Dumbing down the Books

I too also agree, Bombadil added a sense of wit and fun to the allready perfect story
[img]smilies/smile.gif[/img]

[Eurytus]

I thought you had acknowledged that we had come to an impasse.
What response can there be to your examples save "I disagree"? I don't think any of those are among Tolkien's greatest passages, but I don't find any of them disgusting either.

If there is going to be a debate over whether particular passages sound good or not, it will be interminable.

Err, I was actually asked to supply passages. And "disgusting"? Nice bit of hyperbole there. I don't recall ever saying they were disgusting.

[Aiwendil]

Err, I was actually asked to supply passages.

Oh - I missed that. Nonetheless, I don't think that any number of passages could possibly settle the disagreement.

"Disgusting" was my own colorful description; I didn't mean to imply that you had used the word. I meant to say: I don't dislike those passages.

[Liriodendron]

This whole correct/incorrect slant is too "schoolish" for me. I see the criteria as sell/doesn't sell. LoTR's seems to have passed with flying colors.

[The Saucepan Man]

Eurytus. Looking at some of those passages that you have quoted in isolation, I can see what you mean. But they have never stood out to me when I have read the Book. When read in context, they do not jar at all to my mind.

With one exception. I have never really "got" Tom Bombadil. And the two chapters in which he features have always jarred with me. His rather ridiculous poetic verse always seemed to me to be at odds with the obvious power that he has. And he does seem "out of place" in the world in which the story unfolds. The explanation, I suppose, which I have learned since coming to this forum, is that he was a pre-existing character based on a doll who JRRT wanted to incorporate into his story. And so Toliken describes him as an intentional enigma, perhaps realising that he did not really fit in with the world.

But, of course, some people love him and (unlike me) lament his absence from the film. Which brings me back to my consistent point on this thread. It is all a matter of opinion. There are parts of LotR which I would regard as less than perfect. But overall, I certainly consider it as (for me) the best book ever written. Many people would disagree with me. They are of course entitled to. As others are entitled to disagree with my views on Tom Bombadil, or other parts of the Book which do not quite ring true to me (overly fortunate coincidences, for example).

But, in the final analysis, Lirodendron is, to my mind, absolutely right:

I see the criteria as sell/doesn't sell. LoTR's seems to have passed with flying colors.

LotR does seem to be one of the most consistently popular Books ever written. Chronos can only tell whether it will stand his test, but it looks to be doing pretty well so far. [img]smilies/tongue.gif[/img] [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img]

Edit: Technically, Tom appears in three chapters, but I always liked the Barrow-Downs. [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img]

[ November 07, 2003: Message edited by: The Saucepan Man ]

[The Squatter of Amon Rûdh]

You are, of course, quite right, Saucepan: most of this argument is a matter of opinion. There are, however, certain objective realities in play that have nothing to do with what any of us thinks. I always shy away from using popularity as a measure of quality: one only has to look at the bestseller lists or the music charts to see how seldom high sales figures indicate artistic merit. Most very popular work is intended to be so, and is thrust upon the general public by whatever means are available to its producers. Often that which has real merit is pushed into the shadows for fear that it will not sell, or that it might damage the commercial image of the company that produces it. However, sometimes a work of quality does achieve great commercial success. Somehow it makes its way into the public domain and succeeds on its own merit, and I believe The Lord of the Rings to be such a work.

We know that The Lord of the Rings wasn't originally expected to sell well from the unusual profit-sharing arrangement that Tolkien agreed with Allen and Unwin. He stood to make nothing on his book if it did not make money for the publishers. It's also blatantly obvious from the author's correspondance that he had early abandoned any attempt to give his publishers what they had originally requested. This indicates to me that for Tolkien himself, money was a secondary motive, and that Allen and Unwin were publishing more in hope than in certainty of a profit. As matters transpired this was a pretty clever risk to take: Tolkien made more money than he would have done with a standard contract and the publishers made more than they could possibly have hoped. However, this success took a long time to achieve, and was based almost entirely on public reaction to the work itself rather than to a campaign of placement and promotion.

Of course, this says nothing about the book's quality other than that a lot of people wanted to read it. Nobody here seems to be denying that the book is worth reading, and this is about all that one can say on the subject from the figures. What popular success can never do, though, is provide an objective assessment of the quality of the prose. It might indicate that people like it, but people like a lot of things that aren't necessarily very well made.

That said, I would inevitably opt for the quoted passages being, if not great writing, then at least fairly good. The problem with presenting just the passage without explaining the reasons why one considers it poor is that the rest of us, who might like that sort of thing, then have no grounds on which to respond other than flat agreement or disagreement. Tom Bombadil is obviously a matter of taste. Personally I think that a world that can encompass both Sauron and Bombadil has more depth and breadth than one in which all of the main characters are either impressive and good or impressive and bad, with only the lesser being comical or eccentric. The very idea of a powerful being who delights in simple pleasures and silly madrigals, and who is, most significantly, both happy in himself and a source of happiness to others seems to me a perfect counterpoint to the amorphous, threatening and overstatedly potent Sauron.

Tom's rhymes and songs are intentionally rather silly, employing a style that seems strange and imperfect with its reliance on nonsense words and half-rhyme. It did not seem so, however, to the medieval mind, nor to the minds of those who composed folk songs that employ just these techniques a mere century ago. It is entirely probable that Tolkien heard some traditional music as a boy that sounded much as Tom's singing does. The overall effect of his rhyming on us at the beginning of the twenty-first century is indeed odd, but since its purpose is to show that Tom is a strange, ancient and comic figure, whom some might regard as ridiculous, I think that it works very well. Tolkien sets up his character as a seemingly harmless eccentric and then shows that the great One Ring has no power over him. He pits a seeming clown against the great Dark Lord and the clown wins easily. For the first time the power of the One has been questioned, and by a character whose demeanour seems calculated to devalue both the ring itself and the will to power that is its main allure. Powerful characters who delight in nonsense words and silly rhymes are a common theme in fairy-tale and myth, so it seems to me perfectly reasonable that such a character was included in a book that was heavily influenced by those forms. Tolkien may have included the character to please his children, but he interpolates him in such a way that he makes an important point: Sauron and his works are not invincible.

Anyway, the Bombadil chapters are a good bit of fun, which is reason enough for me. It doesn't do to make everything deadly serious, even for an adult audience.

Personally I regard "their joy was like knives" as a fairly run-of-the-mill simile for piercing joy (a popular theme with Tolkien). Joy can stab and rend just as any strong emotion can, indeed as a sword can. Also it should be possible to spot dramatic repetition when it is used. It was a common technique in ancient saga, just as is the sort of warlike simile that compares happiness with a sharp blade. Similarly, the use of 'Lo!' in a descriptive sentence seems perfectly in-keeping with the Old-English poetic use of hwæt, which is often translated as 'Lo!', 'Hark!' or 'Behold!'.

The main objection to the above techniques would seem to be that they are completely out of character for a Hobbit. However, what if the particular Hobbit that wrote that section had before him a song made in Rohan as a eulogy for King Théoden? We know that Snorri Sturluson had before him mouldering scrolls of court poetry when he wrote his historical saga cycle Heimskringla. Imagine that the scribe in question unconsciously adopted the high tone of the formal state piece. I can't say whether or not this was intended, and the chances are that it was not; but since Tolkien was able to spot quite obscure grammatical errors when re-reading his work, it seems odd to me that he should leave writing in place that just looked wrong. Of course the difference between what Tolkien thought was wrong and what we think is wrong has already been covered. The point is that he typed out The Lord of the Rings several times, and on each of those occasions he refrained from re-writing the earlier passages. For such a compulsive reviser not to revise something implies for me either a lack of time or a disbelief in the need for revision. The number of years that passed between the completion of The Lord of the Rings and its publication discounts the time factor, which leaves us with Tolkien reading the whole work through and being content with the tone that he had set. We can believe one of two things: either an Oxford professor of English couldn't spot bad prose when he read it or we are missing his point. Of course, there is a third option: perhaps the author's taste was unusual and will thereore meet with strong criticism or defence depending on the personal opinions of those discussing him.

[Bêthberry]

Here is another example of cross posting. I was in the process of (finally) replying to Squatter, Aiwendil, Saucepan Man and others when Squatter took up his cudgel, er, pen, again.

Let me then try to salvage something here by combining replies.

