‘Strains of Elvish Song and Voices', Bradford Lee Eden

[Faramir Jones]

An article well deserving reading is Bradford Lee Eden's ‘Strains of Elvish Song and Voices: Victorian Medievalism, Music and Tolkien’. It looks at the influence of English Victorian fiction on Tolkien's writing style, particularly in relation to 'musical-literary symbolism'. (p. 149)

Dr. Eden, while admitting 'many tangents and influences to follow' in looking at the musical influences on Tolkien's writing style, and giving examples, believes that 'a careful study' of his writings 'shows an extensive predilection and use of language similar to the Victorian writers'. These 'Victorian writers' are three in number: Alfred Lord Tennyson, Algernon Charles Swinburne, and William Morris. The author examines the writings of these 'three major English Victorian fictionists', and draws 'parallels between their use of musical-literary language and Tolkien's'. (p. 150)

The author sets the scene very well, in explaining what 'medievalism' meant in a Victorian context. It comprised:

a wide range of artistic, cultural and political pursuits. In religion, the Oxford Movement sought to bring back the ancient liturgical and musical traditions once practiced in English cathedrals prior to the Dissolution. In painting, the works of Dante Gabriel Rosetti and the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, while short-lived, served to inspire styles of painting well into the twentieth century. In historiography, the writings and constitutional work of scholars such as J. R. Green, William Stubbs, and Edward Freeman looked back into the English past. In social and aesthetic criticism, the essays of Victorians such as John Ruskin, William Morris, Thomas Carlyle, A. W. Pugin, and Benjamin Disraeli were constant and politically motivated. Even in their physical environment, the Victorians sought to emulate the Middle Ages. Neo-Gothic law courts and town halls, cathedrals and churches, railway stations and public buildings, were built to contrast dramatically with factory smokestacks and commercial industry. Finally, in literature, Alfred Tennyson, Algernon Charles Swinburne, and William Morris sought to emulate ancient and medieval prose and poetry, as well as use Arthurian romances and themes, to transport their readers into a "heroic age" where things such as honor, virtue, and chivalry were the norm rather than the exception. It was this heritage into which Tolkien was born and in which he grew up; even the university environment of Oxford itself was reflective of the medieval culture from which it had first emerged. (pp. 150-151)

Tennyson, Swinburne and Morris were chosen by the author because they were the Victorian writers who 'best illustrate' the blending of medievalism with musico-literary symbolism. The three 'incorporated musical themes and motives throughout their fiction, especially in relation to their Victorian "resetting" of the medieval Arthurian and French epic tales'. (p. 152)

Tennyson is looked at as weaving musical ideas 'such as harmony and discord' into a number of the Arthurian stories, in particular Balin and Balan in his Idyls of the King. (pp. 152-154) I leave the reader to find out for himself or herself how this was said to be done.

Swinburne is given his due in this article; because while Tolkien fans may have heard of Morris as an influence on the Professor, and may have heard of Tennyson in a more general context, I don't believe that many have heard of Swinburne as an influence.

The author explains how Swinburne's poems 'are on tragic love and heroism, dominated by strife and frustrated love, by fickle men and women who are victims of a malevolent fate. Furthermore, he was a scholar in the truest sense; he revived medieval forms such as the rondel, the alba, and the ballad'. (p. 155) His version of the tale of Balin and Balan, published in 1896, is looked at in detail, with the point made that the 'use of nature, sea, and musical imagery is very reminiscent of Tolkien's early mythological writings'. (pp. 155-157) Again, I leave the reader to see if he or she agrees with this.

Morris, the 'ideal Victorian medievalist', whose influence on Victorian medievalism was 'profound and unique', also used poetry to depict Arthurian romances, again illustrated by examples. (pp. 157-158)

The author then looks at Tolkien's writings, in particular his earlier mythological and poetic ones, alleging that they are 'strongly influenced' by the musico-literary symbolism of the Victorian writers already mentioned, as well as by the musical predilection of his family, though it had not surfaced in him.

He looks at Tolkien's early published poetry and the musical allusions in them; the character of Tinfang Warble in The Book of Lost Tales; the early version of the character of Dairon the minstrel, originally intended to be the brother of Lúthien; the verse versions of the story of Beren and Lúthien in The Lays of Belariand and their ''powerful language'; the legend of the making of the Sun and Moon; and the character of Tuor, the earlier stories of him showing him to be the greatest musician among Men, due to his stay in Gondolin. (pp. 158-162)

What I particularly like here are Dr. Eden's recommendations that readers look at the early verse versions of Beren and Lúthien's story, and the early stories of Tuor, of which he says that the versions published in The Silmarillion do not do them justice; because they are something I very much endorse. (They are, sadly, a little spoilt by the mistake in confusing Tuor four times with his cousin Túrin.)

