In Tom Herron's stimulating comment below, I was taken aback by his recollection of the WWII allegory, a reading which Tolkien, of course, denied: "A standard view of the WWII allegory is that Hobbit=English, Elf=French, Dwarf=?American? Sauron to the east=Germany; the Ring=the Bomb."
How dreadfully limiting, it seems, for any nationality to be associated ONLY with one such group in Tolkien's story. Long ago in a Fantasy Literature course, I enjoyed asking [American] students to select the group with which each of them could most easily identify. There were many comfortable, likable, marginally-adventurous Hobbits; a much smaller band of bright-eyed, sophisticated elves; & an even smaller (but quite interesting) group who associated with the powerful, reticent shape-shifter Beorn & his rustic lodgings (several of these students had walked the entire Appalachian Trail). But not a single one of these American students associated her/himself with the dwarves.
Perhaps it was this kind of national (& potentially ethnic & racial) stereotyping that Tolkien deplored when he denied the presence of a topical-historical allegory. If allegory is in Tolkien's works, it is surely more broadly conceived: we are Hobbits(halflings) in our usual routine of homey creature comforts, yet always hiding a capacity for heroism, dismal failure, & exaltation; Elves we are through learning, exploration, & intuition that connects us with past & future, & with the languages of all other creatures; Beorn the bear-man, a special figure who isn't easily deciphered, seems in the lineage of bear-kings like Beowulf and Arthur, gifted with godlike powers; & the dwarves are the hard-working-class, who design the tools, weapons, & material possessions of all the others--making them the inescapable bedrock of the human enterprise, though their hard work & material possessiveness are not qualities which will endear them to students.
Such an allegorical scheme is not as intellectually sophisticated as Spenser's but it offers a similar range of groups which pertain to all human readers: Spenser seems to use "fairy" & "briton" to designate two complementary aspects of the human psyche (as Harry Berger and Tom Roche and others have shown); Satyrane, the salvage man, & numerous other figures designate subcategories of the psychic landscape.
I suspect that an American or French reader will relate to this entire range of groups (either in Spenser's or in Tolkien's work) much as an Englishman does.
Robin Reid, Emory & Henry College, Emory, VA
-----Original Message-----
From: David Wilson-Okamura [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Thursday, February 19, 2004 2:04 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Trees and Tolkien
<< I'm forwarding this for Tom Herron. - dswo >>
Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2004 13:43:30 -0500
From: "Tom Herron" <[log in to unmask]>
Reply-To: <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Trees and Tolkein
Dear List,
I agree with David's appreciation of Tolkein's poetry which, among other merits (ie, despite the occasional inanity of Tom Bombadill), gives a welcome break to the monotony of the narrative style. Another weakness in Tolkein is clearly his characterization; he's no Flaubert. ("Frodo, c'est moi"?) Hence the movie version is able to bring out sympathy and pathos through (generally) excellent acting (cf. Ian Holmes/Bilbo's conversations with Frodo in Rivendell) that the writing simply doesn't. On the other hand, one could argue that Gollum, at least, is a superbly scripted character, as, perhaps, is Smaug.
But T's plotting is superb and his imagination simply majestical, as noted. His historical allegorizing IS worth pondering despite his strenuous protests that his writing was not allegorical, esp. concerning WWII (or, as is less noted, WWI... as the deluxe DVD set of TT makes clear, the floating bodies in the Dead Marshes owe something to T's war experience in the wet trenches. A standard view of the WWII allegory is that Hobbit=English, Elf=French, Dwarf=?American? Sauron to the east=Germany; the Ring=the Bomb. A recent article in the New Yorker noted the eerie timing of the film with the new south-eastern world threat to "civilization", and esp the title "The Two Towers").
Also, nobody on our list so far has mentioned his environmental ethic, which, if not new, was prophetic (I think this registers a great chord with moviegoers today as well... how many other anti-industrial films are out there?). His prose is at its best, in my opinion, not only in the battle scenes but in his descriptions of forest and dell... the way the birch leaves rustle and sunlight dapples as characters and streams wander through; suddenly they and we are aware how suddenly small we are inside this greater atmosphere of ancient life; the forests turn everyone into hobbits. Tolkein clearly understands the mystery of a Teutonic forest as he does Grendel's mere.
Let us ungrateful K-zoo Spenserians not forget that we often dine at Bilbo's! Should one think of Fradubio when pondering how Sam and Pippin (?) get swallowed by old man Willow? Here's a tease: I found a direct echo of a line from Sp's CCCHA in one of Tolkein's forest descriptions in Fellowship but the book I marked it in, alas, lies sleeping in a Swedish forest (summer reading). Maybe I can find it when I disappear again into my childhood. Does this new Tolkein journal have a "Gleanings" section?
--Thomas Herron
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