"Tolkien's Modern Middle Ages"

[Zigûr]

Hello everyone,

Has anyone read Tolkien's Modern Middle Ages, a book of critical essays edited by Jane Chance and Alfred K Siewers and published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2005?

I stumbled upon it a couple of weeks ago in the literary criticism section of a local bookstore and it caught my eye because my PhD thesis (currently under examination) is partially concerned with understanding connections between the medieval and the modern in Professor Tolkien's narratives.

In general, the essays argue for various understandings of Professor Tolkien's work as part of a conversation between the medieval and the modern in literature. Several of the essays situate the narratives of Arda, and The Lord of the Rings in particular, in a milieu populated largely by nineteenth-century fictions such as the works of Walter Scott, Tennyson and of course William Morris. It has also introduced me to the (constructed) legend of Ossian and the works of James Macpherson, which I was in fact not familiar with before, and which set a precedent for the Red Book of Westmarch.

The first essay, by Verlyn Flieger, makes a vigorous and compelling argument for the consideration of The Lord of the Rings as a postmodern narrative, discussing the way in which Frodo and Sam recognise themselves, effectively, as characters in a story - the ongoing narrative of the history of Arda, with the light of the Phial of Galadriel as their connection to the mythic past.

While I realise academic scrutiny of Professor Tolkien's work is not always everyone's cup of tea - I appreciate that many prefer to view the narrative of Eä as a thing in itself, to be discussed according to its own terms - I was curious to start a discussion, if possible, about how people perceive the modern and the medieval in these texts, and how Professor Tolkien perhaps uses one to comment on the other, and both to comment on his own context.

One thing that does irk me about these essays, and others of their kind, is that they are typically heavily The Lord of the Rings-centric and are often very reluctant to explore The Silmarillion or any of the enormous number of further narratives published in The History of Middle-earth which also elucidate and comment upon each other and open up new avenues of discourse, so that might be a worthy thing to consider.

So, what is your opinion of the role of the modern and the medieval in Professor Tolkien's work?

[Ivriniel]

Zigur, I'd love to participate on this discussion. My Doctoral Dissertations aren't directly relevant, though. And my Tolkien stuff is ....adaptable, kinda, to how I've developed writings.

PM me, to let me know if you'd value those adaptations. There's ways to bridge, (I reckon it'd be really fun (I'll share the ideas in the PM, if I hear back). And I'm happy to wait, first, to see how this discussion goes with others (i.e. how 'popular' it is).

And - even in a 1:few posters, I'll stick it out, with you. If my input is needed, beyond this point.

Kind Regards

[Zigûr]

Well hopefully I can stimulate some public discussion first.

I finished reading the book today, and I quite recommend it, although some background knowledge of literary theory, Victorian literature and Anglo-Saxon poetry is useful for some of the chapters which presuppose more assumed knowledge on the part of the reader.

A couple of things stood out from the final two chapters, which I read today. One of them is by Ted Nasmith, one of the great Tolkien illustrators, who is of course responsible for my favourite representation of the Great Enemy in "Morgoth punishes Húrin". (http://tednasmith.poverellomedia.com...shes_Hurin.jpg

Considering modern influences, he describes how his 1975 representation of Barad-dûr (http://tednasmith.poverellomedia.com..._Barad-dur.jpg) was influenced by the Douaumont Ossuary at Verdun. Nasmith states that "I remember thinking <Barad-dûr> ought to look bleak, cold and like a giant gravestone."
I think this image of the Dark Tower might work when considering the enduring foundations which stood in Mordor for most of the Third Age as they could not be destroyed, but I personally do not share this view of the tower as a whole. Personally I think Barad-dûr should seem a place of sinister activity: industry, armament and torment. It is, after all a "vast fortress. armoury, prison, furnace of great power." This image (http://woutart.deviantart.com/art/Barad-dur-176142534) comes closest to my mental image of the Dark Tower: somewhat like the film version, but less stylised; more like a grotesque exaggeration of a medieval fortress built up to mountain-like proportions, blended with elements of a factory, a foundry, a barracks and a prison.

In that sense, perhaps Barad-dûr is a "modern" structure in that it evokes some of the immense fortifications which were used in the First World War, but I almost feel as if it is meant to be more like a modern industrial city crossed with a military fortress: innumerable dark buildings, smoke and heat and noise, soldiers training and slaves working, and above it all the "tower" proper from which Sauron broodingly studies the world. Personally I also imagine that Sauron's orders would only really be conveyed through lieutenants and intermediaries. Unlike Peter Jackson's "Hobbit", can you imagine an Orc ever being permitted into the presence of the Dark Lord himself? In that sense, as well, Sauron is the "modern" leader in the houses of parliament or the palace or what have you who leads only from the rear.