I agree completely with the conclusion here, that 'the Victorian predilection towards medievalism, and for musical symbolism in particular' had a 'strong influence' on Tolkien's writing style. This heritage 'helped to inspire Tolkien's compositional process, his musical roots helped to nurture his interest in philology and the sound of words, and his own love of both music and linguistics combined to produce one of the greatest mythologies ever written'. (pp. 162-163)

As well as this very readable overview of the influence of Victorian medievalism, the author has to be warmly commended for his championing of Swinburne, and of the earlier versions of Tolkien's stories of the Elder Days, which those who confine themselves to the 1977 version of The Silmarillion miss out on.

[mark12_30]

Originally Posted by Faramir Jones

... William Morris sought to emulate ancient and medieval prose and poetry, as well as use Arthurian romances and themes, to transport their readers into a "heroic age" where things such as honor, virtue, and chivalry were the norm rather than the exception. ...[/I] (pp. 150-151)

...Hear, hear!

...I haven't read Swinburne, and Tennyson only have only skimmed & picked. Time, time.

He looks at Tolkien's early published poetry and the musical allusions in them; the character of Tinfang Warble in The Book of Lost Tales; the early version of the character of Dairon the minstrel, originally intended to be the brother of Lúthien; the verse versions of the story of Beren and Lúthien in The Lays of Belariand and their ''powerful language'; the legend of the making of the Sun and Moon; and the character of Tuor, the earlier stories of him showing him to be the greatest musician among Men, due to his stay in Gondolin. (pp. 158-162)

I always found Tinfang Warble, and Dairon, and for that matter Maglor-- each of them, haunting.

What I particularly like here are Dr. Eden's recommendations that readers look at the early verse versions of Beren and Lúthien's story, and the early stories of Tuor, of which he says that the versions published in The Silmarillion do not do them justice; because they are something I very much endorse. (They are, sadly, a little spoilt by the mistake in confusing Tuor four times with his cousin Túrin.)

But I've missed out on Tuor-- I burnt out on HoME before I got to him. I shall have to investigate. Thanks for the heads up!

[Bêthberry]

I'm afraid I'm going to have to take a rather bleak view of this essay, for many reasons. For me, it fails utterly in proving that Tolkien's writings "were strongly influenced by the musico-literary symbolism of Victorian fictionists." There are many reasons for this.

I am initially put off by his stated aim: "This article will focus on the influence of English Victorian fiction on Tolkien's writing style" (p. 149). Eden throughout his essay refers to the works he quotes from Tennyson, Swinburne and Morris as "fiction" and they as "fictionists". These words denote prose fiction, not poetry. Dictionaries even name "novelist" as a synonym for "fictionists" and Tennyson was no novelist, as were Dickens, George Eliot, the Brontes, Trollope, etc. The confusion is particularly unfortunate because the period in question is noted particularly for its prose fiction, the high point in the tradition of realist novels. Instead, the works Eden quotes are poems and their authors are properly called poets. They are long poems which tell stories and perhaps that confuses him, but from time immemorial poetry was used to tell narrative. Look at Beowulf for example. It is a poem, not fiction. To confuse the Arthurian legends with the development of prose fiction is to do a great disservice to those legends even in their Victorian form. Perhaps Eden is not very familiar with narrative poems or perhaps he is trying to discuss these writers as fellow writers of fantasy, but that also is incorrect and inaccurate. So already I'm not trusting his use of language or his knowledge of the field.

(I have to admit that I'm not a big fan of his other essay on Tolkien, "The Music of the Spheres", for similarly sloppy diction. He calls Tolkien "a classicist and medievalist" when Tolkien was not a classicist. He spent his entire professional life and imaginative life defending northern literary traditions, not the Greek and Latin ones. He cannot properly be called a classicist; he knew those languages, but his training was as a medievalist, and particularly an Old English medievalist. It doesn't help that in this essay he calls Elrond's brother "Eros" ( ) (p. 189) either, although as a possible typo this is not as bad as confusing Turin and Tuor, which in a scholarly paper is reprehensible. Again, such confusion does not inspire my confidence in what he has to say.)

