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Review of Jane Chance, Alfred K. Siewers (eds.), Tolkien's Modern Middle Ages

Jane Chance and Alfred Siewers (eds.)
Tolkien's Modern Middle Ages
New York: Palgrave, 2009.
[Paperback, ISBN 978-0-230-61679-0, 29.95 $, Amazon]

by Thomas Honegger
posted on April 04, 2009

 

The outward appearance of this nicely designed volume spells 'quality' - and indeed, fair is not foul (though, as we all know, not all that is gold glitters ...). The overall quality of the essays assembled in this collection is quite high and the two editors did a good job in dividing the fourteen papers into four parts - the medieval in postmodern Middle-earth, Middle-earth and Victorian medivalism, modern ideologies in Middle-earth, and visualizing medievalism in Middle-earth.

Verlyn Flieger makes a beginning with an illuminating discussion of the pre- and postmodern elements to be found in Tolkien's work. The professor, as she shows by means of a comparison between Sam's discourse on 'stories' and a passage from the novel The French Lieutenant's Woman by John Fowles, is sometimes more 'postmodern' than card-carrying postmodernists. Yet, and one cannot but wholeheartedly agree with her, all those elements, be they 'medieval', pre- or postmodern, are only single (though interacting) aspects of a rich textual tapestry and it would be overly simplistic (and wrong) to reduce Tolkien's work to binary oppositions like modern vs. medieval.

Gergely Nagy's contribution is, to some extent, a suitable companion piece to Flieger's essay. He illustrates how Tolkien, although ignored by contemporary critics because he is believed to root his work in history, theology and archaic language, actually includes multiple points of view and contradictory elements in the construction of his textual universe.

John Holmes, in the third and last essay of part one, discusses Tolkien's conception(s) of time (and 'timelessness') and their classical, Germanic and Victorian sources. Holmes focuses on a much more limited aspect of 'post-modernism' and, by including the Victorian aspect, provides a link to the papers of the following part two.

The three papers by John Hunter, Andrew Lynch and Chester N. Scoville all deal with Tolkien's 'Victorian' medievalism, his connection to the historical fiction of Macpherson and Scott, Tennyson's depiction of warfare, and Morris's utopian concept respectively.

Hunter points out that Tolkien's work is informed by two differing traditions of looking at the past. On the one hand, the past is seen as an inescapable historical force that shapes individuals (Scott), on the other it becomes a place of fusion for fantasy and history (Macpherson) which allows readers to escape.

Lynch argues that both Tennyson (in Idylls of the King) and Tolkien, in their depiction of warfare, focus on morality, use archaic language and resort to elegiac and nostalgic modes. Tolkien furthermore anchors the 'good' elements in his more medieval characters and style of warfare, whereas the 'evil' side is characterized by a more 'modern' attitude. Though not absolutely necessary for such a rather straightforward comparison, a discussion of Tolkien's presentation of warfare should take into consideration Dickerson's astute observations on this topic in Following Gandalf (2003) - but then the book may not yet have been available at the time of the writing of the essay.

Chester N. Scoville compares and contrasts Morris's and Tolkien's concepts of pastoral idylls and locates the differing approaches in their socialist ideology and Catholic belief respectively. Morris thus places his socialist 'utopia' in a postrevolutionary future, whereas Tolkien, acutely aware of the postlapsarian imperfection of mankind, places his 'nostalgic' Shire in an imaginary prehistorical framework.

Deidre Dawson, finally, concludes this part with a paper on how both Macpherson in his Ossian and Tolkien in The Lord of the Rings reconstructed a mythical past for an increasingly modernised Scotland and England, respectively. Both authors point out the importance of ancient languages for the construction of national and cultural identity. Dawson's grasp of the cultural and linguistic history of Britain, however, seems not too firm. The parallels between Boudicca and Éowyn (p. 106) are, to my mind, insignificant (for women-warriors in medieval literature, see the study Jane Chance, 1986, Woman as Hero in Old English Literature, Syracuse, New York: Syracuse University Press). And the Roman occupation of Britain did not begin in 55 BC - Caesar made two unsuccessful attempts at that time, but it was under Claudius in AD 43 that Britain lastingly became part of the Roman empire. Likewise, the depiction of the influence of Latin on the languages in Britain is somewhat misleading (p. 106) “it was only in the wake of the Norman Conquest that vast numbers of words of Latin origin [which, I assume, means Anglo-French and French words - which is correct; and never mind the Benedictine Reform and its impact on Old English; TH] made a permanent incursion into the vernacular linguistic territory of Britain as it was conquered by England.” It took me some minutes to figure out who or what is meant by 'vernacular linguistic territory of Britain' and 'England' .... Finally, seeing Tolkien's multi-ethnic and multi-lingual Middle-earth as the “foundation of today's English society” (p. 118) is overstretching any form of applicability.

Part three, dedicated to modern ideologies in Middle-earth, opens with an elegantly written contribution by Rebekah Long in which she compares and contrasts the language of war as found in Tolkien with that in David Jones's In Parenthesis and defends Tolkien's depiction of violence against the simplifying interpretations and adaptations by contemporary critics and politicians.

Tackling possible sources of and influences on Tolkien's 'ecocentricity', Alfred K. Siewers discusses the Celtic and patristic concept of the 'overlay landscape', i.e. the way such texts integrate the spiritual world into the physical one. He thus provides a welcome addition to the ongoing debate (see Curry, and, most recently, Dickerson and Evans).

Brian McFadden tackles the thorny problem of racial differences. He identifies the Old English sigelwara, about whom Tolkien wrote a long scholarly essay in two parts, as the models for his Southrons - unfamiliar and exotic, yet ultimately human. McFadden argues that the differences between the members of the human race fade into insignificance next to the more fundamental ones between mortal men and immortal elves, although Tolkien's use of light and darkness leaves him open to criticism.

Jane Chance takes up the thread of 'race and gender' and, using Tolkien's scholarly as well as literary works, discusses how Tolkien shows the overcoming of differences in class, gender and race by means of forgiveness, love, and respect for the Other.

The final selection of the volume comprises two essays dealing with visual aspects of Tolkien's work and its reception. Ted Nasmith, the well-known Canadian-born artist, gives a personal account of his artistic engagement with Middle-earth. The numerous black-and-white reproductions of his work provide a welcome and necessary supplementation to his account, yet cannot do justice to the quality of the paintings - which are, luckily, often available in colour on the internet.

Michael N. Stanton's essayistic paper takes the author's visit to New Zealand as the starting point for some ideas about the island's suitability as the backdrop for Jackson's movies and explores the parallels between New Zealand author Samuel Butler (Erewhon) and Tolkien - especially their critique of industrial spoiling of the landscape and the 'rule of the machines'. Stanton concludes that Jackson's omission of 'The Scouring of the Shire' is thus a severe mistake.

To sum up: the collection is an interesting example of what happens when medievalists (most of them anyway) read modern theories and apply them to Tolkien's work. The scope of approaches is - in comparison to modern theorists reading Tolkien - somewhat limited, but the 'usual pitfalls' (which are mostly due to insufficiently knowledge of Tolkien's background and oeuvre) are most of the time avoided. Tolkien's Modern Middle Ages is thus a welcome contribution to the ongoing discussion of Tolkien as a 20th century author.

Review re-published by courtesy of the author. First published in: Thomas Fornet-Ponse (ed.) et al., Hither Shore 4. Tolkiens kleinere Werke, Düsseldorf: Scriptorium Oxoniae, 2008, 231-4.

 

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