Another point comes from the final essay and is concerned with the desolation of so much of Middle-earth in The Lord of the Rings. This argues that "Sauron's hatred of life, especially free life, has led him to try to create conditions that depopulate Middle-earth and that isolate the populations it still has."

I wonder if this is another point of modern vs medieval. Is Middle-earth so sparsely populated because of a "modern" programmatic policy on the part of Sauron, or is it a "medieval" representation of the days when human society was less consistently spread and there simply was more wilderness, which perhaps would be something Professor Tolkien might favour?

I'll raise any other points of interest as I review the earlier chapters. I hope someone finds this stimulating.

[Pitchwife]

Yes, Barad-dûr definitely was a dark satanic mill, more deserving of the title than anything Blake saw in his lifetime. Similar to your description, I imagine the tower itself as the mere pinnacle of a military-industrial iceberg - much of it probably sobterranean, as in Isengard after Saruman changed it (or built into the mountain side). The passage from The Road to Isengard which you quote says that Saruman's New and Improved Isengard was "only a little copy, a child's model or a slave's flattery, of [...] Barad-dûr, the Dark Tower", and I think we can infer a lot, mutatis mutandis, about the latter from the description of the former a little further up in the text:

Originally Posted by LotR Book Three Ch. VIII, The Road to Isengard

Many houses there were, chambers, halls, and passages, cut and tunnelled back into the walls upon their inner side, so that all the open circle was overlooked by countless windows and dark doors. Thousands could dwell there, workers, servants, slaves, and warriors with great store of arms; wolves were fed and stabled in deep dens beneath. The plain, too, was bored and delved. Shafts were driven deep into the ground; their upper ends were covered by low mounds and domes of stone, so that in the moonlight the Ring of Isengard looked like a graveyard of unquiet dead. For the ground trembled. The shafts ran down by many slopes and spiral stairs to caverns far under; there Saruman had treasuries, store-houses, armouries, smithies, and great furnaces. At night plumes of vapour steamed from the vents, lit from beneath with red light, or blue, or venomous green.

I also agree that the idea that Sauron recieving reports or issuing an order by an Orc is absurd. Gorbag describes dealing with a Nazgûl as a harrowing experience; Sauron's own presence would probably have reduced any mere Orc to a gibbering wreck.

As for the sparse population of Middle-earth, I think we ought to remember that we only see the north-west in the book, and that after centuries of war, civil-war and general decline. No doubt Eriador was more densely populated while the North Kingdom flourished. Tharbad, on the fords of the Gwathló, was once a city.

I think the author of the essay you quote is generally right that Tolkien's work in general harks back to an age where towns and cities were fewer and wilderness more widespread, but I'd still maintain that the state of Eriador and Rhovanion at the end of the Third Age, with vast spaces of unpopulated wilderness interspersed with rare pockets of settlements, was untypical.

Rhûn and Harad, where Sauron held sway, are another matter entirely. We know from Tolkien's Notes on motives in the Silmarillion (Myths Transformed section in HoME vol. 10: Morgoth's Ring) that Sauron had no problem with life as such, as long as he could order and control it. We also know that his armies drawn from these countries vastly outnumbered the forces of the West. I therefore assume that his policy in the territories he controlled, rather than aiming at depopulation, would on the contrary have engineered population growth in a precisely planned, supervised fashion, breeding masses of soldiers and slaves according to his requirements. About the means of implementing such a policy I don't care to speculate, but I doubt they involved something as romantic as Mother's Crosses.

[Morthoron]

Originally Posted by Pitchwife

Yes, Barad-dûr definitely was a dark satanic mill, more deserving of the title than anything Blake saw in his lifetime. Similar to your description, I imagine the tower itself as the mere pinnacle of a military-industrial iceberg - much of it probably sobterranean, as in Isengard after Saruman changed it (or built into the mountain side). The passage from The Road to Isengard which you quote says that Saruman's New and Improved Isengard was "only a little copy, a child's model or a slave's flattery, of [...] Barad-dûr, the Dark Tower", and I think we can infer a lot, mutatis mutandis, about the latter from the description of the former a little further up in the text...