Some of you might call this concern for a precise and correctly used vocabulary a pedantic quibble, but as Tolkien has taught me, words do matter. My next point raises no such quibble because it is a basic tenet of literary source scholarship. Nowhere in this essay on "Strains of Elvish Song and Voices" does Eden provide evidence that Tolkien actually read Tennyson's Idylls or Swinburne or even Morris for that matter. If he wants to claim that their writing influenced Tolkien's style, he has to demonstrate great, consistent, and lasting familiarity with their works. The only shred of reference he provides is a footnote to Douglas A. Anderson's Tales Before Tolkien, which briefly identifies Tolkien's familiarity with Morris. That isn't good enough for an argument that is supposed to prove "J.R.R. Tolkien's writings, especially his early mythological and poetic endeavours, were strongly influenced by the musico-literary symbolism of Victorian fictionists" (p. 158-159).

A writer's influences are exceptionally tricky to get right. Tom Shippey said it better than I can in The Road to Middle-earth and so I will quote him here.

Originally Posted by Shippey, pp. 343-344

Tolkien was irritated all his life by modern attempts to rewrite or interpret old material, almost all of which he thought led to failures of tone and spirit. Wagner was the most obvious. . . . But what upset Tolkien was the fact that Wagner was working, at second-hand, from material which he knew first-hand. . . . Once again he saw difference where other people saw similarity. Wagner was one of several authors with whom Tolkien had a relationship of intimate dislike: Shakespeare, Spenser, George MacDonald, Hans Christian Andersen. All, he thought, had got something very important not quite right. It is especially necessary, then, for followers of Tolkien to pick out the true form from the heretical, and to avoid snatching at surface similarities.

That bolding is mine. It is a great shame that Eden refers merely to one small essay by Shippey in his references and not to Shippey's great work on Tolkien's method, because there he would have learnt that Tolkien's sources are original ones and not the second-hand mewlings of those who likely were not as familiar with the originals as Tolkien was. Not once in the entire essay does Eden acknowledge that Tolkien's greatest influence was Beowulf, not a medieval work but an Old English work.

What is required in addition to that kind of biographical information is concerted analysis of the various texts. Summary, description and mere quotation provide only "surface similarities." For example, let me give you links to several famous English poems which are not examples of Victorian medievalism but which are replete with musical imagery. And sea imagery. And if you want I can give you poems which discuss language which aren't Victorian medievalism either.

Keats, "Ode to a Nightingale" "Fled is that music: Do I wake or sleep?"

Shelley, "Ode to the West Wind" "Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is:/ Why if my leaves are falling like its own/ The tumult of thy mighty harmonies/ Will take from both a deep, autumnal tone

Wordsworth, "The Solitary Reaper" "The music in my heart I bore,/ Long after it was heard no more."

Thomas Gray, "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard" All of life in this poem is sound, a "living lyre"

Adelaide Proctor, "A Lost Chord" "But I struck a chord of music/Like the sound of a great Amen"

Anne Bradstreet, "In Reference to Her Children" "But sing, my time so near is spent"

Philip Sydney, "You Gote-heard Gods" extensive development of musical references about love-sickness in Arcadia, not a medieval tradition

Harmony and disharmony are fairly basic themes and not defining content. It should be clear from this random smattering of poetry that musical imagery and allusions are not limited to Victorian medievalism. Nor is interest in language. Nor is sea imagery. etc. What is needed is analysis to consider what the musical references mean, how they function, how they fit into the philosophy of the poems. If only Eden had been able to supply the kind of analysis that John Hollander does in The Untuning of the Sky: Ideas of Music in English Poetry 1500-1700 he might have been able to discriminate better between what is a significant theme and what is simple figure of speech. Hollander's book is about how the great theme of cosmic unity was demythologised so that it became simply a decorative metaphor. Isolated quotations do not by themselves demonstrate cosmology. Exposition is needed.

And to go back to Shippey's argument about Tolkien's differences with Wagner: if Wagner failed to achieve the tone and spirit of the first hand materials Tolkien worked with, how much more different was Swinburne's work than some of those early heroic poems. To try to claim that Swinburne influenced Tolkien is both laughable and absurd. Swinburne was attempting to do something modern with his Arthurian legends and that isn't a perspective Tolkien had much sympathy with. I really wonder just how well Eden knows Tolkien.

And just so you know how curmudgeonly I am today, I will point out one more aspect where Eden got it not quite right.

Originally Posted by Eden

Almost all of Tolkien's early work is done in the context of tales or stories as related or even sung to a listener or listeners. What we are reading is the documentation of that listening experience, again another strong indication that Tolkien was trying to portray the way medieval audience would have heard and listened to the great stories of their past.

