Detecting the Hand of the 'Translator' in The Lord of the Rings

Yesterday in my effort to catch up to Corey Olsen in Exploring the Lord of the Rings, I was listening to him talk about detecting the hand of the translator in The Lord of the Rings. Not the translator who turns Tolkien's English into German or French or Japanese, but the one who took the "original" Westron text and rendered it into English. According to the runes and tengwar on the title page, this is Tolkien himself of course. 

Corey was rightly noting that certain touches are obvious. For example, in Gandalf's pyrotechnic dragon which passes overhead 'like an express train' at Bilbo's party (FR 1.i.28), we encounter a simile that would have no meaning whatsoever to the inhabitants of Middle-earth. So clearly it is meant to communicate with us by the translator who is trying to get the meaning of the original across the language gap in a way in which a more 'faithful' and direct translation could not do.

I would like to suggest a few other types of clues. 

1. If you hear an echo of the Bible, that reveals the hand of the translator. 
2. If you hear an echo of Shakespeare or Chaucer or any writer of the Primary World, that reveals the hand of the translator.
3. If you meet an image or symbol that has meaning in the Primary World, but for which none can be discerned in the Secondary World, that reveals the hand of the translator. 

Let's take a quick look at a few examples. 

In Shelob's Lair we learn of Gollum's relationship with Shelob in a phrase that seems to evoke the words of the 23rd psalm, in a nightmarish antithesis:

• '...and the darkness of her evil will walked through all the ways of his weariness beside him, cutting him off from light and regret...' (TT 4.ix.723).
•  'yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou are with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.'

In The Shadow of the Past the allusion to Chaucer is obvious:

• 'there were several meals at which it snowed food and rained drink, as hobbits say.' (FR 1.ii.42)
• 'It snewed in his hous of mete and drink' (Cantebury Tales, General Prologue line 345).

'Mete' in Chaucer just means 'food.' Tolkien also adds to the humor by claiming the phrase as the hobbits' own. (Of course Chaucer may have been a hobbit. Do we have any idea how tall he was?)

In The Stairs of Cirith Ungol a nod to Shakespeare's Julius Caesar warns us (as if we needed the warning at this point) that Gollum is no one to be trusted even in the moment in which he comes closest to repenting of his plan to betray Frodo and Sam.

• 'A strange expression passed over his lean hungry face' (TT 4.viii.714).
• 'Yon Cassius has a lean and hungry look' (Julius Caesar 1.ii.195).

Anyone who knows Macbeth will easily think of quite a few others which I won't detail here.

The two references Frodo makes to 'the wheel of fire' he sees in his mind I have discussed at length elsewhere. The image has many connections in the Primary World, but none at all in the legendarium.

There's a lot of ground to be explored here.

Questions on The Ring, the Ring-verse, and Elision at FR 2.ii.254

 1) If the Ring is sentient, as some suppose it to be, why doesn't it react at all when Gandalf recites the Ring incantation in the Black Speech at the Council of Elrond?

'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.

Everything and everyone else has some reaction. Not the Ring.

2) If the Ring actually changes size, instead of just seeming to do so, might that not have something to do with Sauron's nature as a Maia who could change his size and appearance until his death in Númenor? Since Sauron put much of his power into the Ring, and since his ability to change his size appearance became severely limited thereafter, the Ring could well have an innate ability to adapt to the size of its possessor, which carried over from Sauron. This could also explain why the Ring does not change size when Bombadil handles it -- because he does not possess it.

3) In the words burzum-ishi in the Ring-verse, what is the hyphen telling us? None of the other words have this feature. Why is this different? These words, moreover, disturb the rhythm of the line. For this see the excellent discussion by Corey Olsen in Exploring the Lord of the Rings, session 151.* The question of an elision to smooth the line was raised, but quickly dropped since Corey Olsen rightly found the idea of eliding the final -i- of ishi impossible, given the -k- which follows. 

What if the hyphen is directing the reader to elide the final syllable of burzum with the first syllable of ishi? In Latin verse, which Tolkien read and wrote, a final -m- may be dropped if the following word begins with a vowel. The words are still written out fully. The pronunciation and the rhythm change. Whether it would end up up being said burzishi or burzushi, I cannot say.** The latter would suit the assonance of all those syllables with -u-, and the sound is harsher than that of the former would be. The Black Speech was meant to sound harsh. On the other hand, if Latin prosody still applies, burzishi is what we should expect. 

The hyphen remains unexplained otherwise, and the rhythm remains disturbed.

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*I composed this post before listening to session 152 of Exploring the Lord of the Rings.

**Alas, the famous treatise of Khamûl the Ringwraith on the Prosody of the Black Speech is lost. 

Iliad 1.1-52 Mythgard 2017 Webathon Recording

I make no pretense of being great at reading Homer aloud.  I am well aware I made a number of mistakes in this recording. There were times I stuttered, syllables I slurred, and a couple of rough breathings (a mark /ʽ/ before an initial vowel indicating an /h/) I just plain missed. At least once I jumbled two syllables, saying θυμῷ (''thymo' -- 'heart') at the end of line 33, when I should have said μύθῳ ('mytho' -- 'word'). Homer said that Chryses obeyed Agamemnon's 'word', which I by spontaneous metathesis corrupted into 'obeyed his heart.' I don't know whether that counts as evidence of something for the oral transmission of poetry or not. I am still amazed I made it through ἤϊε -- three vowels, three syllables, not a consonant in sight -- without hurting myself. I risked redefining hiatal hernia right there. But the cause was a good one.

However that may be, Corey Olsen at Signum University asked me for a recording of some Homer for the webathon for this year's annual fund. I obliged. For those who may be curious, or who, living in glassless houses, might want to throw stones, here it is. On the page below are Homer's Greek and Fagles' translation of these lines (1.1-52). I have divided both the Greek and English into new matching paragraphs, in the hope that it might help those with little or no Greek have some idea of how what they are hearing corresponds to what they are seeing. However, beyond the first few lines the line numbers of the Greek and the English do not match. 

μῆνιν ἄειδε θεὰ Πηληϊάδεω Ἀχιλῆος

οὐλομένην, ἣ μυρί᾽ Ἀχαιοῖς ἄλγε᾽ ἔθηκε,

πολλὰς δ᾽ ἰφθίμους ψυχὰς Ἄϊδι προΐαψεν

ἡρώων, αὐτοὺς δὲ ἑλώρια τεῦχε κύνεσσιν

5    οἰωνοῖσί τε πᾶσι, Διὸς δ᾽ ἐτελείετο βουλή,

ἐξ οὗ δὴ τὰ πρῶτα διαστήτην ἐρίσαντε

Ἀτρεΐδης τε ἄναξ ἀνδρῶν καὶ δῖος Ἀχιλλεύς.

τίς τ᾽ ἄρ σφωε θεῶν ἔριδι ξυνέηκε μάχεσθαι;

Λητοῦς καὶ Διὸς υἱός: ὃ γὰρ βασιλῆϊ χολωθεὶς

10    νοῦσον ἀνὰ στρατὸν ὄρσε κακήν, ὀλέκοντο δὲ λαοί,

οὕνεκα τὸν Χρύσην ἠτίμασεν ἀρητῆρα

Ἀτρεΐδης: ὃ γὰρ ἦλθε θοὰς ἐπὶ νῆας Ἀχαιῶν

λυσόμενός τε θύγατρα φέρων τ᾽ ἀπερείσι᾽ ἄποινα,

στέμματ᾽ ἔχων ἐν χερσὶν ἑκηβόλου Ἀπόλλωνος

15    χρυσέῳ ἀνὰ σκήπτρῳ, καὶ λίσσετο πάντας Ἀχαιούς,

Ἀτρεΐδα δὲ μάλιστα δύω, κοσμήτορε λαῶν: 

"Ἀτρεΐδαι τε καὶ ἄλλοι ἐϋκνήμιδες Ἀχαιοί,

ὑμῖν μὲν θεοὶ δοῖεν Ὀλύμπια δώματ᾽ ἔχοντες

ἐκπέρσαι Πριάμοιο πόλιν, εὖ δ᾽ οἴκαδ᾽ ἱκέσθαι:

20    παῖδα δ᾽ ἐμοὶ λύσαιτε φίλην, τὰ δ᾽ ἄποινα δέχεσθαι,

ἁζόμενοι Διὸς υἱὸν ἑκηβόλον Ἀπόλλωνα."

