On Tolkien's famous essay regarding Beowulf

[Marileangorifurnimaluim]

Tolkien's essay on the then-artifact Beowulf has become, in itself, an artifact. One must squint to recall that there was once a day when Beowulf was so dismissed that it required such an ardent, erudite and thorough defense, replete with the requisite quotes in Latin, Old English and dusty references to the Aeneid - all those sorts of things that impress scholarly minds. Tolkien stood up to such a resounding chorus of objection that he was forced to reframe the entire plot of Beowulf in terms of a more acceptable story line, that of Oswald, and then rebuild the tattered remains of Beowulf, image by image, for the tight imaginations of his opponents, until it was clear that the poem could not have been written any other way. Odd indeed that a writer, a poet in particular, should be told posthumously "no, you should not have written that" or "no, you should not have written it that way." This sort of back-seat driver annoys me to this day, and for that reason alone I applaud his effort. Thank you, Professor Tolkien, I look forward to your essay on those who don't look up when the light turns green, or forget to use their turn signals. Would that these also become such an artifact as the vehement objections to Beowulf's value as an artistic work. Now, at least, it is considered a poem with an artistic integrity all its own; whether or not our more moldy scholars like it is beside the point.

I fear that my dissection of Tolkien's essay can be summarized as a Siskel & Ebert's "two thumbs up." But such is the power and the passion of the author that I am utterly convinced. Of course Beowulf's battle with the dragon must be counterbalanced with another dragon as his death. Anything less would have diminished him. Of course Beowulf had to fight a dragon rather than an ordinary foe. How else could he have been a hero, rather than simply another impressive leader in a line of many? Anything less and his fame would have been extinguished by the conquest of time. By killing the evil dragon, spawn of Cain, Beowulf rose above the mere rampaging primitives and became worthy - in the eyes of the poet - of his Christian ancestors. Beowulf the hero combined in a form of alchemy the heathen nobility and the Christian mystic, implying that despite their ancestor's ignorance, they had always struggled against the forces of darkness. They merely lacked the means. Tolkien does not say this, but Beowulf could not have conquered the dragon through any more sophisticated method than his bare hands, and the sharper weapons of a latter time could never have completely availed him. Because he was, in this poem, of an earlier, more primitive era. His assault had to be noble, but of necessity crude, to contrast with the poet's enlightened age.

This, frustratingly, does not suffice to describe the force of Beowulf and the dragon, and does not begin to touch the sadness and implications of fate throughout. It is the nature of the poet to be understood intuitively, confoundingly compelling, despite the head-scratching of the surgeons who attempt an autopsy on the words. Bravo to Tolkien and any writer who assumes that mystery is essential, even more so the one who can preserve that mystery while describing it.

A butterfly is more than the sum of its parts. Likewise the dragon.

- Maril

[davem]

I can't argue with any of that, & wish I could have expressed it as well.

Don't know if you've read Flieger's A Question of Time, where she draws a comparison between the Beowulf essay & On Fairy Stories, showing how the two expressed different sides of Tolkien's own personality?

[Marileangorifurnimaluim]

Actually I haven't read it. In fact, I've been looking for Tolkien's essay On Fairy Stories everywhere (translation: I looked for at least an hour on the internet a couple months ago). Where can I find it?

- Maril

[davem]

here:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/...872842-4775812

or here: (which also includes the Beowulf essay)
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/...872842-4775812

the Flieger book is:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/...872842-4775812

All three are also available in the US, if that's where you're posting from.

[The Squatter of Amon Rûdh]

Originally Posted by Marileangorifurnimaluim

Actually I haven't read it. In fact, I've been looking for Tolkien's essay On Fairy Stories everywhere (translation: I looked for at least an hour on the internet a couple months ago). Where can I find it?

It's published in The Monsters and the Critics and Other Essays (HarperCollins, 1997) and in Tree and Leaf (George Allan and Unwin, 1964, 1975, 1988; HarperCollins, 2001). It's good to see you back by the way, Maril.

The Monsters and the Critics is quite rightly seen as a watershed in the study of Beowulf, and is still a set text on many university courses. Seamus Heaney gave Tolkien's essay a special mention in the foreword to his own Beowulf translation, published in 1999. He described The Monsters and the Critics as "an epoch-making paper" and that is indeed what it was. Before Tolkien Beowulf was an anthropological curiosity, valuable for what it could tell us about the Germanic world; after Tolkien it was a work of literature, to be studied, translated and appreciated as such. Tolkien studied and taught the poem almost constantly throughout his career, and it was a subject into which he had some very deep insights. His is not the last word, however, and his essay was only a beginning. Even some of Tolkien's most insightful work on Beowulf is not included within the 1936 lecture and many, many others have made equally valuable contributions since. The point is, though, that he held open the door and many scholars walked through it. Nowadays it is taken for granted that Beowulf is a literary work, not to mention an easy and obvious source for Old-English translation exercises. Among others, Tolkien has turned the unheard of into the obvious, which is a criterion of genius. This is almost certainly one of the major contributing factors in both his honourary doctorate of letters and his C.B.E.