We can argue over what Eden means by medieval here, although in the context of his essay it seems to refer to post 1066 literature, the literature not of Old English but of Middle English, after the French invasion which Tolkien so deplored. Arthurian legends and the troubadour tradition did not have a patent on oral production. Here's one last poem which should demonstrate that Tolkien's original source was not medieval, and not Victorian, but Old English. I'll quote a modern translation and give a link to the Old English.

Caedmon's Hymn

Originally Posted by modern translation

Now let me praise the keeper of Heaven's kingdom,
the might of the Creator, and his thought,
the work of the Father of glory, how each of wonders
the Eternal Lord established in the beginning.
He first created for the sons of men
Heaven as a roof, the holy Creator,
then Middle-earth the keeper of mankind,
the Eternal Lord, afterwards made,
the earth for men, the Almighty Lord.


In the beginning Cædmon sang this poem.]

Yes, the name "Middle-earth" comes from a poem out of the Old English oral tradition--the first extant poem in the history of our language. Tolkien didn't need to ape the Victorian hit parade.

And just so you know I'm not all that mean, I think very highly of Gregory Martin's contribution, "Music, Myth, and Literary Depth in the 'Land ohne Musik' " And of many other of the contributions in this valuable and significant book. (Haven't read them all yet).

I wouldn't have written at length so despondently about Eden's essay had I not thought that it gave an entirely wrong and misleading view of Tolkien. I can easily and lightly overlook disagreements with my own point of view, with those of Shippey and other major scholars on Tolkien, but I can't ignore a profound misrepresentation of Tolkien's work.

[Pitchwife]

Unfortunately I can't comment on the essay itself, not having read the book (yet!), but I couldn't help applauding your post, Bêthberry. Not only did I find it highly enjoyable as a piece of spirited criticism, but as far as I can judge from my knowledge of Morris and Swinburne (not so much of Tennyson), you hit several nails on the head there.
One minor correction, though - Morris at least can quite reasonably be called a 'fictionist' (albeit not a typical realist Victiorian novelist), as beside his narrative poetry he delighted in writing 'prose romances', as he called them - tales of war, quests and adventure set in a half imaginary version of the Dark and Middle Ages. Tolkien himself acknowledged the influence of these romances on his own writings in several of his letters.
The influence can be traced from the floridly archaic prose-style of BoLT, which is pure Morris, to LotR, which shares several motives with Morris' The Roots of the Mountains' - most notably a love triangle involving a shieldmaiden who goes to war when her love is spurned! For further elaboration, see this site and that one.
Not to forget that Morris was just as enthusiastic about (and in his turn influenced by) Northern literature and poetry as Tolkien - he translated several Icelandish sagas into English and also attempted a (sadly quite unreadable) 'modern English' version of Beowulf.

[Bêthberry]

Thank you, Pitchwife. I was a bit worried that it would be too spirited but I'm glad you enjoyed it. And gladder that you have replied with such interesting content.

While you are right that Morris could be called a fictionist, my problem with that term was how Eden uses it generally to refer always to the three of Tennyson, Swinburne and Morris. He seems to want to yoke them together when they don't all fit that description, which was my point. I think it would be a better essay had the author differentiated a bit among his three Victorians. Also, the examples Eden supplies of Morris' writing are all from the poetry, so that also sits a bit awkwardly with the descriptor 'fictionist'. Probably too I would be happier with your 'prose romance', which I think is closer to what Morris was doing than 'fictionist.'

You might be surprised to know that you have in your reply here provided more evidence of Morris's influence on Tolkien than Eden supplies in the essay. The one little footnote he supplies on Anderson's Tales Before Tolkien doesn't even mention Morris (although Morris is the only one of these three presented in that book). I know of Morris' influence, but my point is about the method in this essay. At the very least there should be the quotes from the letters which your links supply. It seems that Eden thinks all he needs to do is quote some lines with similar themes and that proves influence. And, in fact, he quotes only from Tennyson, Swinburne and Tolkien in his opening and doesn't even mention Morris as one of his chosen three Victorian fictionists until the fourth paragraph.

Maybe mewlings applies most to Tennyson. I saw Morris' Kelmscott Chaucer when I was in Ottawa last month and it is a beautiful work of art. It is not a medieval work of course, because the style is different--no medieval book I've ever seen had that much illustration--but as a faithful rendition of beauty in book form it is stunning.