Like Squatter, I would hesitate to count simple popularity as an indicator of quality, particularly when so many different factors influence book marketing and buying these days. For instance, when well-regarded authors claim to wish to produce a novel which can be read to completion during a transatlantic flight, there are many other factors involved in book buying. (I wonder if soon airlines will be adding garbage bins for 'finished' paperbacks, as the subway has in my town for newspapers.) Tolkien is in a far different league I would think.

I would also say that more is going on in this discussion than the mere statement of personal preferences or opinion. We are, I think, attempting to explain various ways of reading a book, of accounting for its effect upon us. If such a discussion is not worthwhile, if it would concern simply the listing of 'unacceptable' passages, then we defeat the purpose of a discussion board such as Barrow Downs.

We are not attempting to prosyletize our own beliefs in the fervent hope of gaining converts. If I may speak here for Squatter (with whom I have, on and off, carried on this discussion somewhat haphazardly over the past year), we are engaged in debate, where the delight in framing our discourse counts as much as what it is we are discoursing about. I may be absolutely sure I am right, and I am sure Squatter is absolutely sure he is right, but every so often we delight in trying to see if we can box each other into a corner, so to speak, such that either one of us must concede a point due to the way we have framed our arguement. This is, of course, much what Tolkien himself spent his life doing.

However, to return to the question of Tolkien's style in LOTR. (I will not be quite so pedantic as Squatter in foregoing the acronym for the formally italicised name.)

In his two most recent posts, Squatter has set up two criteria for evidence. First, in his post of November 6/03, 11:12 he set up the requirement that someone must find a passage of purple prose which makes him cringe. This, of course, reduces the discussion to person perference and I think he has recognized the error of that approach, for today he has reframed his requirement for evidence:

[discounting time] ...which leaves us with Tolkien reading the whole work through and being content with the tone that he had set. We can believe one of two things: either an Oxford professor of English couldn't spot bad prose when he read it or we are missing his point. Of course, there is a third option: perhaps the author's taste was unusual and will thereore meet with strong criticism or defence depending on the personal opinions of those discussing him.

Squatter, as he loves to do, sets up Oxford professors as infallible authorities here. I suppose, if we are to take this point as insurmountable, we must regard Tolkien's dangling clause structure in this sentence as his rejection of traditional English grammar. (There is much in our traditional grammar that, based on Latin as it was, represented simply an aping of taste for a language which was more highly regarded than English, such as the old injunction not to split infinitives, or Dr. Johnson's insertion of the letter 'b' in debt merely in order to indicate the word's Latin debt.)

Borne upon the wind they heard the howling of wolves.

This sentence comes from p. 537 in my HaperCollins paperback edition, the chapter "The Road to Isengard" in TTT. It is typical of many of the sentences which Tolkien gives to Gandalf and Theodon and Eomer in this chapter in that it inverts the normal sentence order.

It seems our Oxford Professor of English has written, and accepted as correct, a sentence which, according to structural linguistics, would appear liable to misreading. Normally, such a subordinate clause is understood to refer to the subject of the main clause. Yet here, it is not the 'they' [referring to Gandalf and the company riding to the Ford] which are 'blown upon the wind' but 'the howling of wolves'. This sentence is an example of no less an error than a misplaced modifier. If the sentence had read:

They heard the howling of wolves borne upon the wind

there would be no problem for the clause then clearly follows the word it modifies. I would suggest that here Tolkien's preference for using a higher rate of inverted sentence construction led him to prefer the technically incorrect sentence structure. But since Tolkien was an Oxford professor of English apparently we must allow him this confusion of reference.

Now to Squatter's second point, that we are somehow missing Tolkien's point. Squatter has earlier characterized this point in this manner:

antiquated speech is written precisely to convey to the reader from just how far beyond the normal experience of the smaller protagonists these characters hail.

Squatter adds a codicil to this, however. For he now thrusts the argument about mere opinion to those of us who object to the style. He implies two errors on our part, in one fell swoop, that we cannot recognize what Tolkien's purpose was and that we won't allow for Tolkien's taste because it isn't ours.

Essentially, then, Squatter refers the entire discussion back to simple opinion, taste.

Language is, of course, very difficult to discuss. Often we become embroiled in outrage over lack of standards or poor taste, reflecting judgemental feelings. My statement that Tolkien's recourse to purple prose is not, however, based on my idea of what language ought to do. It is based on some of the following ideas about language. The derive from linguistics, which attempts to describe how language works rather than to prescribe or proscribe certain forms of language.

First: language has three properties. It is conventional; it is arbitrary; and it is dynamic.

By conventional, I mean that it obeys a system of regular patterns. (In English, [i]John the hit ball[i] would not make much sense, although either The ball hit John or John hit the ball would.)

By arbitrary, I mean there are no finite laws of the universe which decree how the language will have meaning. There is no final authority for idiom, word order and the distribution of items except what the speakers of the language have come to accept as appropriate. There is no reason why in English we say, "How old are you?" where the French say, "How many years have you?". Or why we are happy to use generally the pattern of Subject/verb/object but the Germans will be always their verbs at the ends of sentences putting.

By dynamic, I mean that language changes all the time. In Elizabethan English, sentences were about twice as long as they are now and generally more complicated. Today, we tend to use noun strings more than prepositional phrases ("English professor" rather than "professor of English'). The vocabulary of English nouns increases by leaps and bounds these days, but we do not increase the number of articles (the, a, an) or prepositions (into, of, over, under etc).

What does this mean? Our ability to interpret language depends upon our ability to recognize the presence of patterns and the absence or deviations from the patterns. This applies as much to literar language as to 'ordinary' language.

For example, this sentence does not make sense:

The of present kings about woman those the reminded prophecy old ancient.

This one does:

The old woman reminded those present of the ancient prophecy about kings.

Within these patterns and expectations there are of course, many varieties--regional, national, social, educational, class, and attitudinal, to say nothing of a person's or writer's idiolect (personal style).

Thus, when we discuss style, we invoke a great many things besides personal tastes for a normative standard.

When I discuss style, or, more particularly, purple prose, I do so not on the basis of what I personally prefer to read or want a writer to do. I attempt to discover the pattern and then see what the pattern appears to be doing.

With Tolkien, I see a habit, in parts of LOTR, which foregrounds (uses repeatedly) particular traits of the English language. I see a very high rate of inverted sentence structure (clauses rearranged out of the 'conventional' pattern), a tendency towards using passive voiced verbs and verb forms which are not temporal, and a vocabulary that challenges temporal expectations. None of this is inherently wrong to my mind.

Where I think the difficulty lies is in the frequency of these items. Tolkien uses them so often that they draw attention to themselves as features of the language. (Yes, I know readers, as Saucepan Man has suggested, don't always notice this. However, the lack of notice does not disprove or discredit the notice which other readers do make.)

It is not that I don't see what Tolkien was trying to do. He makes it almost impossible not to see. He hits me over the head with it so often that the particular quality of the style pulls away from the story, detracts from the story.

When a particular aspect of style is foregrounded in this way, we can ask ourselves what the author wanted to accomplish.

My point in quoting Owen's poem was to demonstrate that here was an author who was able to incorporate Latin into his writing so seemlessly that it was 'naturalized'. When I read 'Pro patria mori' I don't see a writer flaunting Latin in order to create a special effect. I see an author showing how a reference for Latin tags (beautiful old language) had blinded a generation into marching off to a brutal war.

And I find it disingenious to claim that Tolkien cannot be compared with Owen because their education and upbringing were so different.

What must Tolkien have felt on reading and rereading the letter from G.B. Smith which Carpenter claims was written to Tolkien shortly before Smith's death:

May God bless you, my dear John Ronald, and may you say the things I have tried to say long after I am not there to say them, if such be my lot.

Perhaps I will return to this post, editing it later for places where I think I have not been clear. I hope for now I have at least made a small claim to demonstrate that my unease over some of the stylistic features arises from a more serious reading of the text than mere rejection of the author's intention or refusal to allow him his own unique taste.

[Liriodendron]

When I said sells/doesn't sell, I was implying that LoTRs has sold better, and better (and better) [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img] over a goodly length of time. This is not just "popularity". That nonstop, growing momemtum, over several decades, is the "flying colors". A book, not expected to do well, (From Squatter's post) that gradually gains fans nonetheless, over the years, to become enormously popular....this speaks to me. Correct or uncorrect....if millions of people like something, I am impressed. I do not disregard popularity. People are smarter than that! (IMO)

[Eurytus]

I do not disregard popularity. People are smarter than that!