ἔνθ᾽ ἄλλοι μὲν πάντες ἐπευφήμησαν Ἀχαιοὶ

αἰδεῖσθαί θ᾽ ἱερῆα καὶ ἀγλαὰ δέχθαι ἄποινα:

ἀλλ᾽ οὐκ Ἀτρεΐδῃ Ἀγαμέμνονι ἥνδανε θυμῷ,

25    ἀλλὰ κακῶς ἀφίει, κρατερὸν δ᾽ ἐπὶ μῦθον ἔτελλε:

"μή σε γέρον κοίλῃσιν ἐγὼ παρὰ νηυσὶ κιχείω

ἢ νῦν δηθύνοντ᾽ ἢ ὕστερον αὖτις ἰόντα,

μή νύ τοι οὐ χραίσμῃ σκῆπτρον καὶ στέμμα θεοῖο:

τὴν δ᾽ ἐγὼ οὐ λύσω: πρίν μιν καὶ γῆρας ἔπεισιν

30    ἡμετέρῳ ἐνὶ οἴκῳ ἐν Ἄργεϊ τηλόθι πάτρης

ἱστὸν ἐποιχομένην καὶ ἐμὸν λέχος ἀντιόωσαν:

ἀλλ᾽ ἴθι μή μ᾽ ἐρέθιζε σαώτερος ὥς κε νέηαι."

ὣς ἔφατ᾽, ἔδεισεν δ᾽ ὃ γέρων καὶ ἐπείθετο μύθῳ:

βῆ δ᾽ ἀκέων παρὰ θῖνα πολυφλοίσβοιο θαλάσσης:

35    πολλὰ δ᾽ ἔπειτ᾽ ἀπάνευθε κιὼν ἠρᾶθ᾽ ὃ γεραιὸς

Ἀπόλλωνι ἄνακτι, τὸν ἠΰκομος τέκε Λητώ:

"κλῦθί μευ ἀργυρότοξ᾽, ὃς Χρύσην ἀμφιβέβηκας

Κίλλάν τε ζαθέην Τενέδοιό τε ἶφι ἀνάσσεις,

Σμινθεῦ εἴ ποτέ τοι χαρίεντ᾽ ἐπὶ νηὸν ἔρεψα,

40    ἢ εἰ δή ποτέ τοι κατὰ πίονα μηρί᾽ ἔκηα

ταύρων ἠδ᾽ αἰγῶν, τὸ δέ μοι κρήηνον ἐέλδωρ:

τίσειαν Δαναοὶ ἐμὰ δάκρυα σοῖσι βέλεσσιν."

ὣς ἔφατ᾽ εὐχόμενος, τοῦ δ᾽ ἔκλυε Φοῖβος Ἀπόλλων,

βῆ δὲ κατ᾽ Οὐλύμποιο καρήνων χωόμενος κῆρ,

45    τόξ᾽ ὤμοισιν ἔχων ἀμφηρεφέα τε φαρέτρην:

ἔκλαγξαν δ᾽ ἄρ᾽ ὀϊστοὶ ἐπ᾽ ὤμων χωομένοιο,

αὐτοῦ κινηθέντος: ὃ δ᾽ ἤϊε νυκτὶ ἐοικώς.

ἕζετ᾽ ἔπειτ᾽ ἀπάνευθε νεῶν, μετὰ δ᾽ ἰὸν ἕηκε:

δεινὴ δὲ κλαγγὴ γένετ᾽ ἀργυρέοιο βιοῖο:

50     οὐρῆας μὲν πρῶτον ἐπῴχετο καὶ κύνας ἀργούς,

αὐτὰρ ἔπειτ᾽ αὐτοῖσι βέλος ἐχεπευκὲς ἐφιεὶς

βάλλ᾽: αἰεὶ δὲ πυραὶ νεκύων καίοντο θαμειαί.



Rage -- Goddess sing the rage of Peleus' son Achilles,
murderous, doomed, that cost the Achaeans countless losses,
hurling down to the House of Death so many sturdy souls,
great fighters' souls, but made their bodies carrion,
05   feasts for the dogs and birds,
and the will of Zeus was moving towards it end.
Begin, Muse, when the two first broke and clashed,
Agamemnon lord of men and brilliant Achilles.

What god drove them to fight with such a fury?
10   Apollo the son of Zeus and Leto. Incensed at the king
he swept a fatal plague through the arm -- men were dying
all because Agamemnon spurned Apollo's priest.
Yes, Chryses approached the Achaeans' fast ships
to win his daughter back, bringing a priceless ransom,
15   and bearing high in hand, wound on a golden staff
the wreaths of the god, the deadly distant Archer.
He begged the whole Achaean army, but most of all
the two supreme commanders, Atreus' two sons,

"Agamemnon, Menelaus, all Argives geared for war!
20   May the gods who hold the halls of Olympus give you
Priam's city to plunder, then safe passage home.
Just set my daughter free, my dear one ... here
accept these gifts, this ransom. Honor the god
who strikes from worlds away, the son of Zeus, Apollo!

25   And all the ranks of Achaeans cried out their assent:
"Respect the priest! Accept the shining ransom!"
But it brought no joy to the heart of Agamemnon.
The king dismissed the priest with a brutal order
ringing in his ears:

                               "Never again, old man
30   let me catch sight of you by the hollow ships!
Not loitering now, not slinking back tomorrow.
The staff and the wreaths of the god will never save you then.
The girl -- I won't give up the girl. Long before that
old age will overtake her in my house, in Argos,
35   far from her fatherland, slaving back and forth
at the loom, forced to share my bed! Now go,
don't tempt my wrath -- and you may depart alive."

The old man was terrified. He obeyed the order,
turning, trailing away in silence down the shore
40   where the battle lines of breakers crash and drag.
And moving off to a safe distance, over and over
the old priest prayed to the son of sleek-haired Leto,
lord Apollo:

                    "Hear me, Apollo, god of the silver bow
who strides the walls of Chryse and Cilla sacrosanct --
45   lord in power of Tenedos, Smintheus, god of the plague!
If I ever roofed a shrine to please your heart,
ever burned the long, rich bones of bulls and goats
on your holy altar, now, now, bring my prayers to pass.
Pay the Danaans back -- your arrows for my tears!"

50   His prayer went up and Phoebus Apollo heard him.
Down he strode from Olympus' peaks, storming at heart
with his bow and hooded quiver slung across his shoulders.
The arrows clanged at his back as the god quaked with rage,
the god himself on the march and down he came like night.
55   Over against the ships he dropped to a knee, let fly a shaft
and a terrifying clash rang out from the silver bow.
First he went for the mules and the circling dogs, but then,
launching a piercing shaft at the men themselves,
he cut them down in droves --
60   and the corpse-fires burned on, night and day, no end in sight.


                                               

'Not Unlike the Verse of the English' -- From Rohan to the Havens of Sirion

Alan Lee © 2007 

Many of us no doubt first encountered alliterative verse in Tolkien, in the scene where Aragorn first chants in the language of the Mark, and then translates the words of 'a forgotten poet long ago':

Where now the horse and the rider? Where is the horn that was blowing?
Where is the helm and the hauberk, and the bright hair flowing?

(TT 3.vi.508)

Or later in the stirring lines as the host of Rohan sets forth to war:

From dark Dunharrow in the dim morning
With thain and captain rode Thengel's son

(RK 5.iii.803)

Soon we learned, if The Lord of the Rings had truly fired our imaginations, that the people and culture of Rohan owed much to Tolkien's love of Old English and the people who spoke it. Beowulf, the epic so central to his scholarly and imaginative lives, and the study of which he had so great an effect on precisely because of his scholarly and imaginative lives -- Beowulf was composed in alliterative verse, as was The Wanderer, which provided the model for the lines Aragorn chanted (92-93):

Hwær com mearh? Hwær com magu? Hwær com maðumgiefa?
Hwær com symbla gesetu? Hwær sindon seledreamas?  