I always inferred that Barad-dur was an industrial approximation of Angband, with Thangorodrim, one of the three monstrous peaks Morgoth raised to tower over the warren-like subterranean superstructure, being Sauron's influence. But whereas Morgoth the Vala could raise peaks from the tortured earth, Sauron the Maia could only erect a Babel-like approximation of stone built on the backs of slave labor. Thus the greater works of the 1st Age are mirrored in miniature by the latter works, such as Thranduil's demesne recalling Menegroth.

Originally Posted by Pitchwife

I also agree that the idea that Sauron recieving reports or issuing an order by an Orc is absurd. Gorbag describes dealing with a Nazgûl as a harrowing experience; Sauron's own presence would probably have reduced any mere Orc to a gibbering wreck.

Hence, the Mouth a Sauron, a mortal lieutenant of Barad-dur, "was crueler than any orc". One needs a good deal of chutzpah to treat with Sauron.

Originally Posted by Pitchwife

As for the sparse population of Middle-earth, I think we ought to remember that we only see the north-west in the book, and that after centuries of war, civil-war and general decline. No doubt Eriador was more densely populated while the North Kingdom flourished. Tharbad, on the fords of the Gwathló, was once a city.

I think the author of the essay you quote is generally right that Tolkien's work in general harks back to an age where towns and cities were fewer and wilderness more widespread, but I'd still maintain that the state of Eriador and Rhovanion at the end of the Third Age, with vast spaces of unpopulated wilderness interspersed with rare pockets of settlements, was untypical.

Rhûn and Harad, where Sauron held sway, are another matter entirely. We know from Tolkien's Notes on motives in the Silmarillion (Myths Transformed section in HoME vol. 10: Morgoth's Ring) that Sauron had no problem with life as such, as long as he could order and control it. We also know that his armies drawn from these countries vastly outnumbered the forces of the West. I therefore assume that his policy in the territories he controlled, rather than aiming at depopulation, would on the contrary have engineered population growth in a precisely planned, supervised fashion, breeding masses of soldiers and slaves according to his requirements. About the means of implementing such a policy I don't care to speculate, but I doubt they involved something as romantic as Mother's Crosses.

That the East may well have had a far greater population than the West is evident in the cyclical migration of tribes forced from east to west either by overpopulation, lack of resources or thirst for conquest like the Easterlings and Edain in the 1st Age, and in the 3rd Age the Wainriders, the Balchoth, the Variags, and even the Éothéod.

[Zigûr]

Originally Posted by Pitchwife

Yes, Barad-dûr definitely was a dark satanic mill, more deserving of the title than anything Blake saw in his lifetime.

A very apt way of putting it. Your statement that "we can infer a lot, mutatis mutandis, about the latter from the description of the former" is an excellent point, and I actually wrote a short article about this on my blog:http://opinionscanbewrong.blogspot.c...ntagonist.html
In the article I discuss how, while Sauron's characterisation and situation are largely confined to texts beyond The Lord of the Rings proper, we can infer a great deal from the way Saruman is both characterised and represented as a kind of 'lesser facsimile' of Sauron.

This itself could be considered something of a modern flourish on Professor Tolkien's part, as Saruman can become the lens through which the almost unfathomable evil of Sauron is understood.

Originally Posted by Morthoron

Hence, the Mouth a Sauron, a mortal lieutenant of Barad-dur, "was crueler than any orc". One needs a good deal of chutzpah to treat with Sauron.

A fine way of putting it.

Originally Posted by Morthoron

That the East may well have had a far greater population than the West is evident in the cyclical migration of tribes forced from east to west either by overpopulation, lack of resources or thirst for conquest like the Easterlings and Edain in the 1st Age, and in the 3rd Age the Wainriders, the Balchoth, the Variags, and even the Éothéod.

Both of your points about population are well made. Pitchwife's remarks about "centuries of war, civil-war and general decline" are an interesting point as well, suggesting the kind of attrition and depopulation modern warfare caused. That being said, the idea of continuous warfare is arguably something that could be attributed to the Middle Ages and the early Modern period, particularly of course obvious examples like the Hundred Years' War and the disastrous Thirty Years' War.

In the book, it is argued of the battles in The Lord of the Rings that "One side, led by Aragorn and advised by Gandalf, fights a 'medieval' war of named volunteers and pledged faith, while the bad side is 'modern,' with its nameless conscripts, machines, slaves and creatures of Sauron." (Andrew Lynch, "Archaism, Nostalgia and Tennysonian War in The Lord of the Rings")
This is an interesting way of looking at it, and not an uncommon one: that rather than showing a war of evil vs evil, Professor Tolkien throws the evil of the modern world into focus by concentrating it into one "side" of the war. And yet I think calling it the other side "medieval" is a little inaccurate. Why are the wars in The Lord of the Rings' backstory so long? It is because, I would argue, of the relentlessness of Sauron.