I can only assume that you have missed the television program known as Big Brother then.
Or the mystifying career of Gareth Gates.
Or Ant & Dec.
Or...

[Eurytus]

The main objection to the above techniques would seem to be that they are completely out of character for a Hobbit. However, what if the particular Hobbit that wrote that section had before him a song made in Rohan as a eulogy for King Théoden?

In that case you are having to hypothesise things that are not in the book or stated by Tolkien to support the change in language.

My case is simple, in the book there is a line about a Fox's thoughts on Hobbits. There are numerous examples of relatively childlike writing somewhat akin to the Hobbit. Then you have the near constant examples of Lo, Behold and the inverted sentences that Bethberry has mentioned.

Tolkien's approach is that the books were written by Hobbits, and from evidence in the book, largely written by the same author, Frodo, at the same time, after the Quest has ended.
That being the case it simply makes no logical sense for the two radically different styles of writing to have been written by the same hand. It doesn't hold to the concept that Tolkien has tried to maintain.

[Liriodendron]

No...once again, not flash in the pan, "event of the year" kind of stuff (like the television show or whatever that other stuff you mentioned is [img]smilies/confused.gif[/img] ), not movie "Titanic", not the CB radio craze, not "I'm ok, You're Ok" books, etc., etc., etc. I mean long standing, enduringly "popular" stuff, (for good reason) like LoTRs, The Beatles, Andy Grifith, I LOve Lucy, Van Gogh, Johnny Cash...I hope you understand what I'm trying to communicate here. [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img]

I think you're splitting academic hairs when trying to find fault with such well loved/enjoyed books.

[ November 10, 2003: Message edited by: Liriodendron ]

[Bêthberry]

One difficulty with this criterion of popularity is that it assumes there is a progressive trajectory where the greats just keep remaining popular or increasing in popularity and the chaff falls by the wayside.

This is not what really happens, for there are many kinds of historical changes in values, taste, idioms, access, reading time, etc. All kinds of writers are eclipsed by certain generations and then 'rediscovered' by later generations.

T. S. Eliot, for instance, championed John Donne, who had fallen into disrepute, so much so that another poet of the seventeenth century, John Milton, became less popular.

William Blake was largely ignored for much of the nineteenth and even twentieth centuries. It wasn't until Northrup Frye's book Fearful Symmetry--one of those wretched academic tomes--hit the stands that there developed widespread popular appetite for Blake's work.

Jane Austen was relegated to the back ranks of lady author until Lionel Trilling championed her.

If anything, the history of reader reception demonstrates that popularity is as much a social construct as is academic reputation. The 'discovery' of women writers, working class novels, colonial writers, black writers of the last thirty years shows that often our assumptions and expectations when we read preclude many other writers.

We all have our own personal preferences. What we can do is talk about them, in the hopes of understanding them better or of widening our perspective. But we cannot always assume that the past is a predictor of future value.

[Liriodendron]

I understand what you are saying (I hope! ) but I wonder what the standard is for "great"...if not sustained human enjoyment?

[Finwe]

This may sound cliche, but my standard for a good author is that they have to "whisk you away" into whatever land that they're talking about. For example, whenever I read LotR, I feel like I've been picked up and plopped down in Middle-earth.

[Aiwendil]

Bethberry: You point out, perhaps rightly, that we have been imprecise and contradictory in the criteria we use to judge "good prose". You then present a well organized and well thought out definition description of three important properties of language. So far, so good. But then you fail to formulate any specific criteria based on those properties, leaving us in the same state you so incisively criticized.

You seem to imply that one criterion is that the writing conforms in general to common patterns in phrasing and grammatical structure:

I see a very high rate of inverted sentence structure (clauses rearranged out of the 'conventional' pattern), a tendency towards using passive voiced verbs and verb forms which are not temporal, and a vocabulary that challenges temporal expectations.

Where I think the difficulty lies is in the frequency of these items.

I fear I may be misreading you here, but more on that in a moment. If I am correct about what you intended, note two things: 1. The definition of "good writing" depends critically on what styles other people, who have nothing to do with the writing in question, have used; 2. a work that is good at one time can become bad, or vice versa, given certain changes in style generally employed. These thing seem radically counter-intuitive to me; should not the quality of a work of art depend on that work of art rather than on other works of art?

It would seem quite absurd to suggest that a book written in English is inherently better than a book written in Finnish. It would likewise seem quite absurd to suggest that a book written in Modern English is inherently better than a book written in Old English. It seems equally absurd to me to suggest that a book written in a modern style is inherently better than one written in an archaic style. And it doesn't seem that it should matter where or when the book was written. If someone wrote a great work of literature in Finnish, would it matter whether he wrote it in Finland or the United States? So if someone writes a great work of literature in a somewhat archaic style, why should it matter that he writes it now rather than in the past?

I may be ascribing views to you that you don't hold, but I think that they are whither your arguments ultimately lead - if I understood your criterion correctly. It occurs to me that you may simply mean that the too frequent use of any kind of phrasing or grammatical structure is an detriment. But there are great modern works of literature that make incessant use of certain grammatical devices; and there are great works of older literature that make rather similar use of inversion and passive verbs to Tolkien. Surely these are not all poorly written.

I think it's easy to overlook the fact that Tolkien doesn't just use inversion for novelty or to make the tone sound falsely archaic. First of all, it would not be falsely archaic for it is about the distant past and about people who thought and spoke in that terse, elevated style. More importantly, though, "inversion" has a real purpose. It serves to emphasize the word or phrase put first in the sentence. "Borne upon the wind they heard the howling of wolves" emphasizes the wind and the role of the wind as an agent. "The howling of wolves they heard borne upon the wind" would make the howling more unambiguously the central point of the sentence, giving it a sort of urgency or quality of surprise; the role of the wind comes almost as an after thought. "They heard the howling of wolves borne upon the wind" emphasizes the hearing.

So the structure of these sentences is not arbitrary or complex for the sake of complexity. And by the way, the placement of participial phrases away from the the nouns they modify is not strictly incorrect; the trouble with it is that it is often confusing and often has an unintended double meaning. If, as I think the case is in the sentence under discussion, there is little ambiguity and not much further complexity to the sentence, it is perfectly fine to separate them.

Regarding the whole business of popularity: I've discussed this in several other threads (as have several others in the present discussion), which might be of interest:

Book of the Century?
LOTR vs. Scholars, or Academics Can Kiss My As-taldo.
New Republic Article
Are There Any Valid Criticisms? (aka Kalessin's Rant)

. . . though these threads all veered into a variety of subjects.

To briefly restate my point of view: I think that the criticism of popularity expressed here by Eurytus and Bethberry and elsewhere by many others confuses cause and effect.

Some time ago I heard an interview with Tom Shippey on NPR; Shippey pointed out the enduring popularity of Tolkien's writings and the interviewer criticized this logic, pointing out that Elvis is also extremely popular and that doesn't make him great. Shippey's response was, I think, not quite on target; he argued (if I remember correctly) that LotR exhibited a more enduring popularity than Elvis and that, moreover, maybe there is something to the claim that because Elvis is popular he was great.

I think this is a mistaken line of argument; I would rather say:

It would be absurd to claim that popularity is the cause of greatness, or to define a good work of literature as one that is popular. But that's the not the claim being made. The claim is that a great work of literature tends to be popular. The greatness of the work is independent of the popularity, but the popularity can be an effect of the greatness. Other things can also cause popularity, obviously. And it's possible that other, independent factors could have the effect of preventing a great work from becoming popular. But none of that contradicts the premise that there is some kind of a causal link between greatness and popularity. Certainly popularity cannot prove that a work is great; but it can be counted as a piece of evidence.

[Eurytus]

I think you're splitting academic hairs when trying to find fault with such well loved/enjoyed books.

i.e. you think them faultless.
I am not ‘trying’ to find fault. That would imply that I have some desperate desire to find flaws within Tolkien’s works. That is simply not true. In fact, I have ‘found’ flaws. I did not go looking for them. I did not necessarily want them to be there. But being there I will not avoid their presence.
Reading through this thread I have seen ever more convoluted arguments for these events;
1. The use of archaic language.
2. The jarring change in style and tone.
For the first we have the view that either things can only be presented in a certain way if the language used is archaic. Or that archaic language is superior for these descriptions.
When in my view the simply answer is that Tolkien simply wanted it to sound epic and to ape the works he was fond of.
For the second we have had different authors posited. We have had the theory of hobbits referring to funeral orations for Theoden when writing their account of the events.
When, after reading the HOME series, the simple answer is that Tolkien began the book as a sequel to the Hobbit, with childish names and woeful characters (a hobbit called trotter with wooden shoes indeed), and that once he had morphed this into a sequel to the Silmarillion (partly no doubt because he could not get the latter published) he failed to go back and sufficiently correct the earlier clashes of tone.
This is the only conceivable reason for presenting a Fox’s viewpoint within the same book that soon blossoms with Lo’s and Behold’s left, right and centre.

