The Digital Tolkien Project -- How it Helps My Work

The Digital Tolkien Project, founded by my friend, James Tauber, and brought to life by James with the help of so many dedicated and talented fans and scholars, is perhaps the most significant Tolkien related project since The History of Middle-earth was published in the 1980s and 1990s. Yes, I have just compared James to Christopher Tolkien. But I would argue that the compliment is well-deserved and so not flattery. 

I consult The Digital Tolkien Project pretty much every day. Sometimes just out of idle curiosity about Tolkien's use of a word, but more often my purpose is driven by a desire to consult it about something I am working on, either for this blog or for publication. I am currently over 200 pages into what I hope will be my next book, which will study how the Great Tales and (what I call) the Great Themes, such as Fate and Free Will, Divine Justice and the Problem of Evil, Death and Immortality, shape the legendarium in the years 1916-1937, that is, before Tolkien set aside the Silmarillion to write The Lord of the Rings. (I hope there will be a subsequent volume later on in which treat the same subjects after he returned to the Silmarillion.)

Today I want to provide an example of how The Digital Tolkien Project helps me in my studies. Below I have added an excerpt from the first of my chapters on Túrin in the early legendarium, here specifically in "Turambar and the Foalókë," the very first telling of his story, published in The Book of Lost Tales. So here's a single paragraph of my draft chapter, which I will no doubt rewrite quite a few times before I am done with it. But all those stats on the words drake, worm, dragon, Túrin, and Turambar, whose use by Tolkien suggests so much, come from The Digital Tolkien Project. Yes, I could have counted them all myself, but not so easily or accurately, or without having to separate out all the times Christopher himself uses these words in his notes and commentary.

The final words of the prophecy in “Turambar and the Foalókë” are also the final words of the tale: “and Melko and his drakes shall curse the sword of Mormakil” (LT I.116). A drake is of course a dragon, and in The Book of Lost Tales it is Tolkien’s preferred word for such creatures, appearing 23% more often than worm and 59% more often than dragon.[1] Turambar, the other word in the title, occurs 101 times in “Turambar and the Foalókë”: 99 of these 101 instances come after Túrin names himself Turambar in his first meeting with the dragon (LT II.86).[2] By contrast, Túrin appears 116 times in “Turambar and the Foalókë:” 83 of these 116 instances occur in the first sixteen pages of the text (69-86); the remaining 33 come in the last thirty pages of the text, that is, after Túrin renames himself (86-116). All or nearly all of these uses are the direct speech or reported direct speech or thought of Morwen, Nienor, Húrin, Thingol, Airin, Brandir, Glaurung, and Túrin himself. It is not simply the narrator speaking of Túrin in the normal course of narrating his actions. 24 of these 33 instances of Túrin occur in the portion of the tale devoted to the search for him undertaken by Morwen and Nienor (91-99). Turambar never appears in this section. In a tale whose title may be translated as “The Conqueror of Fate and the Drake” Tolkien’s use of words like drake, Túrin, and Turambar here disclose their essential significance to the story. Once Túrin proclaims himself the “Conqueror of Fate,” the narrator unironically accepts this declaration because he knows something the reader does not. He knows and believes the prophecy about Túrin’s return. Even when explaining the meaning of the title at the beginning of his tale, he follows up by emphasizing the connection in Men’s minds between this tale and the evils they suffered from Melkor and his drakes, a statement echoed by the prophecy in the tale’s final words (69-70, 116). It will not do to leave a Conqueror of Fate and drakes out of our calculations.

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[1] In “Turambar” Tolkien uses drake 27 times; worm 22 times; dragon 17 times; and serpent 3 times. Tolkien’s seeming avoidance of serpent might indicate a desire not to recall the serpent of Genesis 3.

[2] Eltas twice employs Turumart, which he glosses as Gnomish for Turambar, once when giving the title of the tale and once when explaining the meaning of the name Turambar (LT II.70, 86).

My Life in Middle-earth, or was that Kenya?

If you've ever seen the wonderful British show "As Time Goes By," you probably remember one of the running gags early on. (If you've never seen the show, it's romantic, charming, and funny. Plus it has Jud Dench.) The male lead in the show, played by Geoffrey Palmer, had spent decades living in Kenya. Upon his retirement, he published a memoir which he called My Life in Kenya. Whenever he talked to a stranger about his book, they would ask him what it was called. He would reply "My life in Kenya." Then they would ask "What's it about?" And he would reply "My Life in Kenya," with a look on his face that was equal parts incredulity and exasperation. 