In that sense, perhaps the "evil" "side" in Professor Tolkien's narratives actually concentrates the worst of both medieval and modern warfare: continuous military aggression coupled with industrialised logistics.

In an earlier chapter which compares Professor Tolkien to Sir Walter Scott and particularly The Lord of the Rings to Ivanhoe, the author explores "two main traditions of historical representation that have come down from Scott's work. The first [...] is the realist tradition [...] in which contemporary individuals are depicted as products of historical forces that are absolutely inescapable, whether or not they are beneficial. [...] The second (and much more popular) of these traditions fuses Scott's novel form to Macpherson's desires to make the past comfortable to our fantasies and to allow an escape from history's impact rather than an accession to its inevitability. The alienating distance between the events of the past and the present is closed in this tradition, because its purpose is to remake the unpleasant aspects of the past int something completely unthreatening to the reader." (John Hunter, "The Reanimation of Antiquity and the Resistance to History: Macpherson-Scott-Tolkien")

Hunter goes on to argue that The Lord of the Rings "successfully works in both of these traditions at once." Hunter draws various conclusions that it would be excessive to relate here, but generally argues for the value of a text which blends the historical with the fantastic and uses this to argue for the postmodernity of the narrative.

I've discussed before on this forum, when criticising changes made to the story for the film of The Hobbit, that Professor Tolkien's narrative, despite being wholly imaginary, possesses a great deal of historical realism: history does not merely happen to a core group of "main characters", and relatively minor characters and secondary protagonists do important and significant things without being the primary focus of the plot. I think the idea of "history, true or feigned" is therefore quite crucial to understanding the modern and/or postmodern elements of Professor Tolkien's work, as it does challenge some traditional motifs and structures of "the narrative" as an art form.

[William Cloud Hicklin]

Unlike Peter Jackson's "Hobbit", can you imagine an Orc ever being permitted into the presence of the Dark Lord himself?

Well, except Tolkien actually did.

In the (so far) unpublished Chronology of The Lord of The Rings, Tolkien noted that Shagrat brought Frodo's mithril-shirt and Sam's sword to Sauron, and Sauron was so enraged (at the "spies'" escape) that he killed him on the spot.*

Now, I suppose one might speculate that a very laconic time-line entry may have compressed something a bit more involved, as, say, Shagrat delivered them to some Barad-dur functionary who passed them up the chain to the Dark Lord, who subsequently ordered the Orc's execution- but that isn't what it says.

--------------------

*Sauron was having a bad few days, what with the Heir of Isildur turning up, the Witch-king toast, his armies having been crushed on the Pelennor and so on. So one might forgive him for being a bit testy

[Morthoron]

Originally Posted by Zigûr

Both of your points about population are well made. Pitchwife's remarks about "centuries of war, civil-war and general decline" are an interesting point as well, suggesting the kind of attrition and depopulation modern warfare caused. That being said, the idea of continuous warfare is arguably something that could be attributed to the Middle Ages and the early Modern period, particularly of course obvious examples like the Hundred Years' War and the disastrous Thirty Years' War.

In the book, it is argued of the battles in The Lord of the Rings that "One side, led by Aragorn and advised by Gandalf, fights a 'medieval' war of named volunteers and pledged faith, while the bad side is 'modern,' with its nameless conscripts, machines, slaves and creatures of Sauron." (Andrew Lynch, "Archaism, Nostalgia and Tennysonian War in The Lord of the Rings")

This is an interesting way of looking at it, and not an uncommon one: that rather than showing a war of evil vs evil, Professor Tolkien throws the evil of the modern world into focus by concentrating it into one "side" of the war. And yet I think calling it the other side "medieval" is a little inaccurate. Why are the wars in The Lord of the Rings' backstory so long? It is because, I would argue, of the relentlessness of Sauron.

I would suggest the importance and mystique of Aragorn assuming the role of a found king to be a very medieval concept, almost Arthurian. The idea of medieval fealty goes beyond the Prince of Dol Amroth and various other vassals like Hirluin and Forlong the Fat bringing their men to fight for their overlord, it is intrinsic in the very journey down the Paths of the Dead where the Men of the Mountains, the oath-breakers cursed by Isildur, are called upon by the one true king, Isildur's Heir, to fulfill their oaths of fealty and regain the honor they had lost. So too, Théoden answering the call of Gondor is yet another instance of medieval oaths being fulfilled.