[Estelyn Telcontar]

Aiwendil, Child, thank you for expressing thoughts similar to mine more eloquently than I could have. I too agree that the personal style of an author is being debated here and would like to see more "why did he use this" than "what's wrong with it" being discussed. That does not mean I consider Tolkien's work flawless, but I do not enjoy that particular train of argument.

However, I thank all who have taken the time to express their opinions thoughtfully and well-foundedly, and to explain their reasons for them, even when I do not agree with the conclusions they have made. There is nothing like an opposing opinion to keep my own thoughts from getting stale!

(In thinking about posting here, I realized how important the possibility of turning around the elements of a sentence is to me, in order to be able to emphasize through that choice what I feel important. "I too would like to express my opinion" has quite a different connotation than "I would like to express my opinion too"!)

[Liriodendron]

i.e. you think them fautless.

No, not that! [img]smilies/eek.gif[/img] I think that the "greatness" of LoTRs was created by marvelous style, which certainly might include "flaws" (if that's what you choose to call personalized use of language! [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img] ). I do not believe perfection is necessary for greatness. Therefore pulling out (debated [img]smilies/tongue.gif[/img] ) "flaws" from the writing style does not alter my very high opinion of LoTR. [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img] True, It can make for interesting discussion, (I enjoyed reading Aiwendell's and Child's most recent posts. [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img] )But total correctness and perfection can be quite boring.
Being a painter, I usually imagine visuals when considering standards for enjoying art, but I think it works with language also. I'm imagining a lovely young movie star, getting plastic surgery to make her nose a little smaller, her eyes a little higher....poof! she subsequently loses her visual uniqueness, the very thing that appealed to many in the first place. Some of my best pictures have broken the rules, and easily pleased more people than the stricter, "correct" compositions. I think I'll bow out and read the "Academics can kiss my As-taldo" thread. [img]smilies/biggrin.gif[/img] I guess (hope) I made my simple point several posts ago.. [img]smilies/frown.gif[/img]( Time to paint!

[ November 11, 2003: Message edited by: Liriodendron ]

[Bêthberry]

It is possible I should not be responding now, for I am a little frustrated with what has been made of my argument in my last post.

Aiwendel is ascribing to me points I never made and which do not follow logically from any of my points.(Edit: and I will respond to it in a later post.) Child is insinuating that for some reason I am discriminating against Tolkien because he is not modern. And Estelyn is saying the direction of the arguement is wrong. However, I read your posts as defensive rather than as a legitimate analysis of my argument.

For your information, I have supplied a plausible reason for Tolkien's use of archaic style. It is just that none of you like the reason.

I am sorry if my analysis impinges upon your faith and love of an author, but to say that other people are not being fair or right in their reading--people who like the author also--is taking authorial enjoyment a tad too far I think.

And, by the way, the issue about inverted sentences is not that they are wrong or should not be used. I did not say that. It is the way they are foregrounded in the text, the way they are used in the text. It is the pattern-making feature of literary language which makes it significant.

And, yes, "Borne upon the wind they heard the howling of wolves" is a grammatical error. It would be significant and meaningful if this kind of misplaced modification were a regular feature of Tolkien's style, as are the many, many ways which Joyce challenges language structure. But it is not. (Joyce, by the way, is not without his detractors, so when you refer to him, Child, you need to acknowledge that his 'modernity' does not go unchallenged. It is not a simple case of modernity being accepted and Tolkien's conservatism not.) And, if it is important to emphasise the aspect 'borne upon the wind', then the subject could easily be changed, so that the sentence could read, for example, "Borne upon the wind, the howling of wolves echoed over and again upon their ears." (I repeat, this is offerred as an example of the pattern only, not as a superior sentence.)

Perhaps I should explain that I pointed to this sentence not out of some pedantic demand to enforce the rules of grammar, but merely in a teasing way to Squatter, who had set up an "Oxford professor of English" as an authority beyond question. It was a rejoinder to his argument, not a requirement for flawless perfection. Edit: For the sake of clarity I would like to point out that my post of November 3/03 at 3:19 did point out what, for me, are outstanding features of Tokien's work--the breadth and extent of his imagination and his profound respect for fairie and, in fact, it takes as one of the strengths of LOTR its sprawling nature.

I would agree with Child that Tolien's article on Beowulf and the Monsters is a brilliant work of scholarship. (Liriodendron, when you feel so hostile towards academics, you should perhaps consider that Tolkien himself was one.) I have argued its excellence elsewhere on earlier threads. However, his brilliant writing on Beowulf (and in "On Fairy-Stories") does not automatically mean that his creative or fictional writing will implicitly be as good.

Furthermore, I think a legitimate avenue for discussion is how we go about defining, ascribing or recognizing quality in language.

I think Finwe has come close to providing one way to recognize a great read: when we are completely taken up in the created world an author presents to us. I, too, feel this way about Tolkien's world and writing. Yet I also feel let down. I come crashing back to 'reality' when I come to certain passages in LOTR and this is disappointing. I think it is an acceptable and legitimate endeavour to try to explain why this happens. And it saddens me when I am told I should not do this because it attacks the professor unfairly. This, I think, it where the cultish aspects of Tolkien fandom come into play.

[ November 11, 2003: Message edited by: Bêthberry ]

[Aiwendil]

Eurytus wrote:

Reading through this thread I have seen ever more convoluted arguments for these events;
1. The use of archaic language.
2. The jarring change in style and tone.

I don't see how the following arguments are convoluted:
1. Archaic language imparts the writing with a special flavor, which may be desirable in itself. Also, in the present case, this flavor matches the flavor or feel of the actual events described.
2. The change in style is achieved gradually and thus is not jarring.

I do agree about the difficulty in believing that the hobbits would change their style to such a degree; I think this is a minor flaw. But it is a flaw of a very different sort than the charge that the change in styles is jarring, or that the prose is poor.

in my view the simply answer is that Tolkien simply wanted it to sound epic and to ape the works he was fond of.

after reading the HOME series, the simple answer is that Tolkien began the book as a sequel to the Hobbit, with childish names and woeful characters (a hobbit called trotter with wooden shoes indeed), and that once he had morphed this into a sequel to the Silmarillion (partly no doubt because he could not get the latter published) he failed to go back and sufficiently correct the earlier clashes of tone.

I think that you are confusing means and ends. A discussion concerning the merits and flaws in a book ought not to depend at all upon the motivations of the author, but rather upon the final product itself.

Bethberry wrote:

Aiwendel is ascribing to me points I never made and which do not follow logically from any of my points.

I had written:

I fear I may be misreading you here,

I may be ascribing views to you that you don't hold, but I think that they are whither your arguments ultimately lead - if I understood your criterion correctly.

I tried to indicate that I was unsure about your intent so as not to offend you by misrepresenting you.

Was I correct in surmising that you think "that one criterion is that the writing conforms in general to common patterns in phrasing and grammatical structure"? If so, I think that this line of reasoning eventually must lead to the kinds of problems I referred to - with the quality of a work of literature depending on where and when it was written, and so forth.

Or was I correct in my second guess, that you meant "that the too frequent use of any kind of phrasing or grammatical structure is an detriment"? If this is the case, then I stand by my reply - that a great many older works use a similar style to Tolkien's, and that a great many modern works employ other techniques of phrasing with equal frequency, and that I don't think that all of these are poorly written.

Or did you mean something else? If you did, please correct my error.

For your information, I have supplied a plausible reason for Tolkien's use of archaic style. It is just that none of you like the reason.

I would surmise that this is "because he could not conceive of heroism in the modern age", as you said in an earlier post.

First of all, let me point out that I neither like or dislike that hypothesis as an explanation for Tolkien's use of his particular style. But I don't think that Tolkien's motivation for using the style has much of anything to do with whether the style is good or not.

My answer to the latter question is that: 1. there is nothing inherently poor about the archaic style; 2. Tolkien's command of this archaic style was good; 3. the archaic style lends a feeling/flavor/atmosphere to the writing; 4. this feeling is appropriate to the content of the book and is also enjoyable in itself; thus the style is good.