Where is the horse? Where is the warrior? Where the giver of treasures?
Where are the seats at the banquet? Where the joys of the mead-hall?

Elsewhere Faramir speaks to Frodo of the men of Rohan, saying that they have not become like the men of Gondor. For they 'hold by the ways of their own fathers and to their own memories, and they speak among themselves their own north tongue.' Of the ways and history of Gondor they have learned only what was necessary for them to learn.

they remind us of the youth of Men, as they were in the Elder Days. Indeed it is said by our lore-masters that they have from of old this affinity with us that they are come from those same Three Houses of Men as were the Númenóreans in their beginning; not from Hador the Goldenhaired, the Elf-friend, maybe, yet from such of his sons and people as went not over Sea into the West, refusing the call.

(TT 4.v.678)

That Faramir, whose heart is of downfallen Númenor and waning Gondor, should link the Rohirrim to those of the Edain who did not go into the West, citing 'our lore-masters' to back up the general impression of the Men of Rohan, is intriguing enough in itself  -- for they escaped the fall that Númenor suffered -- but for now it is enough to note that his words point to the persistence of their traditional ways. Which is not to say that their ways have been unchanged for thousands of years, or that he regards them as faultless (he does not), but that their ways and their language are old, more in touch perhaps with what Men were on their own. This may well include their mode of poetry. And the fact that Aragorn's poem about Eorl the Young, who died five centuries earlier, was also in alliterative meter points in the same direction. Indeed the song and the form have persisted long after the poet himself has been forgotten.

From about six hundred years before that comes another example of alliterative verse, and from a source we might not at first expect, given the strong association of this type of verse with Rohan:

'Thus spoke Malbeth the Seer, in the days of Arvedui, last king at Fornost,' said Aragorn: 

Over the land there lies a long shadow,
westward reaching wings of darkness.
The Tower trembles; to the tombs of kings
doom approaches. The Dead awaken;
for the hour is come for the oathbreakers;
at the Stone of Erech they shall stand again
and hear there a horn in the hills ringing.
Whose shall the horn be? Who shall call them
from the grey twilight, the forgotten people?
The heir of him to whom the oath they swore.
From the North shall he come, need shall drive him:
he shall pass the Door to the Paths of the Dead.

(RK 5.ii.781)

Now as Corey Olsen pointed out in discussing these verses in his Signum University course of Tolkien's Poetry, the Anglo-Saxons were not the only people in Medieval Europe to compose alliterative verse. We have many examples of it in Old Norse, Old High German, and Old Saxon. So we should not be surprised to find alliterative verse elsewhere in Middle-earth. But since different races within Middle-earth tend to compose in different meters -- Hobbits in iambic tetrameter, Elves in iambic heptameter, Tom Bombadil in trochaic heptameter -- may we not wonder if Tolkien means alliterative verse to represent a distinctly mannish verse form?

Relevant to this are some notes of Tolkien's, first referred to in Unfinished Tales (146) and later published in The War of the Jewels (311-315), which allow us to make a leap backward into the poetry of the First Age, to the oldest piece of mannish verse we know of, the Tale of the Children of Húrin. The speaker is Ælfwine:

But here I will tell as I may a Tale of Men that Dírhaval of the Havens made in the days of Eärendel long ago. Narn i Chîn Húrin he called it, the Tale of the Children of Húrin, which is the longest of all the lays that are now remembered in Eressëa, though it was made by a man.

For such was Dírhaval. He came of the House of Hador, it is said, and the glory and sorrow of that House was nearest to his heart. Dwelling at the Havens of Sirion, he gathered there all the tidings and lore that he could; for in the last days of Beleriand there came thither remnants out of all the countries, both Men and Elves: from Hithlum and Dorlómin, from Nargothrond and Doriath, from Gondolin and the realms of the Sons of Fëanor in the east. This lay was all that Dírhaval ever made, but it was prized by the Eldar, for Dírhaval used the Grey-elven tongue, in which he had great skill. He used that mode of Elvish verse which is called [minlamad thent/estent] which was of old proper to the narn; but though this verse mode is not unlike the verse of the English, I have rendered it in prose, judging my skill too small to be at once scop [i.e., poet] and walhstod [i.e., interpreter/translator]. 

(Jewels 312-13)

According to Patrick Wynne and Carl Hostetter (2000, 121-22), the elvish name of this verse form strongly suggests alliterative verse, and we know also of course that Tolkien wrote a long, but incomplete alliterative Lay of the Children of Húrin in the 1920s (Lays 3-130).  Should we then see some connection between this and the poem that Ælfwine translated? Christopher Tolkien admits that it's tempting to do so, but suggests that 'this may be delusory' (Jewels 314).  However that may be, we need no such link to see that Tolkien imagined alliterative verse as something composed by Men all the way back into the First Age. The connection to the House of Hador shared by Dírhaval and the Rohirrim is both striking and sad, since he neither crossed the sea to Númenor nor refused the call. For he was slain in the Third Kinslaying at the Havens of Sirion.

_______________________________

Works Consulted

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Wonder Invoked -- On the Uses of Enchantment

Trying to find my room on day one of Mythmoot

The theme of the most recent Mythmoot --  held just this past weekend in the Khazad-dûm-like corridors of the nevertheless comfortable and welcoming National Conference Center, where the fish entrees were always, fittingly, tasty --  was 'invoking wonder.' To be honest, my eye is a bit jaundiced when it comes to themes, which inspire me to think of (un-)motivational posters about the unstoppable power of one's dreams. But I am too much of a romantic to be anything but an easy prey to cynicism.

And yet I knew exactly where the fair folk of Mythmoot were coming from when they spoke of the importance of wonder and the first moments in their lives that they could recall experiencing it. For me that moment came in or just after September 1966, when I heard the words "Space, the final frontier...." for the first time.  There was something about the music and the way William Shatner said these words that moved me, that opened vistas of space and time for me the way the words "Eala Earendel, engla beorhtast" did for Tolkien, and "Balder the beautiful is dead, is dead" did for C. S. Lewis.

Many years later, in an interview after Kirk died in Star Trek: Generations, William Shatner said of the moment of Kirk's death on screen that Kirk "faced death as he had faced all those aliens, which was a mixture of awe and wonderment...." Shatner also said that it did not come through on the screen. It did for me. It was perfectly clear to me, just as the sense of awe and wonder with which Kirk approached "all those aliens" always had been. There were quite a few such moments over the years. There was "second star on the right and straight on till morning at the end of Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country; there was Kirk's "young, I feel young" at the end of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.

But for me perhaps the most evocative is that sine qua non of Shatner imitations, that speech both famous and infamous, as beloved as belittled, from the episode Return to Tomorrow:

For me, and for my memory, wonder began here. But it's come in a thousand different forms since then, in experiences as well as in books.

