century, did not invent the Arthurian Romance, which must have existed in some form before his time, but showed what could be done with it’ (Shippey, 2001: xviii). Shippey (2001: xviii) explains that: ‘One of the things that Tolkien did was to open up a new continent of imaginative space for many millions of readers, and hundreds of writers – though he himself would have said that it was an old continent which he was merely rediscovering,’ and this continent was naturally the continent of Romance, with which Tolkien was well-versed and familiar (Salu, 1979: 256). Derek Brewer (Salu, 1979: 249) even asserts that: ‘[t]o understand The Lord of the Rings we have to understand the true nature of Romance; and that Romance can be understood as the kind of thing that The Lord of the Rings is.’ Significantly, one of the earliest mentions of The Lord of the Rings being a Romance appears in the first review of the book. C.S. Lewis (Mathews, 1978: 15), a long-time