I take it you disagree with 2 (and possibly with others). But I don't see how Tolkien's motivations for choosing the style he chose determine whether or not he was adept in the use of that style.

And, yes, "Borne upon the wind they heard the howling of wolves" is a grammatical error.

I'm going to have to simply disagree with you on this and leave it at that (for it seems neither of us can produce proof). I was always under the impression that this is one of those "grammatical rules" invented by nineteenth century scholars to enforce what they took to be good style (along with rules against "split infinitives" and not ending sentences with prepositions).

I think Finwe has come close to providing one way to recognize a great read: when we are completely taken up in the created world an author presents to us. I, too, feel this way about Tolkien's world and writing. Yet I also feel let down. I come crashing back to 'reality' when I come to certain passages in LOTR and this is disappointing.

But if this is to be the criterion, then we are back where we started. I never came crashing back to reality when I came to certain passages. Where does that leave us? With no room for debate.

[GreatWarg]

I think, Aiwendil, Estelyn, Child, that Bethberry is asking the 'why' question instead of the 'here is something that may be a mistake'. By pointing out something she believes to be something of discussion and worthy of questioning, she is asking the question 'Why did Tolkien put it this way, and not so-and-so way?' Or perhaps I am just mistaken with the nature of the argument.

I agree with Bethberry the fact that some of the professor's way of wording events can give one the impression that you have just 'fallen out of Middle-earth'. Sometimes, for me at least, it is wording that seems out of place, such as the fox's thoughts. I wonder what significance it adds, and why Tolkien left it where it was during his re-writings.

I think Estelyn made a very valid point on how wording affects the tone of the character or the story:

In thinking about posting here, I realized how important the possibility of turning around the elements of a sentence is to me, in order to be able to emphasize through that choice what I feel important. "I too would like to express my opinion" has quite a different connotation than "I would like to express my opinion too"!

"I too would like to express my opinion" gives us the effect of a more learned person who can give great ideas, while some of us may wince when one says "I would like to express my opinion too!" Perhaps this is the reason why some posting here tend to scare off the newbies?

So does Tolkien's writing gie us the impression of a learned man? I would say most certainly say so! Though perhaps one could argue over his usage of certain sentences.

EDIT: Aaah, cross-posting! Sorry, didn't see you there Aiwendil! I will attempt to make a reply.

We see that Frodo and Bilbo are exceptional hobbits, and their use of language is much different from, say Pippin or Merry, esp. when talking to folks of other kind:

For example, Frodo says in the chapter 'Three is Company' to the Elves:

The meaning of it, fair people, is simply that we seem to be going the same way as you are.

While Pippin and Sam tend to use less 'high' speech, as Pippin does when speaking to the Elves in the same chapter:

O Wise People! Tell us about the Black Riders!

This gives us the impression that Frodo and Bilbo are more learned.

Aiwendil wrote:

If this is the case, then I stand by my reply - that a great many older works use a similar style to Tolkien's, and that a great many modern works employ other techniques of phrasing with equal frequency, and that I don't think that all of these are poorly written.

No, not 'poorly written,' for I do agree that old pieces of work often re-use the same styles over and over, and they still remain very popular with me and many others. Do these, however, help the story or merely hinder it? It could be, once again, based on one's personal tastes and abilities to ignore exactly what is written but get the idea in their mind.

[ November 11, 2003: Message edited by: GreatWarg ]

[Bêthberry]

Normally here at the Barrow Downs we frown upon consecutive posts. I hope, however, I will be allowed to do this, as my response to Aiwendil's post really requires some extensive development which would make my previous post far too long.

I am sorry, Aiwendil, that my post on language was unclear and so liable to misinterpretation. Perhaps I can do a better job here.

First, when you quote me on the areas of sentence inversion and passive voiced verbs and older verb forms, you omitted the last sentence of my paragraph. Here is my paragraph in its entirety, with the final sentence now placed in bold font.

With Tolkien, I see a habit, in parts of LOTR, which foregrounds (uses repeatedly) particular traits of the English language. I see a very high rate of inverted sentence structure (clauses rearranged out of the 'conventional' pattern), a tendency towards using passive voiced verbs and verb forms which are not temporal, and a vocabulary that challenges temporal expectations. None of this is inherently wrong to my mind.

It is not the simple presence in itself of these traits which ruins my enjoyment of LOTR--and this is my wish here, not to nitpick and find fault but to understand why the magic evaporates for me at certain points. Let me backtrack for a minute.

When I offerred the model of how we make sense of language, derived from linguistics, I had not meant to imply that conformity to a normative pattern is the criterion for quality. Linguistics, as I said, is descriptive, not prescriptive. In attempting to keep a long post from becoming even longer, I did acknowledge great varieties in language--social, cultural, economic, etc.

The point is that language is meaningful because it is based on perceived patterns--and this can include the absence of those patterns and the deviations from those patterns. I am talking here not just in terms of lexis or meaning of words but of the structure of sentences and words.

One understanding of literary language, which is a very special use of language, depends upon this pattern-making aspect. Literary language is language which intensifies this pattern-making. And it is language which often challenges the more normative habits of language in other contexts (social, professional, intimate, formal, etc.). Literary language is more intense, more compressed, has a more self-conscious historical sense (particularly about genre), is more particular about formatting, uses figurative language more densely and more allusively. It is aware of itself as language in a way that our 'regular speech' tends not to be.

So, what I was attempting to do, when examining passages which for me 'don't ring true' (I put this in italics for I don't wish to make this definitive but simply descriptive of my reading), was examine the patterns here.
This is a standard method in both literary and linguistic analysis.

It is similar to the question asked about the novel Jane Eyre: there is a famous passage in chapter XII where Jane is wandering around unhappy with her lot. Often the passage is taken as a ringing defense of women's need for intellectual stimulation. Yet, once we ask why Jane's rumination--"It is vain to say human beings ought to be satisfied with tranquillity"--is immediately interrupted by her hearing the weird laughter of Rochester's mad wife (whose existence Jane does not yet know of), we can begin to see some sort of narrative comment or stricture on Jane's thoughts. That is, we can begin to see a pattern which conflicts with the claims of the first person narrator so that, ultimately, we can see that to read the novel we need to go beyond sympathetic acceptance of Jane's words alone.

Such an activity 'ruins' the novel as an uncomplicated feminist endorsement of female liberation. Yet it leads to a more complex (for me and others) appreciation of the novel.

So, when I come to places which ruin the magic for me, I step back and ask why? What is see is a use of language which is, if I can be allowed a word with a special, particular meaning, precious. The repetition of a collocation of language traits draws attention to the language traits themselves, rather simply functioning to present the characters or the events.

This is often done in literary language, of course, to greater effect. It is also often done in weaker writing where the effect detracts from the work. (What I mean can best be considered in bad poetry, where the regularity of rhythm and rhyme draws attention to itself rather than to the overall work.)

For Squatter, the effect is to create stronger characterization for the characters. For me, I am reminded of language which attempts to sound authentically archaic but which is not. Have I read more old literature than Squatter? I wouldn't think so.

My point in drawing a comparison with Owen is not to set his style up as the standard, but to point to another writer where I do not feel the use of archaic language detracts from the overall work. My intent was comparative and descriptive, again, not prescriptive.


As to your point that standards change, well, yes, they do. Or perhaps I should say enjoyment. My post to Liriodendron listed writers who works have undergone changes in evaluation over time. Even in my own reading, I have found that a rereading of an author, in a different context or several years later, changes my understanding and appreciation of that author. Belin Ibaimendi and I talked about this in chat last week, where we were mentioning Byron.


As for this paragraph:

It would seem quite absurd to suggest that a book written in English is inherently better than a book written in Finnish. It would likewise seem quite absurd to suggest that a book written in Modern English is inherently better than a book written in Old English. It seems equally absurd to me to suggest that a book written in a modern style is inherently better than one written in an archaic style. And it doesn't seem that it should matter where or when the book was written. If someone wrote a great work of literature in Finnish, would it matter whether he wrote it in Finland or the United States? So if someone writes a great work of literature in a somewhat archaic style, why should it matter that he writes it now rather than in the past?

Again, my point is not that I think the use of archaic language is wrong-minded, but that when it is emphasised as Tolkien uses it, it works counter to a significant meaning.