• That beautiful late summer afternoon over two decades ago, as our boat approached the harbor. The was setting sun before us, and the land's violet shadow reaching out towards us. It was drowsy and balmy and I was standing by the transom to enjoy the breeze. My eyes were unfocused but looking over the side at the swells we were soaring through. Then something else moved that wasn't the water. Beside us a humpback whale crested the surface to take a breath. I gasped. Somewhere in my mind the crew of The Pequod were shouting "she breaches", but all I could do was gape. By the time I was able to say anything to the others on board, who were all in the cabin, the whale was gone. 
• "And as if in answer there came from far away another note. Horns, horns, horns. In dark Mindolluin's sides they dimly echoed. Great horns of the North wildly blowing. Rohan had come at last." (If you don't recognize these words, you're surely reading the wrong blog.)
• Five years have past; five summers, with the length
  Of five long winters! and again I hear
  These waters, rolling from their mountain-springs
  With a soft inland murmur.—Once again
  Do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs,
  That on a wild secluded scene impress
  Thoughts of more deep seclusion; and connect
  The landscape with the quiet of the sky. (Wordsworth, Tintern Abbey)
• Every night in a chill Vermont winter, with the snow crunching beneath our feet as Argos and I walked past the dark wood, as the trees popped in the frigid air, and the luminous green curtain of the Northern Lights swayed and shimmered around us.
• The day I saw an eagle lazily pivot 360 degrees on a wingtip, as if he were doing it just because he could.
• "It may be laid down as a general rule that if a man begins to sing, no one will take any notice of his song except his fellow human beings. This is true even if his song is surpassingly beautiful. Other men may be in raptures at his skill, but the rest of creation is, by and large, unmoved. Perhaps a cat or a dog may look at him; his horse, if it is an exceptionally intelligent beast, may pause in cropping the grass, but that is the extent of it. But when the fairy sang, the whole world listened to him. Stephen felt clouds pause in their passing; he felt sleeping hills shift and murmur; he felt cold mists dance. He understood for the first time that the world is not dumb at all, but merely waiting for someone to speak a language it understands. In the fairy's song the earth recognized the names by which it called itself" (Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell).
• Whenever I discover the joy of silence, sitting by my window with a book, listening to the birds singing and the wind in the leaves of the oak trees.
• That day underwater in Bonaire, as I looked down at my buddy 30 feet below me, and watched his bubbles rise towards me; and when they came within a couple of feet, I realized I could see my reflection in their surface.
• The description of the history of the dragon's hoard in Beowulf.
• The adagio of BWV 1060, especially this version. 
• How even now, eleven years after she died, I can still feel the softness and warmth of my mother's hand in mine.
• The still, small voice that comes after the earthquake, the fire, and the whirlwind.
• The morning star.
• The Sea, 
• And the Sea,
• And the Sea.

I could easily keep going with this list, since the things on it, and a hundred other things like them, and still others of a joy or sorrow too private to tell, are the things that help me keep going. That's what wonder does. It beckons me onward and bids me hope. Following isn't always an easy thing for me. My eyes tend to look back and rest on the things that went wrong. By all rights I should have turned into a pillar of salt long ago. Yet maybe there's a place where wonder can help to balance past and future. It's a hope like this that has always made me so fond of one particular poem in The Lord of the Rings. Even as a child reading this book for the first time, and knowing nothing of what it's talking about, this poem about wonder moved me. Whether that makes my soul old or prophetic, I don't know. 

I sit beside the fire and think
of all that I have seen
of meadow-flowers and butterflies
in summers that have been; 

Of yellow leaves and gossamer
in autumns that there were,
with morning mist and silver sun
and wind upon my hair. 

I sit beside the fire and think
of how the world will be
when winter comes without a spring
that I shall ever see. 

For still there are so many things
that I have never seen:
in every wood in every spring
there is a different green. 

I sit beside the fire and think
of people long ago
and people who will see a world
that I shall never know. 

But all the while I sit and think
of times there were before,
I listen for returning feet
and voices at the door.

Guest Post -- Trish Lambert -- Snow White and Bilbo Baggins

Last week an article about Tolkien's dislike of Disney's Snow White appeared at Atlas Obscura. The article quoted my friend, Trish Lambert, who had written an article of her own on Tolkien and Disney. In response to the interest many have expressed, Trish has graciously agreed to post her original article here. Below you will find some prefatory comments Trish has written for this occasion, and then the paper itself. Aside from some site-related reformatting, I have made no other alterations. If you prefer a pdf of the original, you will find one here.

tom

____________

Walt Disney has been part of my world since I was three years old; J.R.R. Tolkien joined me when I was twelve. In a way, Disney was a “gateway” to Tolkien, because without him fantasy would not have been such a large part of my childhood reading. My relationship to the two is now akin to two grandfathers who are worlds apart from one another. I love them both deeply, but I also recognize that the two will never get along.

In the months prior to the release of the first of Peter Jackson’s Hobbit movies, my attention was caught by an interesting juxtaposition. Disney’s release of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, the first-ever feature-length animated film, and the first publication of Tolkien’s The Hobbit were quite close together in time. Not only that, but the portrayal the dwarves (I prefer Tolkien’s spelling) in both was a departure from the questionable (at best) or evil (at worst) nature of dwarves in traditional folklore. I wondered if there was a common reason why these two grandfathers of fantasy had made this change, and set about researching. The result is this paper.

The paper grew in the telling (apologies to Grampa Ronald for that), because there was no way to avoid looking at the relationship (or lack of same) between the two men. They were contemporaries, sharing the same world events and, to some extent, the same culture, and each made his own indelible mark on the fantasy genre. Did they know each other? Did they converse in any way? What did they think of each other? Those questions got included in my research and answered in the paper.

It may be my imagination, but in the years I’ve rubbed elbows with other Tolkien scholars, it has seemed to me that the “D” word is verboten in academic conversations about the professor and his works. I therefore kept mum after writing this one paper, but my fascination lingers. My dream is to publish a book length study of Disney, Tolkien and the impact they have had on the fantasy genre that we know today. “If you can dream it, you can do it,” Grampa Walt said. So that book may indeed become a reality someday!

SNOW WHITE AND BILBO BAGGINS

Divergences and Convergences between Disney and Tolkien

Patricia Lambert

In September 1937, London publishing house Allen & Unwin released a children’s book by an obscure Oxford professor; in December 1937, Walt Disney, world famous for his animated shorts films, released the first full length animated feature ever made. The Hobbit proved so popular that a second printing had to be rushed through before Christmas; Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was a runaway success from the first day. The princess and the hobbit crossed the Atlantic Ocean in opposite directions in 1938; the film debuted in London in February of that year (with countrywide release in September), and Houghton Mifflin published the U.S. edition of The Hobbit in September.

Snow White and The Hobbit were launched close together in time, both emphasized dwarfs (though Bilbo Baggins’ dwarves are very different from the dwarfs of Snow White), and both creators have had significant impact on the fantasy genre over the past 75 years. What was Tolkien’s opinion of Disney? Disney’s of Tolkien? Was the common dwarf element just a coincidence or did one story impact the other? Was there ever a possibility that these two “magic makers” would team up?

This paper considers Disney and Tolkien, the approach each took as creators of fantasy stories, the impact of the environment in which each story was created, and a range of comments by Disney, Tolkien, scholars, and the media to arrive at a clearer understanding of how (or if) Snow White, Bilbo Baggins, and their creators affected one other.

The Moviemaker and the Scholar

Can two men appear more different than Walt Disney and J.R.R. Tolkien? In the first, we see a U.S. stereotype, a 20th century Horatio Algeresque hero who achieved The American Dream. In the second, we see a British stereotype: the introverted, introspective, tweeded Oxford don. Disney was an ambitious entrepreneur who was intent on (and who succeeded in) making a lasting mark on the world. Tolkien led "the ordinary unremarkable life led by countless other scholars; a life of academic brilliance, certainly, but only in a very narrow professional field that is really of little interest to laymen" (Carpenter 118); he was a “stodgy old Oxford don” who took mythology and fantasy very seriously and who never aspired to be, though he became, “one of the most important authors of the twentieth century” (Olsen).

The processes by which Snow White and her dwarfs and Bilbo and his dwarves came to life are also quite different. Disney's sub-creative process was plural where Tolkien's was mainly solitary.1 The film was collaborative; in its MLA citation, there are 28 “authors” listed besides Disney (DVD).2 The process of “fairy tale to screen” was probably comparable to Peter Jackson’s in translating Tolkien's works into movies—characterized by a good team and a strong visionary leader. Thomas offers several examples of the group decision making process around various Snow White story elements (68-74).

At the other end of the spectrum, most of Tolkien’s sub-creative activities took place in solitude, though he did share his drafts as they took shape with trusted associates, like members of the Inklings. The “mutual influence and mutual interdependence” (Glyer 224) among the Inklings could be considered a collaboration of sorts, but of small impact on Tolkiens’s final result compared to the group impact on Disney’s process.

The Princess and the Hobbit

How do the stories themselves compare? Do they share similar roots? What influenced the development of each? 

"Once upon a time..."