One of the points, too, that I wished Eden had considered is why the later accounts don't have the strong references to music which the earlier versions do. Was Tolkien working against the Victorian medievalism Eden tries to prove--or was that part of the effect of Christopher Tolkien's editing?

[Aiwendil]

Originally Posted by Bethberry

One of the points, too, that I wished Eden had considered is why the later accounts don't have the strong references to music which the earlier versions do. Was Tolkien working against the Victorian medievalism Eden tries to prove--or was that part of the effect of Christopher Tolkien's editing?

I don't see how it could be the latter. Christopher Tolkien's approach throughout HoMe is scholarly and analytical; where the texts are subjected to editing the alterations are always minor, and whenever he does not give a text in full, he gives a precis of the abridged content. Indeed, if anything, the tendency in the later volumes is toward less abridgement than in the earlier ones.

I think, rather, it's a matter of Tolkien's taste and style changing. I do think that the Victorian mediavalists exerted a strong influence over much of Tolkien's early writing (in particular the Book of Lost Tales and associated poetry), but I would say that this influence began to wane as early as the 1920s and was more or less gone (except, perhaps, unconsciously and very indirectly) by the time of LotR.

This thread made me curious, so I looked for references to Morris, Swinburne, and Tennyson in Letters. There are two references to Morris. The first is from the very first letter in the collection, to Edith in October 1914:

Originally Posted by Tolkien

Amongst other work I am trying to turn one of the stories [from the Kalevala] - which is really a very great story and most tragic - into a short story somewhat on the lines of Morris' romances with chunks of poetry in between . . .

This, of course, was the ultimate germ of the story of Turin. The other reference is from letter 226, of 31 December 1960, to Professor L.W. Forster. After Tolkien denies any influence of World War II upon the plot of LotR, he says:

Originally Posted by Tolkien

The Dead Marshes and the approaches to the Morannon owe something to Northern France after the Battle of the Somme. They owe more to William Morris and his Huns and Romans, as in The Houses of the Wolfings or The Roots of the Mountains.

There are no references to Swinburne or Tennyson.

On the subject of Victorian Romanticism in Tolkien, though, one must also consider George MacDonald, to whom there are several references in Letters. Indeed, in a 1938 letter to the editor of the 'Observer', Tolkien says that The Hobbit is:

Originally Posted by Tolkien

derived from (previously digested) epic, mythology, and fairy-story - not, however, Victorian in authorship, as a rule to which George Macdonald is the chief exception.

In a letter from 7 September 1964 to Michael di Capua (a publisher), he wrote:

Originally Posted by Tolkien

I should like to write a short preface to a separate edition of The Golden Key. I am not as warm an admirer of George MacDonald as C.S. Lewis was; but I do think well of this story of his.

The other references to MacDonald relate to his use of the word 'goblin'.

I seem to recall Tolkien mentioning MacDonald and/or Morris in 'On Fairy Stories' as well, but I don't have it near at hand.

In any case, I would say that if one is to go by Tolkien's own comments on the subject, the only significant influences on him from among the Victorian Romanticists were Morris and MacDonald.

[Bêthberry]

Thanks, Aiwendil. I've misplaced my copy of the Letters and so couldn't check them.

There are no references to Morris that I could find in a quick perusal of OFS. There are, however, three comments about MacDonald.

Originally Posted by Tolkien, OFS

None the less this detail is plainly only a secondary use of an ancient and very widespread folk-lore notion, which does occur in fairy-stories; the notion that the life or strength of a man or creature may reside in some other place or thing; or ins ome part of th ebody (especially the heart) that can be detached and hidden in a bag, or under a stone, or in an egg. At one end of recorded folk-lore history this idea was used by George MacDonald in his fairy story The Giant's Heart, which derives this central motive (as well as many other details) from well-known traditional tales.

Originally Posted by Tolkien, OFS

The Magical, the fairy-story, may be used as a Mirour de l'Omme; and it may (but not so easily) be made a vehicle of Mystery. This is what George MacDonald attempted, achieving stories of power and beauty when he succeded, as in The Golden Key (which he called a fairy-tale): and even when he partly failed, as in Lilith (which he called a romance).

Originally Posted by Tolkien, OFS

Death is the theme that most inspired George MacDonald.

In footnote 4, Eden remarks:

Originally Posted by Eden, p. 152

MacDonald's influence on Tolkien's writings can be specifically attributed to Tolkien's concept of children's literature, and especially the production of The Hobbit, but I can find no direct influence of MacDonald on Tolkien's early mythological writings.