And, for me, comparing Tolkien with Owen opened up worlds of new understanding of Tolkien. That's why davem's post about the new Tolkien biography was so interesting to me. Thinking about what Tolkien did with archaic language and what Owen did with Latin made me rethink what the war meant to Tolkien. Perhaps for those of you who like the archaic language, this is not plenitude. But for me it is. I feel I have a better understand of Tolkien.

[Liriodendron]

I am not really "hostile" to academics, they just put me to sleep sometimes! [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img] [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img] I'll work on it. [img]smilies/biggrin.gif[/img]

[Bêthberry]

Cross posting there with Aiwendil, again, alas.

I have time now for only one quick point and must leave others to a later post. Aiwendil, you wrote the following about my comments on "Borne upon the wind, they heard the howling of wolves":

I'm going to have to simply disagree with you on this and leave it at that (for it seems neither of us can produce proof). I was always under the impression that this is one of those "grammatical rules" invented by nineteenth century scholars to enforce what they took to be good style (along with rules against "split infinitives" and not ending sentences with prepositions).

I haven't the time now to research the history of prescriptive grammars, but my understanding is that this kind of'grammatical rule' is not prescriptive, but based upon a requirement for logical association between clauses in a sentence. I don't know what kind of 'proof' you would want or accept, but here is an explanation based on functional syntactics.

I refer you to A University Grammar of English, Randolph Quirk and Sidney Greenbaum, London: Longman, 1973. This is not, as I said, a prescriptive grammar, but derived from functional analysis, a standard in linquistics, which frowns upon the kind of prescriptive grammars you mention, Aiwendil (and which I mentioned also).

p. 329, chapter 11, The Complex Sentence, section 11.35, Non-finite and verbless clauses.

If the subject is not actually expressed in a non-finite or verbless clause, it is assumed to be identical with the subject of the superordinate [main] clause:

When ripe, the oranges are picked and sorted.

He took up anthropology, stimulated by our enthusiasm.

She hesitated, being very suspicious, to open the door.

He opened his case, to look for a book.

Commonly, however, this 'attachment rule' is violated:

?Since leaving her, life has seemed empty.
[The ? refers to usage of doubtful acceptability, to use the phrasing in Symbols and Technical Conventions]

In this case, we would assume that the superordinate clause means 'Life has seemed empty to me and that the subject of the-ing clause is also first person. Such 'unattached' ('pendant' or 'dangling') clauses ae frowned on, however, and are totally unacceptable if the superordinate clause provides no means at all for identifying the subordinate subject. In the following sentence, for example, it canot be a dog:

*Reading the evening paper, a dog started barking.

[The * refers to unacceptable usage according to the table of Symbols and Technical Conventions.]

In place of 'dangling' I used 'misplaced' because I thought that might be more clear.

Edit: typos and publishing info for the book.

[ November 11, 2003: Message edited by: Bêthberry ]

[Lyta_Underhill]

I hope to be able to jump back into this very intricate and interesting, although at times over my head conversation...

First, I want to thank Bethberry for bringing up the comparative style of Wilfred Owen's "Dulce et Decorum Est." That, more sharply than just about anything, illustrated the purposeful use of archaic language to get a (rather ironic!) point across. And it also resonates in a way (although I'm too stuffed in the head and dim at the moment to recognize it and explicate it) with the whole World War One theme as covered in davem's thread on the new Tolkien bio, which I would dearly love to read, having an interest in the Great War myself!

But, back to the point I wished to add: regarding your question as posed earlier, Bethberry as to the purpose of Tolkien's stylistic irregularities--I think anyone who wishes more insight on this point might do well to go over the Appendix F at the end of ROTK (esp. part II-On Translation), wherein Tolkien explains not only the differences and evolutions of language, but also adds in an explanation of the Englishing of certain terms. He also says:

It will be noticed that Hobbits, such as Frodo, and other persons such as Gandalf and Aragorn, do not always use the same style. This is intentional. The more learned and able among the Hobbits had some knowledge of 'book-language', as it was termed in the Shire; and they were quick to note and adopt the style of those whom they met. It was in any case natural for well-traveled folk to speak more or less after the manner of those among whom they found themselves, especially in the case of men who, like Aragorn, were often at pains to conceal their origin and their business.

There is much more after that, even down to explaining Pippin's use of the familiar forms of address to everyone, even to the Lord Denethor, to explain why those in Minas Tirith may have mistaken him for a Prince of Halflings. It is obvious that Tolkien DID give a great deal of thought to his use of different styles of speech and to illustrating the differing customs and understandings or misunderstandings of different cultures within Middle Earth. I thought the quote appropriate to this discussion, so I figured I'd throw it out there. It seems to be a direct addressing of his choice to use differing styles and also to change the tone as the travels of the Hobbits progressed. What are your thoughts?

Cheers,
Lyta

[Aiwendil]

Bethberry: Thanks for clearing things up. I think I understand you much better now.

There are three different topics that have not, I think, been sufficiently distinguished in this thread, resulting in some of my confusion over your meaning. They are:

1. Is Tolkien's use of archaic style to the advantage or detriment of The Lord of the Rings?

2. Given an answer to 1, how does the style achieve this effect?

3. What was Tolkien's motivation or intent in using that style?

You have been trying to answer 2, given the assumption that Tolkien's writing is poor in places. The question I had been focused on was 1.

As to your point that standards change, well, yes, they do.

Hmm . . . did I make that point? As a matter of fact, I think that standards ought not to change; or that if there is an objective standard for good literature it does not change.

Again, my point is not that I think the use of archaic language is wrong-minded, but that when it is emphasised as Tolkien uses it, it works counter to a significant meaning.

Is this then the crux of your problem with Tolkien's style? It sounds like a more intriguing idea than the simple charge that the writing is poor (though I suspect that I still disagree with it). Does it involve your hypothesis that Tolkien could not envision heroism in a modern context? If so, I think that rather the opposite conclusion can be drawn about his style. But I don't want to launch into another argument against a view no one holds.

Regarding the grammatical question: I completely agree with the material you quoted from Quirk and Greenbaum. A sentence like:

Since leaving her, life has seemed empty.

is incorrect based on a simple analysis of its functional/logical structure (assuming that the intended meaning was not that "life left her" but that "I [or someone else] left her". The same goes for:

Reading the evening paper, a dog started barking.

That is, again, unless the intent is that a dog was reading the paper. The problem with these is that the participle has no subject and is thus not logically related to the main verb (and it is also not in an absolute construction). In other words, it is subordinated to nothing.

But Tolkien's sentence is quite different:

Borne upon the wind, they heard the howling of wolves.

The subject of "borne" is expressed. It is "the howling of wolves". The grammatical structure of the sentence is this: "heard" is the main verb; "they" is its subject; "the howling of wolves" is its object; "borne upon the wind" is adjectival, modifying "howling of wolves".

The only possible problem with the sentence is that "Borne upon the wind" is not placed next to "the howling of wolves". In some cases, this could lead to confusion, if it is not obvious to what noun the participle is subordinate. But I certainly can't see how it is logically/grammatically incorrect.

Lyta Underhill: I agree with what you say about the purpose of the stylistic changes. As the somewhat modern Hobbits enter and learn about the world of the Elves and the ancient kingdoms of the Dunedain, the change in style matches the change in content.

The same thing happens in The Hobbit and I believe its use there is discussed by Tom Shippey in the Author of the Century.

[Eurytus]

I agree with what you say about the purpose of the stylistic changes. As the somewhat modern Hobbits enter and learn about the world of the Elves and the ancient kingdoms of the Dunedain, the change in style matches the change in content.

Well if that were the case would anyone like to explain why the same style of writing and language is not used to describe the realm of Lorien or Rivendell, both of which are far older than the people in Gondor. Despite your statement it is a fact that the Elves do not use anywhere near as much archaic language as the men of Gondor/Rohan.

Who would be more likely to use archaic language? Someone who has been alive for thousands of years and remembers the glories of the 1st age or someone who has lived for a mere fifty?
Your explanation does not stack up to the facts.

[Liriodendron]

At the risk of having things thrown at me, [img]smilies/eek.gif[/img] [img]smilies/biggrin.gif[/img] may I suggest the reason was because Tolkien was not an anal retentive writer? (in this particular instance [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img] )

[Eurytus]

Come on, he wouldn't need to be. Surely it would be relatively simple to work out that the more antique a realm the more archaic the language. As it is the book gets more archaic as it progresses and this doesn't logically fit anything apart from Tolkien's growing desire to write a sequel to the Silmarillion.