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was basically a business venture. Though Disney and his brother and partner, Roy, had pulled themselves from the brink of a second bankruptcy with Mickey Mouse, the arrival of “talkies” and double features at America's movie houses was eroding demand for the cartoon shorts whose popularity had made the studio famous (Mouse & Man). The company needed a new direction, and Disney decided that production of a full length animated film was the right first step. He announced this intention to the world in 1934.

Disney’s choice of Snow White was from an experience as a teenager, when he saw the silent movie Snow White starring Marguerite Clark; it “remained the most vivid memory of his moviegoing childhood” (Thomas 65).

Themes and concepts for Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs come from a source parallel to Tolkien’s Cauldron of Story—in Disney’s case, more accurately described as Pressure Cooker of Film. This description fits the Moviemaker’s focus on audience tastes for story line and his desire to “display what he [could] do as an animator with the latest technological and artistic developments” (Zipes 350). The Pressure Cooker was all about the 20th century, serving up popular ingredients that were folded into the movie; it “follows the pattern of the romantic comedies that were common in Hollywood in the early 1930s…[and] also expressed aspects of other genres…such as the serious romance film and the screwball comedy” (Wright).

This short synopsis offers examples of how Disney fit the film into the movie market of the time and how the story line matches or departs from the original Grimm fairy tale (DVD):

The opening credits and accompanying string-driven music match the style of live action movies of the 1930s. The story is shortened from the Grimms' tale in several places. It starts immediately with the stepmother queen (bearing a strong resemblance to Joan Crawford) and her magic mirror. In less than five minutes, we know that the queen has her sights set on doing away with Snow White.

We meet Snow White, resembling Cinderella in her ragged clothes and menial labor

(another departure from Grimm), cheerfully going about her tasks. She stops at a wishing well and sings to an audience of doves. The Prince, hearing the song, climbs over the wall in Erroll Flynn fashion and then serenades the princess Nelson Eddy-style, to which she responds with her best Jeannette McDonald. This is also a departure from the original; in the Grimm's tale, prince and princess do not meet until the end.

The story returns to the Grimm path from there for a bit, with Snow White fleeing from the huntsman (who cannot bring himself to kill her as ordered by the Queen) and into a dark and terrifying wood, with eyes everywhere and branches grabbing at her. Veering away from Grimm and into what would become a Disney signature story element, she recovers when she finds the eyes are those of friendly woodland creatures and celebrates with a song (reminiscent of Fred Astaire/Ginger Rogers movies). The cuddly animals lead her to a small cottage which (unlike the Grimm story) is a terrible mess. She directs the animals(in a voice somewhere between Betty Boop and Shirley Temple) to clean up, and sings the first of the signature songs of the movie ("Whistle While You Work"). Vignettes reminiscent of Disney's short creature cartoons characterize the house cleaning session as animals dust, clean, and launder with comic consequences. 

We are introduced to the dwarfs at work in their mine; slapstick abounds as the second signature song is introduced (Hi Ho!). By the time this scene fades we are aware of the personalities and characteristics of each of the seven dwarfs.

The film now returns a bit closer to Grimm, as Snow White falls asleep across several of the dwarfs' beds. This is where they find her upon arriving home (after a Keystone Kops-style entry). Grimm is then left behind entirely as scenes with more slapstick and Marx Brothers' style comedy follow, including music and dancing, culminating with Snow White singing the third signature song ("Someday My Prince Will Come").

Meanwhile, back at the castle, the Queen discovers that the woodsman didn't do as commanded and that Snow White still lives. She transforms into a hag, creates a poison apple (shortening the Grimm tale again by eliminating the poisoned hair comb and bodice of the original story), and sets off to kill Snow White herself. She succeeds in doing so (she believes), but the woodland creatures have warned the dwarfs, who speed toward home as quickly as possible. The witch is killed when she tries to kill the dwarfs (a departure from Grimm, where she dies when forced to dance in red hot iron shoes at the princess's wedding).

The dwarfs entomb Snow White in a clear casket, which is how the Prince finds her. Instead of carrying her away as in the original tale, where an in-transit accident revives Snow White by dislodging the poison apple from her throat, the princess is revived by true love's first kiss, “an original Disney motif” (Wright). She says goodbye to the dwarfs and goes away with the prince to his beautiful castle.

"In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit..."

In contrast to Disney, Tolkien was “not somebody who [was] really writing for an audience, with

a sense of an audience, for most of his life” (Olsen). The Hobbit was not originally intended for publication; in fact, Tolkien may never have finished the book if not for friendly intervention. His impetus for writing it had been his sons’ desire for stories, but “the boys were growing up and no longer asked for the ‘Winter Reads,’ so there was no reason why The Hobbit should ever be finished.” It was only because of a family friend (Elaine Griffiths) who knew someone (Susan Dagnall) who worked at Allen & Unwin that the manuscript left Tolkien’s study; further, it was because 10-year-old Rayner Unwin gave it a positive review (Carpenter 183-84).

Tolkien told Stanley Unwin that “Mr. Baggins began as a comic tale among conventional and inconsistent Grimms’ fairy-tale dwarves” (Letters 19). Carpenter believes that work on The Hobbit started “in 1930 or 31…certainly there was a completed typescript in existence (lacking only the final chapters) in time for it to be shown to C.S. Lewis late in 1932” (181). Though Tolkien was reluctant to point to specific influences in his writing, ladlings from the Cauldron of Story certainly influenced The Hobbit. There are servings from the Elder Edda in the names of the dwarves (Völuspá), the conversation with Smaug (Fáfnismál), and the “tribes of orcs” and “Misty Mountains” (Skirnismál) (Shippey 345). Tolkien claimed Beowulf “among my most valued sources; though it was not consciously present to the mind in the process of writing” and wrote that The Hobbit is “derived from (previously digested) epic, mythology, and fairy-story” (Letters #25).

The nature of the “conventional and inconsistent Grimms’ fairy-tale dwarves” in The Hobbit is of particular interest in the context of this paper. Tolkien’s choice to make the dwarves of Bilbo Baggins into “good guys” is an unsolved mystery. Their portrayal is a departure from dwarf appearances in Tolkien's writings to date. Rateliff notes that until The Hobbit, Tolkien’s dwarves had "always been portrayed as an evil people: allies of goblins, mercenaries of Morgoth, pillagers of one of the great Elven kingdoms," and that this treatment aligns with the dwarf portrayals in the old legends from which Tolkien ladled much of his material. Rateliff goes on to observe that treating dwarves as heroes "is nothing short of amazing: no less surprising than if a company of goblin wolf-riders had ridden up to Bag-End seeking a really first-class burglar" (76).  

Nothing for Tolkien, Disdain for Disney

What about the men themselves? Were they aware of one another, and, if so, did they voice any opinions?

While there is no evidence that Disney was aware of Tolkien specifically,3 he generally appears to have had no use for scholars. When asked about his art by Aldous Huxley, his response was dismissive: “Art ?...I looked up the definition once, but I've forgotten what it is…you got to watch out for the boys with the dramatic sense and no sense of humor or they'll go arty on you…we just make a picture and then you professors come along and tell us what we do” (Walt & the Professors).

While Disney was apparently oblivious to Tolkien in the 1930s, Tolkien seems to have been painfully aware of Disney. Seven months before the US release of Snow White (nine months before the UK release), he voiced his “heartfelt loathing” of the works of Disney (Letters #13). This disdain may have been based on familiarity with the Moviemaker’s animated shorts; it also may have had roots in Disney’s aggressive promotion of the film in the UK. Between numerous newspaper and magazine articles about the film and a staggering range of tie-in merchandise that filled the shops (Kuhn), Tolkien was probably unable to ignore the looming figure of the Moviemaker as he approached the fantasy world.4

Disney was probably a topic of conversation for the Inklings in the late 1930s (and beyond). Early in 1939, a year after the film’s UK premier in London, C.S. Lewis viewed Snow White with Tolkien, who considered the heroine “to be beautiful but dislike[d] the…treatment of the dwarfs” (Companion I 224). Tolkien was mild in his criticism compared to Lewis, who had already seen the film once before with his brother Warren.5 Characteristically outspoken, Lewis noted “good originality” in the portrayal of the evil queen and “bad originality in the bloated, drunken, low comedy faces of the dwarfs. Neither the wisdom, the avarice, nor the earthiness of true dwarfs were there, but an imbecility of arbitrary invention” (Companion II 210).6

The full collection of available references made by Tolkien to Disney is quite short. 7 The chronological list of comments in available publications is comprised of:

1937: To C.A. Furth at Allen & Unwin about illustrations for the American edition of The Hobbit: "It might be advisable, rather than lose the American interest, to let the Americans do what seems good to them -- as long as it was possible (I should like to add) to veto anything from or influenced by the Disney studios (for all whose works I have a heartfelt loathing)." (Letters #13)

1946 : Emendations to On Fairy-Stories “include the removal of a disparaging footnote reference to ‘the work of Disney,’ criticized for uniting ‘beautiful external detail with inner vulgarity’” (OFS 136).