Today I was at a funeral and someone I knew a little bit in the dim past said to me: "I hear you've written a book about Tolkien. What's it called?" 

"Pity, Power, and Tolkien's Ring," I replied.

"What's it about?" he asked.

"Pity, Power, and Tolkien's Ring," I replied with a look on my face that was equal parts incredulity and exasperation.

The Last Word of Tolkien's Teacher, Joseph Wright

Joseph Wright was a remarkable man, especially for his day. He was born in a time when the children of poor families only rarely learned to read and write, let alone rise to be the Professor of Comparative Philology at Oxford University. As if that weren't enough, his crowning achievement was his English Dialect Dictionary, which held 80,000 entries in its six massive volumes. His was the life Jude Fawley wanted to live, Jude the Obscure with a happy ending. Almost.

Many fans of Tolkien will know that Wright taught Tolkien philology in his years at Oxford. When Wright died, his wife, Elizabeth Mary Wright, wrote a two volume biography of him. She describes his death and their relationship, both personal and professional, on p. 682 of the second volume:

There was only one thing more which had to be done, a last message to leave behind on the last day of all: and so he gathered up his strength in the midst of a long stretch of silence, and framed his lips to say to me quite clearly the one word ‘Dictionary’. It was, in essence, a humble echo of the words of One greater than he, when the hour had come : ‘I have glorified thee on the earth; I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do.’ At the time I thought all he wanted to say was to remind me of his wish to be ‘remembered by’ that one literary achievement. Later, when I came to re-read his letters which had lain in an old red morocco case for over thirty-four years, I saw in that one word a message and a reminder of deeper significance. Might it not be that he was thinking of the Dictionary as the seal and token of that priceless and imperishable gift he had given me long years ago, which had sustained every moment of our life together, the love which is stronger than death ? He wrote of the Dictionary : ‘It is a work that is a most sacred task to me. . . . Had it not been for you, nothing in the world could have induced me to undertake what seemed an impossibility to everybody else. But deep genuine love can overcome impossibilities’ ; and also —as I have already quoted among the extracts from these letters: ‘It would be premature to enlighten the world at present, but someday it will all be made known what a man’s deep love for a woman can inspire him to do.’

He died in the evening of February 27, 1930.

Really, what more is there to say? 

Joseph and Elizabeth Wright with their children, ca. 1907.
Photographer unknown. Public Domain.

 

"...the language ... of Mordor, which I will not utter here."

 ‘I cannot read the fiery letters,’ said Frodo in a quavering voice. 

‘No,’ said Gandalf, ‘but I can. The letters are Elvish, of an ancient mode, but the language is that of Mordor, which I will not utter here. But this in the Common Tongue is what is said, close enough: 

One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them, 
One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them.

(FR 1.ii.50)

From time to time someone will ask why Gandalf will not utter the Black Speech in Bag End, but will do so in Rivendell. I saw this just the other day. It's a reasonable question. Here's the passage from The Council of Elrond for comparison. 

Upon this very ring which you have here seen held aloft, round and unadorned, the letters that Isildur reported may still be read, if one has the strength of will to set the golden thing in the fire a while. That I have done, and this I have read: 

            Ash nazg durbatulûk, ash nazg gimbatul, ash nazg thrakatulûk
                                        agh burzum-ishi krimpatul.

The change in the wizard’s voice was astounding. Suddenly it became menacing, powerful, harsh as stone. A shadow seemed to pass over the high sun, and the porch for a moment grew dark. All trembled, and the Elves stopped their ears.

‘Never before has any voice dared to utter words of that tongue in Imladris, Gandalf the Grey,’ said Elrond, as the shadow passed and the company breathed once more.

(FR 2.ii.254)

Gandalf recites the enchantment in the Common Speech in Bag End. Nothing happens. Gandalf recites the enchantment in the Black Speech in Rivendell, the power of the Ring is invoked. The Elves don't just cover their ears because Gandalf has said some ugly words. His indiscretion is not social. He is not Gandalf the Gauche. He is Gandalf the Grey, a being of great power, calling upon the Ring of Sauron in a language it understands, as it were. A moment later he again recites the spell in the Common Speech. Again, nothing happens.

So, when Gandalf said to Frodo that he would "not utter [the language of Mordor] here," the word here does not mean here in the Shire. It means here in the presence of the Ring. He won't do it because he has an idea of what is going to happen. True, he doesn't want to frighten Frodo any more than he is already frightened. True, he doesn't want to risk drawing the attention of the Eye. The Shire is not safe enough. Rivendell is much safer than Hobbiton. Why does he do it at all? He is making a point and removing all doubt that this is in fact the One Ring.