[Bêthberry]

Into the breach one more time ... [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img]

GreatWarg, I do want to thank you for recognizing the purpose of my posts. I had been replying when you posted and did not see your post until after I posted.

Lyta_Underhill, I'm glad you enjoyed Owen's poem. Your reference to Appendix F is valuable as a reminder of Tolkien's stated intentions. His knowledge as a philologist enabled him to create very plausible derivations for his languages. However, there is one aspect of his assumptions about language which no longer holds--or which, I should say, we by and large do not ascribe to any longer.

This is his use of moral terms of evaluation for language. This is most pronounced in his description of the speech of Orcs and Trolls as 'degraded and filthy', "dreary and repetitive with hatred and contempt, too long removed from good to retain even verbal vigour, save in the ears of those to whom only the squalid sounds strong."

It is true that Tolkien eschews words of moral connotation when he describes the other tongues, yet his very contrast between languages (the hobbits using a "rustic" language, the Stoors' language being "queer" in its vaguely "Celtic" "feel", even his reference to older and "revered" tongues) suggests assumptions about the value of language which are no longer regarded as legitimate linguistic assumptions. For instance, Latin is no longer regarded as a better language than English simply because it is older or because it is inflected--that attitude was a holdover from the political power of the Roman empire. This older attitude about language reflected social, political and cultural attitudes, but they do not adequately describe how languages work. Social prestige is still a powerful factor in how people respond to language, but it is no longer regarded as the sole indicator of the worth of language.

This old view of language equated quality or beauty with moral worth and tended to confuse political agendas with appreciation of language. (Many of the Victorian missionaries who travelled to Africa reported that the African languages were "primitive", regarding the languages and the cultures from their self-appointed view of superior, progressive Westerner. When I refer to this, I am not ascribing such narrow mindedness to Tolkien, but simply pointing out a concommitant affect of the general attitude towards language which Appendix F holds.) This, I think, is one reason why many find his use of the antique style for Aragorn and Gondor embarassing--it suggests a moral worth, and this kind of assumption is no longer tenable. (At least, it is not in the fields of linguistics or sociology, or, even, literature.) No form or style of language is regarded as innately holding worth or being more worthy in itself than any other form. The criteria for effectivenss is always the entire range of linguistic interaction between sender and receiver, speaker and audience and context.

Thus, for me, authorial intention can not be used satisfactorily to support the styles of LOTR.

Aiwendil, to return briefly to this point about grammar which perhaps only you and I are interested in...

You have misinterpeted Quirk and Greenbaum's statement, "If the subject is not actually expressed in a non-finite or verbless clause, it is assumed to be identical with the subject of the superordinate clause." Your reading makes it identical with theobject of the superordinate clause.

This is a grammatical point, because, in linguistics, every string of two or more words is in grammatical relation (subordination, coordination, modification, predication, complementation, or augumentation) and every relation has two parts, a head and a constituent element. It is therefore a grammatical fault that 'borne upon the wind' is not 'beside' its constituent or completive part. Yes, we can 'guess' what the non-finite clause refers to because we know that Gandalf and company were not thrown about by the wind, but this is a lexical leap which would not pertain in every example of this sentence type.

Let me return later to your other points.

[ November 12, 2003: Message edited by: Bêthberry ]

[Aiwendil]

Eurytus wrote:

Well if that were the case would anyone like to explain why the same style of writing and language is not used to describe the realm of Lorien or Rivendell, both of which are far older than the people in Gondor.

First of all, it must be said that we are talking about two different things here. There is on the one hand the style in which the book is written, Tolkien's style, the narrative style. Then there is the style in which the characters speak. They needn't have anything to do with each other (though they needn't be unrelated either).

The charge you are making (specifically) here, then, is not against the use of archaism, or against the quality of Tolkien's prose, or the change in his style, or anything like that; it is about the believability within Middle-earth that the Elves of Rivendell and Lothlorien speak in a certain style and the humans of Gondor in a certain other style.

But I simply can't find the stylistic discrepancy you refer to. In Elrond's speech can be found all the same sorts of devices and patterns of phrasing used by the Gondorians. The same is true for the speech of Galadriel and Celeborn. Certainly the more common Elves speak in slightly less elevated tones, but then so do the few Gondorians we encounter that are not of high station (like Ioreth).

To the extent that I am wrong and there is such a difference, I suppose it is a flaw in the book. But it is certainly a minor one compared with the oft-made accusation that Tolkien's writing style is poor (and it is also a completely different kind of flaw).

Bethberry wrote:

This is his use of moral terms of evaluation for language. This is most pronounced in his description of the speech of Orcs and Trolls as 'degraded and filthy', "dreary and repetitive with hatred and contempt, too long removed from good to retain even verbal vigour, save in the ears of those to whom only the squalid sounds strong."

Of course it is not appropriate to use moral terms in the study of language, just as it is not appropriate to use them in any science. But The Lord of the Rings is not a philological study. When we step into the conceptual scheme of Arda, we must accept its morality and its system of truths.

I do not think these are strictly moral terms, by the way; they are subjective evaluations of a slightly different (through related) sort.

But surely it is possible for a person, or even a group of people, to find a particular language "ugly" or "queer" or "rustic". Provided adequate definitions, it is perfectly correct to use these terms. Of course, it may be undesirable to use them (since they may offend people or be interpreted as intended to describe speakers of the language rather than the language itself).

Tolkien thought Gaelic was uglier than Welsh. So what? He didn't take this as the basis for any scientific conclusions, and he didn't mean that Welsh people were superior to Irish or Scottish people. He thought that the Black Speech was uglier than Quenya. There's nothing wrong with that.

One could consider a language queer if it exhibits features that are markedly different from related languages, or from most languages. One could consider a language rustic if it tends to spoken in rural areas and retains certain archaic vocabulary that has been dropped in more populated areas. One could call a language "dreary and repetitive" if it has a limited vocabulary, if it has few roots and thus many very similar words, or if it has an especially restricted phonology. "Lacking verbal vigour" would seem to mean something like being "dreary and repetitive" - not having many roots or word.

The language of Trolls and Orcs is filled with "hatred and contempt" because Trolls and Orcs are filled with those things. And it would seem to be the simple fact within Arda that these languages have been "too long removed from the good".

The upshot of all of this is that while I agree that all such subjective evaluations should be kept out of real linguistics and philology, they have every right to be made within Arda, by Tolkien, and (perhaps most importantly) by the Elves and humans of the West who are supposed to have written the histories.

You have misinterpeted Quirk and Greenbaum's statement, "If the subject is not actually expressed in a non-finite or verbless clause, it is assumed to be identical with the subject of the superordinate clause." Your reading makes it identical with theobject of the superordinate clause.

Ah. I'm sorry. I was misled because in both of the examples that they offer, the sentence suffers from a far more immediate problem: the subject of the subordinate clause is not even expressed in the superordinate clause.

But I still don't see why that rule must be true based solely on the logical structure of this kind of sentence. Indeed, it seems to me (though I confess I am not a linguist) that such a rule could not possibly be true based solely on the logic of the grammar, for there are languages that are quite free with their placement of such clauses. One could formulate a version of English in which the rule was modified to: if the subject of the subordinate clause is not expressed, it is assumed to be the direct object of the verb in the superordinate clause. This would be an odd system, but it is self-consistent logically. So (it seems to me) is the system wherein there is no rule about which noun becomes the subject of a noun-less clause.

Another way of seeing what I mean is this: if the sentence as presented is logically incorrect, why would "They heard the howling of wolves borne upon the wind" be correct? It seems to have exactly the same logical structure.

Is there something I'm missing perhaps in the difference between subordination and modification? That is, in the sentence as I presented it above, is the relation of "borne on the wind" with "the howling of wolves" modification rather than subordination? Does "They heard the howling of wolves borne upon the wind" have a different grammatical structure from "They heard the howling of wolves, borne upon the wind"?

I can see how it might, though (not being a linguist) I may of course be quite wrong. But if I'm not, then the problem would seem to be not one concerning the placement of the words in the sentence, but concerning only the relation between "borne upon the wind" and "the howling of wolves". Then the critical difference for the "inverted" sentence would seem to be whether or not there is a comma between "Borne upon the wind" and "they heard the howling of wolves".

Of course, I may be completely misunderstanding the difference between subordination and modification. But I'm eager to learn.