1946: To Stanley Unwin regarding a German translation of The Hobbit: “He has sent me some illustrations…which despite certain merits…are I fear too “Disnified”… Bilbo with a dribbling nose, and Gandalf as a figure of vulgar fun rather than the Odinic wanderer that I think of…” (Letters #106)

1961: Responding to a letter from his aunt in which she praised The Pied Piper Tolkien wrote, “I am sorry about The Pied Piper. I loathe it. God help the children! I would as soon give them crude and vulgar plastic toys. Which of course they will play with, to the ruin of their taste. Terrible presage of the most vulgar elements of Disney” (Letters #234).

1964: Tolkien writes of Disney in a letter: “...I recognize his talent, but it has always seemed to me hopelessly corrupted. Though in most of the 'pictures' proceeding from his studios there are admirable or charming passages, the effect of all of them is to me disgusting. Some have given me nausea...” (Sotheby’s). 8 9

The Heart of the Matter

Loathing, vulgarity, corruption, disgust, nausea—these are strong words.10 Tolkien’s anti-Disney position, which remained consistent through the years, raises a new question which drives to the heart of the matter from Tolkien’s perspective: Why did Disney’s work, beginning with Snow White, prompt such strong reactions in the Scholar?

On Fairy-Stories, the “manifesto in which [Tolkien] declared his particular concept of what fantasy is and how it ought to work,” provides some insight into the answer (OFS 9). Snow White (and virtually all of Disney’s subsequent fairy tale adaptations) is a significant departure from the story upon which the studio advertisements say it is based. In addition to the elimination or modification of original story elements, the movie incorporates other elements that have nothing to do with the plot (added to appeal to moviegoers’ tastes). The changes are much more significant than the differences (that Tolkien criticizes) between Perrault’s Red Riding Hood and re-told versions of the tale (OFS 39). Tolkien could easily be referring to Disney when he says, “The old stories are mollified or bowdlerized…the imitations are often merely silly (OFS 59).”

Turning literature into Drama is also problematic, says Tolkien: “the characters, and even the scenes, are in Drama not imagined but actually beheld” (OFS 63). Though he is referring to live, human-acted drama here, his published comments about Disney infer that he believed that the Moviemaker was also attempting “a kind of bogus…magic” by focusing his movie machine on traditional fairy-tales.11

In light of the date it was prepared and delivered and current events, the Andrew Lang lecture itself could be a sort of direct commentary by Tolkien on Disney. According to Anderson and Flieger, the lecture that eventually became the essay was delivered in March of 1939 and was“probably written between December 1938 and March 1939” (122). Though a date is notspecified, Scull and Hammond report that Tolkien saw Snow White in Lewis’s company “early in 1939” (Companion I 224). Contemporary news reports of the lecture make no mention of Disney (OFS 161-69). In light of the unprecedented promotion and merchandising tie-ins that occurred in Great Britain in the months prior to (and continuing after) the release of Snow White in the UK, the amount of post-release attention given to the Moviemaker and the princess by the media (Kuhn), and the direct correlation between the movie and the topic of Tolkien’s lecture, Tolkien’s choice to omit any reference to Disney or cinematic portrayals of fairy-stories in general may have been a negative comment—perhaps that the Moviemaker and his vulgar film were too far beneath the notice of lecturer and audience to be acknowledged.

Conclusion

The subtitle of this paper refers to “divergences and convergences” between Walt Disney and J.R.R. Tolkien. In spite of commonalities of dates and dwarfs, research and analysis of information surrounding these two men and their landmark creations point to far more divergence than convergence. The apparent differences between the Moviemaker and the Scholar are in fact quite real.

The questions posed in the introduction can now be answered with a higher degree of clarity:

• What was Tolkien’s opinion of Disney? Tolkien considered Disney’s work “vulgar,” and continued to hold (and perhaps strengthened) this opinion through the years.

• Disney’s of Tolkien? There is no evidence that Disney personally knew or corresponded with or about Tolkien. He likely became aware of Tolkien as someone whose works might be adapted to film, but as mentioned in end note 9, the studio decided that adaptation of The Lord of the Rings would be too costly.

• Was the common dwarf element just a coincidence or did one story impact the other? With the two works having originated in widely different circumstances and times, and in spite of the change of the nature of Tolkien’s dwarves from previous writings, the presence of dwarfs as central characters in both works can only be coincidental.

• Was there ever a possibility that these two “magic makers” would team up? It is highly unlikely that Tolkien would ever have agreed to work with Disney, even if the studio hadshown interest in adapting his works to film. Disney, with his Pressure Cooker of Film, his corruption of the old tales, and his eye on progress and profit was likely far too much for Tolkien to stomach.

Disney appears to have demonstrated all the worst aspects of storytelling for Tolkien, and Tolkien was surely too “arty” and professorial for Disney. Still, Snow White and Bilbo Baggins both celebrated their 75th birthdays in 2012, and the princess and the hobbit, along with their creators, will be celebrated around the world in various ways. But while the Moviemaker and the Scholar each made a unique and lasting contribution to the fantasy genre, there is a chasm between them that will probably always be difficult (if not impossible) to cross.

1 The concept of sub-creation is uniquely Tolkien’s, described by Anderson and Flieger as “the creative interaction of human imagination and human language that in [Tolkien’s] opinion gives rise to myth” (OFS 11). This is probably considered by many to be far beyond Disney’s creative process, but for simplicity’s sake, I will refer to both processes as “sub-creative.”

2 A 1942 Time Magazine article quotes Disney: “Do you know how long it would have taken one man to make [Snow White]? I figured it out —just 250 years” (Walt & the Professors).

3 An Internet hoax created the impression that Disney and Tolkien were friends. “The Tale of Lossiel” is a detailed piece that claims to be a piece to be included in Volume XIII of History of Middle-earth lent to the web page’s author by Christopher Tolkien. It refers to a note scribbled by Tolkien in the margin that said, “Lent to Walt 2/13/37.” The manuscript continues as if written by Christopher, “The identity of Walt is unknown, but a loose slip found among my father's papers, torn from an Oxford lecture list for Trinity term 1939, reads (in a large and hasty scrawl) Cut Walt out of will!!!!!!” (Hicklin). I obtained a photocopy of Tolkien’s last will and testament, and, not surprisingly, neither Disney nor any other entity outside the Tolkien family is named in relation to Tolkien’s legendarium.

4 Priscilla Tolkien was eight years old at this time, and may have also been influenced by the pre-Snow White PR and merchandising that blanketed the UK. If so, Professor Tolkien may have been unable to escape Disney even in his own study.

5 Warren Lewis considered the film “first rate…It was well worth going to if only for the scene of the spring ceaning of the dwarfs’ house” (CSL Biography 160).

6 Lewis later populated Narnia with dwarfs that displayed the “right” characteristics, among whom were the black dwaarf who served the White Witch in The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe, Trumpkin the red dwarf in Prince Caspian, and the black dwarfs who end up in a sort of limbo in The Last Battle.