It is also interesting that, in renewing their vow, the Men of the Mountains' targets turned out to be the Corsairs of Umbar, descendants of the rebels engaged in the Kin-strife, and thus oath-breakers against the rightful king themselves.

[Kuruharan]

Originally Posted by Pitchwife

I also agree that the idea that Sauron recieving reports or issuing an order by an Orc is absurd. Gorbag describes dealing with a Nazgûl as a harrowing experience; Sauron's own presence would probably have reduced any mere Orc to a gibbering wreck.

Orcs were his primary servants, though. They would have had to have been permitted in his presence. Not vast crowds of them, of course, but leaders would almost certainly have had to have some kind of interaction with him. Also note that Shagrat and Gorbag discussed the possibility of Sauron coming to visit them in person. Grishnákh, to name another example, seems to be familiar with several matters of extreme sensitivity to Sauron. Grishnákh might have been present at Gollum's torture, where we know Sauron was present.

[Zigûr]

Thanks for everyone's thoughts so far. When I get a chance I'll dig up some more interesting bits and pieces.

While I have the opportunity, however, I should comment on this:

Originally Posted by William Cloud Hicklin

The line verbatim reads "Shagrat brings the Mithril Coat and other spoils to Barad-dûr, but is slain by Sauron."

Thanks William Cloud Hicklin. One shudders to think what this slaying involved, especially if Sauron at the end of the Third Age was possessed again of the burning skin he had at the end of the Second. He was also "of more than human stature, but not gigantic." I can picture this terrible figure, perhaps nine or ten feet tall and burning with heat, smashing Shagrat aside with a single monstrous backhanded blow.

It's worth wondering whether this is a more modern or medieval conceit, in which attracting the ire of a tyrant was almost certainly a death sentence. While Orcs may have been in Sauron's presence - they clearly were when he led his own armies during the Second Age - I struggle to imagine him permitting an Orc to converse with him except in very specific circumstances.

Sauron as a kind of illegitimate aristocrat is interesting, because like many modern tyrants he was no king but acted and was treated like one - yet at the same time he was a very "great person" in his own way; but among his own people, while somewhat high of stature, he was not of the highest rank (even among the Maiar alone, it would seem).

EDIT: A couple of other thoughts occur: population decline might be compared to a medieval situation, that caused by the devastating Mongol invasions of Central Asia, the Middle East and Eastern Europe in the 13th Century, which perhaps (given their predilection for mounted soldiery) have some points of comparison with the Easterlings and their repeated invasions of western Middle-earth. Of course in Professor Tolkien's fiction, there is an immortal manipulator behind the scenes, which greatly extends things. The apparent population decline of Gondor, however, might also to some extent be a prediction of a modern scenario in which a relatively high quality of life (which Gondor appears to have had) can have extremely variable effects on birthrate and population growth - note that as many modern Western societies rely on immigration to support population growth and age, it was the mingling of the Men of Gondor with Middle Men that to an extent enabled their survival into the end of the Third Age (despite ugly racially-motivated resistance to this, as seen in the Kin-Strife, obviously an incisive narrative expression on Professor Tolkien's part with immense relevance to his context and beyond).

[Leaf]

Originally Posted by Zigûr

So, what is your opinion of the role of the modern and the medieval in Professor Tolkien's work?

I'll try to contribute to this topic even though my knowledge about medieval literature and myths is limited. Please forgive that I'm starting off, at least kind of, LotR-centric as well.

There's a certain aspect of Tolkien's work that I find to be very important if you're going to analyse this question: Tolkien's concept of a fictional modern translator and editor who has, supposedly, access to the original (albeit fictional as well) source material, which he translates into modern English and then uses to compile and create the given novel. The fictional source material, on the other side, was communicated, written down and gathered by numerous fictional authors within the context of Middle-Earth.

This stylistic device creates a literary tradition which bridges the gap between the days of legend and the modern era. It also makes the question so much more difficult, since it adds all those different meta-levels to the text. At least if you take this concept seriously.

Textual allusions to medieval culture like the language of the Rohirrim, the look of certain runes or the form of some Middle-Earth poetry, are meant to translate the real Middle-Earth equivalent. And the decision to use those medieval placeholders is supposed to be made by Tolkien's fictional counterpart to give modern readers an idea about Middle-Earth. The language of the Rohirrim, for example, got translated to Anglo-Saxon with the intent to illustrate the linguistic relationship between their archaic language and the commonly spoken Westron, in a way a modern English speaker could comprehend.