[Bêthberry]

I think, Aiwendil, that it is time we took this discussion, if you wish, to PM. I'm not conceding any point to you now, mind. [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img]

I will be PMing you with my reasons for this suggestion.

[ November 12, 2003: Message edited by: Bêthberry ]

EDIT: Aiwendil, your PM box is full and so I cannot send you my reasons.

[ November 12, 2003: Message edited by: Bêthberry ]

[Mister Underhill]

This point of grammar seems to me to be much ado about nothing. Surely you don’t mean to argue that “Borne upon the wind they heard the howling of wolves.” is a grievously faulty sentence? The author’s meaning is clear; we don’t literally need to guess what was “borne”. As far as I know, the professor isn’t guilty of a habit of violating the rule you cite in a way that repeatedly leads to confusion in his prose. Good style is all about being effective, and as long as that end is achieved no rule of grammar is sacrosanct.

If, Bb, you’re trying to make the point that the professor is at least occasionally guilty of confusing constructions, I personally think you’d gain more ground arguing something like his queer idiosyncratic habit of using a simile construction to build suspense, a trait which has in my opinion led directly to the legendary confusion surrounding Balrog wings (cf. this post for some examples and analysis I made in a long-ago pro-wing argument). But then again, this technique works as often as not, and even the confusion over Balrog wings has led to many enjoyable hours of debate, so I reckon I can hardly classify even this quirk as a serious fault.

[ November 13, 2003: Message edited by: Mister Underhill ]

[Eurytus]

But I simply can't find the stylistic discrepancy you refer to. In Elrond's speech can be found all the same sorts of devices and patterns of phrasing used by the Gondorians.

By the way, since people claimed the style of description in the latter books was also designed to give a sense of antiquity to the environment then the descriptions in Rivendell and Lorien should be likewise.
Sorry but I missed all the Lo’s and Behold’s in the speechs in Rivendell.

[Bêthberry]

Oh indeed, Mr. Underhill, originally my point about the sentence was simply mischievious. As I said earlier, it was merely in jesting challenge to Squatter's claim about the omnipotence of "an Oxford professor of English." I have less faith in professors than he does. [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img]

Aiwendil's questions about the formal organization of grammar have, I think, made the discussion more serious than was my original intention and drawn it away from the main issue here and so I am happy to continue that particular discussion with him in PM.

I entered this thread for two reasons: the question about style was a point that Squatter and I had occasionally discussed in chat and I thought I could perhaps help to establish a moderate tone in the discussion. I don't think that is possible.

Last night, a post was made here which spoke bitterly and sarcasticly about the question of style. (It was not addressed to me.) That post was quickly deleted, but in many ways it spoke of the feelings of many other people here. There are too many fans here for whom Tolkien's works are akin to iconic texts and for whom any kind of questioning brings very defensive feelings. I happen to think that even Tolkien would not be pleased with such feelings for a secular text, but I have no wish to create hard feelings, nor, really, "to gain ground" as you suggest. Discussion here is about fun, not gaining converts, to my mind.

I agree with you, by the way, that style is about effectiveness, not correctness. [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img]

[ November 13, 2003: Message edited by: Bêthberry ]

[Legolas]

Sorry but I missed all the Lo’s and Behold’s in the speechs in Rivendell.

Yet an entirely different race dwells within the forest of Lothlorien and the refuge of Imlardris. Must it be the identical use of archaic language for said use to be acceptable?

[ November 13, 2003: Message edited by: Legolas ]

[Mister Underhill]

Yes, Bb, but we all love it when we have a chance to argue an opponent to the ground and pin him there, don’t we? Or is that just me?

Since opinions about style almost inevitably boil down to just that – opinion – it’s easy to see why some people react emotionally to charges of weakness in the professor’s style. I’d say it’s a sign of something positive here at the Downs that the post you mention (I didn’t see it) was withdrawn. Most of us have given in to the temptation to compose in the heat of passion; not all of us have the good sense to withdraw such a post in the cool aftermath.

I still think that you’re perhaps being a bit too hard on the fans who find no serious flaws in LotR. Most are willing to admit that the book isn’t perfect. Indeed, Tolkien prefaces his work with an admission that it contains “many defects, minor and major”. But to my mind, perfection is overrated. Indeed, aspects of the work that are flaws to some eyes are “by others specially approved” (Tolkien, ibid).

Good books can become like cherished friends or loved ones. We overlook their flaws – or in some cases love them all the more because of their quirks and idiosyncrasies – because their virtues far outweigh their shortcomings. I suppose that in a work of such scope, ambition, and genuine achievement, it seems to many fans ungenerous to dwell on small flaws which don’t really detract from the work’s overall effectiveness.

I don’t think you should be surprised or even saddened to find that this particular audience is biased in favor of smoothing over any shortcomings Tolkien may have had as a writer. They come here because of their love for the experience Tolkien has given them, and in many cases keep coming back for years because they’ve found that his work can punch its weight even under intense scrutiny.

[lindil]

but we all love it when we have a chance to argue an opponent to the ground and pin him there, don’t we? Or is that just me?

indeed Mr. Underhill, that is exactly what the point of my [hastily withdrawn] post was about. I felt that Eurytus, you had dodged and evaded most of the salient points raised in objection to your opinions.

That for me was the touchy part Bethberry, not the belief that the LotR is 'Iconic' at least in the sense that Orthodox Christians regard Icons of sacred images and events as being the visual representation of the Bible and Sacred Tradition. Quite often JRRT's writings would qualify, to my mind as iconic, in the sense that they often piont to or represent Truth, which of course was JRRT's express intent.

Personally, as I said in my hastily withdrawn post, the more I read the post-LotR writings [primarily found in HoM-E 10-12 and Unfinished Tales, and a few more in the Silm] the more I feel that it was in the 50's and 60's that JRRT reached the height of his craft, and that the LotR [and the earlier Silm] was a long and elaborate warm up, that came to be regarded as his magnum opus only by default, because he did not finish the greater Silmarillion, and it was later issued in truncated [unfinshed revisions notwithstanding, there was at least a whole other volume of incorporatable writings] form.

-btw, the primary reason I withdrew the post, embarrassingly enough, was because I replied only after having read page 1 of the thread, not realizing there were 2 more [and far denser at that] pages.

It did however spare me a remark or two [ I have lost the doc, so I cannot confess more fully [img]smilies/tongue.gif[/img] ] that I probably would have moderated after a re-read or two.

-L

[ November 13, 2003: Message edited by: lindil ]

[Lyta_Underhill]

But to my mind, perfection is overrated. Indeed, aspects of the work that are flaws to some eyes are “by others specially approved” (Tolkien, ibid).

and

We overlook their flaws – or in some cases love them all the more because of their quirks and idiosyncrasies – because their virtues far outweigh their shortcomings.

Thanks, Underhill! This is a point with which I agree heartily in all things (not just Tolkien's work)! The technically flawless can be boring, predictable, etc., and I personally relish little glimpses into the tears in the fabric of artifice that occur in works which are dense, well-considered, aesthetically appealing, etc., but not perfect. In a sense, this mirrors the second- and third-hand experience of history itself and is an element in Tolkien's work that delights me! It is one of the truths that I and others seek that life is a search for the ultimate perfection or the light unsullied, but we are ever fated to find fulfillment in the striving, and to touch true perfection would simply absorb us but not satisfy us. (Does that make sense?)

To that end, the subordination of clarity to aesthetic sensibility is forgivable and even desirable in my eyes and in many other eyes, I am sure! Carry on! [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img]

Cheers,
Lyta

[Lush]

Dudes,

Am I mis-reading something here or is Bethberry suddenly being accused of being the discussion board equivalent of a deranged Sumo-wrestler?

I've read this thread with great interest, and I admire Beth for stepping up to the plate and posting some comments in regards to Tolkien that have made even me uncomfortable.

I mean, who likes it when someone comes in and starts debunking something that you really, really love?

It's like finding out that your one-and-only can't fold his own shirts, or something equally distressing.

But in the end, I have to say that the sort of discourse that has been happening on this thread is ultimately very healthy and helpful to us as readers and admirers of art.

By digesting a beloved works' flaws we are sometimes able to appreciate it and our attitude toward it on a deeper level.

The good stuff begins to stand out more that way.

And anyway, even if it ultimately doesn't, it's not like it would be Beth's fault.

I find that Beth has a lot of authority on the subject of language and grammar, and I am willing to read more; doesn't mean I have to agree with any of it, but that's the beauty of a balanced debate.