7 Given the ubiquity of Disney’s works from the 1930s onward, and the fact that so many animated features wereabout Disney’s Faerie as defined by the Pressure Cooker of Film, it is surprising that there are so few commentsfrom Tolkien on record. There are no references to Disney at all in Carpenter’s biography and only four references in The Letters of JRRT. It is possible that Humphrey Carpenter, Christopher Tolkien, and other family members with access to the professor’s papers have chosen not to make additional commentary public because of its highly negative content.

8 The letter was sold at auction by Sotheby's London in 2001 for £17,500. As a point of interest, Tolkien also directly criticizes Disney as a person, saying that the Moviemaker is “simply a cheat: willing and even eager to defraud the less experienced by trickery sufficiently 'legal' to keep him out of jail…I should not have given any proposal from Disney any consideration at all. I am not all that poor..." Though the basis upon which Tolkien formed this opinion is not known for certain, there is speculation that it came from the loud and widespread complaints of P.L. Travers. Travers, author of the Mary Poppins books, felt that she had been tricked by Disney into giving him authorization to make a movie based on her books and then left out of the decision making process during its filming (Flanagan). The Disney film was released in 1964, which coincides with the period of most vehement complaining by Travers as well as the year Tolkien penned this letter.

9 As an interesting side note, in 1966 Joy Hill at Allen & Unwin, responsible for promoting Tolkien to the media, sent The Lord of the Rings to Disney Studios for consideration as a film adaptation, presumably without Tolkien’s knowledge or consent. The studio declined on the basis of the high cost to make such a film (Companion II 210).

10 Lewis was in agreement with Tolkien. In a letter to BBC producer Lance Sieveking, Lewis says “…if only Disney did not combine so much vulgarity with his genius!” (Doctorow). In a conversation with Jane Douglass, he observed, “Too bad we didn't know Walt Disney before he was spoiled, isn't it?” (An Enduring Friendship). Specific to Snow White, Lewis concluded a commentary on the film by saying, “What might have come of it if the man had been educated -- or even brought up in a decent society?” (Collected Letters 242).

11 Some modern-day scholars have offered critique of Disney worthy of the Scholar. For example, Stone echoes Tolkien’s criticism of “flower-fairies and fluttering sprites” (OFS 29) by criticizing Disney’s “portrayal of a cloying fantasy world filled with cute little beings existing among pretty flowers and singing animals” (44).  Though much more forthright, Curry is reminiscent of Tolkien’s letter to his aunt (above): “Disney’s images violently occupy the mind, gradually destroying the child’s imaginative ability to visualize for him/herself” (134).

Works Cited

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Carpenter, Humphrey. J.R.R. Tolkien: A Biography. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2000. Print.

"Cinema: Mouse & Man." Time 27 Dec. 1937. Web. 22 Mar. 2012. http://www.time.com/time/subscri ber/pri ntout/0,8816,758747,00.html>.

Curry, Patrick. Defending Middle-earth: Tolkien, Myth and Modernity. New York: St. Martin's, 1997. Print.

Doctorow, Cory. "CS Lewis: Don't Let Disney Make Narnia! Live Action Aslan Is "blasphemy"" Boing Boing. 29 Nov. 2005. Web. 21 Apr. 2012. <http://boingboing.net/2005/11/29/cs-lewis-dont-let-di.html>.

Douglass, Jane. "An Enduring Friendship." The New York C.S. Lewis Society Bulletin 7 (1970). Print.

Flanagan, Caitlin. "Becoming Mary Poppins." New Yorker 19 Dec. 2005. NewYorker.com. Web. 19 Apr. 2010. <http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2005/12/19/051219fa_fact1?currentPage=all>.

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Rateliff, John D. The History of the Hobbit: Mr Baggins. London: HarperCollins, 2007.

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Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2006.

Scull, Christina, and Wayne G. Hammond. The J.R.R. Tolkien Companion & Guide: Reader's Guide. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2006.

Shippey, Thomas Alan. The Road to Middle-Earth. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2003.

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. By Walt Disney, David Hand, Perce Pearce, Larry Morey, William Cottrell, Wilfred Jackson, Ben Sharpsteen, Hamilton S. Luske, Vladimir Tytla, Fred Moore, Norm Ferguson, Ted Sears, Otto Englander, Earl Hurd, Dorothy Ann Blank, Richard Creedon, Dick Rickard, Maris Merrill De, Webb Smith, Albert Hurter, Joe Grant, Frank Churchill, Leigh Harline, Paul J. Smith, Eric Larson, James Algar, Al Eugster, Grim Natwick, and Jimmie Culhane. Distributed by Buena Vista Film Distribution Co., 1937. DVD.

Snow White. Prod. H. Lyman Broening. Dir. J. Searle Dawley. Perf. Marguerite Clark, Dorothy Cumming. Famous Players Film Company, 1916.

Stone, Kay. "Things Walt Disney Never Told Us." Journal of American Folklore 88.347 (1975): 42-50.

Thomas, Bob. Disney's Art of Animation: From Mickey Mouse to Beauty and the Beast. New York: Hyperion, 1991.

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Tolkien, J. R. R. The Hobbit, Or, There and Back Again,. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1966.

Tolkien, J. R. R. The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien: A Selection. Ed. Humphrey Carpenter and Christopher- Tolkien. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2000.

Tolkien, J. R. R. Tolkien on Fairy-stories. Ed. Douglas A. Anderson and Verlyn Flieger. London: HarperCollins, 2008.

Wilson, A. N. C.S. Lewis: A Biography. New York: Norton, 1990.

Wright, Terri Martin. "Romancing the Tale: Walt Disney's Adaptation of the Grimms' “Snow White”." Journal of Popular Film and Television 25.3 (1997): 98-108. Taylor & Francis Online. 2 Apr. 2010. Web. 31 Mar. 2012. <http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/vjpf20>.

Zipes, Jack. "Breaking the Disney Spell." Fairy Tale as Myth/myth as Fairy Tale. Lexington: University of Kentucky, 1994. 72-95.

Abraham, Wilfred, and John at the Pyre of Denethor (RK 5.vii.850-57)

The Parable of the Young Man and the Old

So Abram rose, and clave the wood, and went,
And took the fire with him, and a knife.
And as they sojourned both of them together,
Isaac the first-born spake and said, My Father,
Behold the preparations, fire and iron,
But where the lamb for this burnt-offering?
Then Abram bound the youth with belts and straps,
and builded parapets and trenches there,
And stretchèd forth the knife to slay his son.
When lo! an angel called him out of heaven,
Saying, Lay not thy hand upon the lad,
Neither do anything to him. Behold,
A ram, caught in a thicket by its horns;
Offer the Ram of Pride instead of him. 

But the old man would not so, but slew his son,
And half the seed of Europe, one by one.

In discussing Faramir during his recent course at Signum University, 'Tolkien's Wars and Middle-earth', John Garth astutely noted the parallels between Faramir's relationship with his father in The Pyre of Denethor (RK 5.vii).850-57 and Isaac's relationship with Abraham in Wilfred Owen's The Parable of the Young Man and the Old, which retells the story of Genesis 22:1-18.¹  Just as Owen has in this poem mythologized the distrust which the young soldiers on the Western Front often felt for their older superiors who sacrificed them needlessly, as they saw it, so, too, Tolkien: Denethor first sends his son on a hopeless mission from which he returns near death, and then he attempts to burn him alive on the funeral pyre on which he means to kill himself. Thus, as is often the case, we may see Tolkien incorporating and transforming his experience of World War One in his literary works.

This is an area of study too long neglected, but which has lately begun to receive proper attention, thanks to works like Garth's Tolkien and the Great War: the Threshold of Middle-earth, and this year's Baptism of Fire: the Birth of the Modern British Fantastic in World War I, edited by Janet Brennan Croft. And it is a mark of just how much study needs to be done that writers such as Owen and Tolkien, whom most readers and critics would consider worlds apart, can have so similar a response to the war. Indeed it is tempting to ask if Tolkien was acquainted with Owen's poem, but this may be impossible to answer, and the story of Abraham and Isaac was -- and is -- one of the best known in the Bible. All we can say with certainty is that both men would have known the story in Genesis.