"So let us forgive him" -- from the stairs of Cirith Ungol to the slopes of Mt Doom

The scene in The Two Towers where Gollum comes back down the stairs of Cirith Ungol to find Frodo and Sam asleep is remarkable for many reasons. Gollum, looking upon them, nearly repents of his decision to betray the hobbits to Shelob so he can get the Ring back. Sam, who has every reason to suspect Gollum is up to no good, treats Gollum harshly and Gollum responds in kind. Gollum's "repentance is blighted," as Tolkien says in one of his letters (Letters #246 p. 466). The reader is left in the unaccustomed position of pitying Gollum and being disappointed in Sam. Gollum, who began the scene close to repentance, ends it with a renewed commitment to treachery. Sam, who began in anger and suspicion, ends in grudging remorse and apology. Frodo's attempt at conciliation fails utterly.

The scene is about two pages long. Gollum is the only character awake for the first half page. Sam wakes up and clashes with Gollum on the second half of that page. At the start of the second page Sam awakens Frodo. Just before Sam wakes up, the narrator draws attention to the fact that neither Frodo nor Sam could have witnessed Gollum's moment of near repentance, and explains what they would have seen if they had been awake. It is the moment that sets up the astonishing pathos of the scene:

Gollum looked at them. A strange expression passed over his lean hungry face. The gleam faded from his eyes, and they went dim and grey, old and tired. A spasm of pain seemed to twist him, and he turned away, peering back up towards the pass, shaking his head, as if engaged in some interior debate. Then he came back, and slowly putting out a trembling hand, very cautiously he touched Frodo’s knee – but almost the touch was a caress. For a fleeting moment, could one of the sleepers have seen him, they would have thought that they beheld an old weary hobbit, shrunken by the years that had carried him far beyond his time, beyond friends and kin, and the fields and streams of youth, an old starved pitiable thing.

(TT 4.viii.714). 

One of the most basic conceits of The Lord of the Rings is that Frodo largely wrote the book he gave to Sam to finish. Obviously, Frodo could have written what he saw after he woke up, and Sam could have told him about what had gone on after he woke up. Not only would Gollum have been unlikely to have filled Frodo and Sam in on what he was experiencing at the start of the scene, but after the end of this scene they see very little of Gollum for the rest of the book. So the narrator of the book isn't supposed to be omniscient, and Sam couldn't have seen more than an old weary looking Gollum touching Frodo's knee. Incredulity is a very weak argument, but it is very hard to believe that Tolkien both slipped up on the narrator's perspective and then called attention to that slip by pointing out that no one could have seen Gollum before Sam woke up. What we see here is one of the most thematically significant moments in the whole story, the moment in which the reader suddenly sees Gollum precisely as Bilbo saw him in The Hobbit, precisely as Gandalf thought Frodo needed to see him, though he at first refused to do so, and precisely as Sam sees him on the slopes of Mt Doom. With pity. If this happened by chance, it's chance-if-chance-you-call it.

But what is more important than how we might square the creation of this scene with the supposed narrator's limited perspective -- and I have my theories -- is how we read this moment in the thematic context of the book. We need to read it in the context of the movement from pity to mercy and thence to forgiveness. That forgiveness comes only after Gollum betrays them once more and is again shown mercy, this time by Sam who has finally suffered enough to realize what he saw when he opened his eyes on the stairs of Cirith Ungol. That mercy enabled the eucatastrophe in the Chambers of Fire. I think we may be able to fully understand the importance of what happens on the stairs if we read it in dialogue with Frodo's words after the Ring is destroyed:

‘Your poor hand!’ he said. ‘And I have nothing to bind it with, or comfort it. I would have spared him a whole hand of mine rather. But he’s gone now beyond recall, gone for ever.’ ‘

Yes,’ said Frodo. ‘But do you remember Gandalf’s words: Even Gollum may have something yet to do? But for him, Sam, I could not have destroyed the Ring. The Quest would have been in vain, even at the bitter end. So let us forgive him! For the Quest is achieved, and now all is over. I am glad you are here with me. Here at the end of all things, Sam.' 

(RK 6.iii.947)

I really think that reading the second scene in the context of the first is much more important than sorting out the narrative questions arising from the sudden seeming omniscience of the narrator on the stairs. Going forward from the forgiveness meted out on the slopes of Mt Doom, there is no further context to consider, unless it's Frodo's attempt to spare Saruman and Wormtongue in the Shire. For Gollum is never mentioned again within the story. Frodo's last word on Gollum is "So let us forgive him."