Yet Tolkien's vision is as multifarious as C. S. Lewis said it was.  If we set aside the links between Tolkien, World War One, and the story (I nearly said 'the parable') of Denethor and Faramir, there's still more to see.  For Tolkien recasts elements of the tale of Abraham and Isaac to tell a story of his own in The Pyre of Denethor, one about fathers and sons and pride and despair, just as Genesis tells of humility and faith. While several sets of fathers and sons appear in The Lord of the Rings -- Glóin and Gimli; Elrond, Elladan and Elrohir; Beregond and Bergil; Sam and the Gaffer -- only in this case do both father and son play prominent and critical roles in the story. Nor can we ignore Boromir in this connection, since even dead he is part of the dynamic of sacrifice acted out by Denethor and Faramir.

First let us have a look at Genesis 22:1-18 (KJV):

22 And it came to pass after these things, that God did tempt Abraham, and said unto him, Abraham: and he said, Behold, here I am.  

2 And he said, Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of.  

3 And Abraham rose up early in the morning, and saddled his ass, and took two of his young men with him, and Isaac his son, and clave the wood for the burnt offering, and rose up, and went unto the place of which God had told him.  

4 Then on the third day Abraham lifted up his eyes, and saw the place afar off. 

5 And Abraham said unto his young men, Abide ye here with the ass; and I and the lad will go yonder and worship, and come again to you.  

6 And Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering, and laid it upon Isaac his son; and he took the fire in his hand, and a knife; and they went both of them together. 

7 And Isaac spake unto Abraham his father, and said, My father: and he said, Here am I, my son. And he said, Behold the fire and the wood: but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?  

8 And Abraham said, My son, God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering: so they went both of them together.  

9 And they came to the place which God had told him of; and Abraham built an altar there, and laid the wood in order, and bound Isaac his son, and laid him on the altar upon the wood.  

10 And Abraham stretched forth his hand, and took the knife to slay his son. 

11 And the angel of the Lord called unto him out of heaven, and said, Abraham, Abraham: and he said, Here am I.  

12 And he said, Lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither do thou any thing unto him: for now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son from me.  

13 And Abraham lifted up his eyes, and looked, and behold behind him a ram caught in a thicket by his horns: and Abraham went and took the ram, and offered him up for a burnt offering in the stead of his son.  

14 And Abraham called the name of that place Jehovahjireh: as it is said to this day, In the mount of the Lord it shall be seen.  

15 And the angel of the Lord called unto Abraham out of heaven the second time,  

16 And said, By myself have I sworn, saith the Lord, for because thou hast done this thing, and hast not withheld thy son, thine only son:  

17 That in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the sea shore; and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies;  

18 And in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed; because thou hast obeyed my voice.

Abraham acts out of faith. When the Lord tells him to sacrifice his son, he does not question or balk. He accepts that the Lord is the Lord, and that obedience is his due. In fact we see faith in operation throughout the story, as Abraham's men and his son obey him without question.  Nor does the story tell us that Isaac resisted being bound.  He submits to his father's authority just as Abraham did to God's. The one hint we get that Abraham is not some entirely emotionless monster is his response to Isaac, that 'God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering.' This statement is true of course (both presently and with prophetic irony), but it is also a prevarication. Abraham will not tell Isaac that he is to be the lamb.

Now it might seem that nothing in The Pyre of Denethor or the story leading up to it matches God's command to sacrifice Isaac, but that is not quite so. For after Denethor has dispatched Faramir on a fruitless errand against all advice (RK 5.iv.816) --  an act he characterizes as 'spending even my sons', which is the mark of 'all great lords' (RK 5.iv.818) --  Faramir is lucky to return alive:

The Prince Imrahil brought Faramir to the White Tower, and he said: 'Your son has returned, lord, after great deeds, and he told all that he had seen.' But Denethor rose and looked on the face of his son and was silent. Then he bade them make a bed in the chamber and lay Faramir upon it and depart. But he himself went up alone into the secret room under the summit of the Tower; and many who looked up thither at that time saw a pale light that gleamed and flickered from the narrow windows for a while, and then flashed and went out. And when Denethor descended again he went to Faramir and sat beside him without speaking, but the face of the Lord was grey, more deathlike than his son's. 

(RK 5.iv.821; cf. vii.856-57)

As we later learn, Denethor has just looked into the palantír of Minas Tirith, not for the first time, and been deceived by Sauron into abandoning all hope of victory or survival (RK 5.vii.856).  Add to this the bitter conflict within him over the way he has 'spent' his sons (RK 5.1.754-56; iv.812-13, 816-17, 824), and his mind is overthrown. Once all that he values seems lost -- city, sons, stewardship -- it does not matter that Faramir is not yet dead.

Messengers came again to the chamber in the White Tower, and Pippin let them enter, for they were urgent. Denethor turned his head slowly from Faramir's face, and looked at them silently. 

'The first circle of the City is burning, lord,' they said. 'What are your commands? You are still the Lord and Steward. Not all will follow Mithrandir. Men are flying from the walls and leaving them unmanned.' 

'Why? Why do the fools fly?' said Denethor. 'Better to burn sooner than late, for burn we must. Go back to your bonfire! And I? I will go now to my pyre. To my pyre! No tomb for Denethor and Faramir. No tomb! No long slow sleep of death embalmed. We will burn like heathen kings before ever a ship sailed hither from the West. The West has failed. Go back and burn!' 

The messengers without bow or answer turned and fled.  

(RK 5.iv.825)

Gandalf, when informed of Denethor's actions, immediately comments: 'Even in the heart of our stronghold the Enemy has the power to strike us: for his will it is that is at work' (RK 5.vii.850), a sentiment he repeats or hints at no fewer than five more times in this short chapter (RK 5.vii,851, 853, 854-55, 856 [twice]). So it would seem that Sauron plays the same role here as God does in Genesis 22. Let me be clear about this.  I am not saying that Sauron told Denethor in so many words to burn himself and Faramir to death.  I don't think that's what Gandalf is saying either.

Rather, Sauron uses Denethor's pride and despair to destroy him by deceiving him about what he is seeing.  As with the temptation of the Ring, the creation of Sauron's malice and subtlety, the details will work themselves out in accordance with the stature of the person tempted: Gandalf and pity, Boromir and victory, Galadriel and rule, Sam and a garden, Gollum and murder. So, unlike God in Genesis 22, Sauron does not issue a specific command, but like him he sets events in motion.

Tolkien, moreover, was well aware that 'to tempt' is, fundamentally, 'to test,' even if it has acquired the predominant meaning 'to attempt to lure into evil.' And it is precisely as a test that he construes the act of looking into a palantír. Once Gandalf learns that Sauron has one of the seeing stones, he speaks of an encounter with him through the stones in just that way:

'Maybe, I have been saved by [Pippin] from a grave blunder. I had considered whether or not to probe this Stone myself to find its uses. Had I done so, I should have been revealed to [Sauron] myself. I am not ready for such a trial, if indeed I shall ever be so. But even if I found the power to withdraw myself, it would be disastrous for him to see me....' 

(TT 3.xi.595, emphasis mine)

and

'Easy it is now to guess how quickly the roving eye of Saruman was trapped and held; and how ever since he has been persuaded from afar, and daunted when persuasion would not serve. The biter bit, the hawk under the eagle's foot, the spider in a steel web! How long, I wonder, has he been constrained to come often to his glass for inspection and instruction, and the Orthanc-stone so bent towards Barad-dur that, if any save a will of adamant now looks into it, it will bear his mind and sight swiftly thither? And how it draws one to itself! Have I not felt it? Even now my heart desires to test my will upon it, to see if I could not wrench it from him and turn it where I would...' 

(TT 3.xi.598, emphasis mine)

In fact the use of a palantir is always portrayed as a struggle against Sauron. Pippin struggles to break free and fails (TT 3.ix.592). Saruman is 'trapped and held,' 'persuaded', 'daunted,' and 'constrained,' all of which suggest his attempts to resist. Gandalf fears to hazard such a trial. Only Aragorn, has both the right to the stone and the 'will of adamant' that allows him to prevail -- 'barely' but completely -- in such a struggle (RK 5.ii.780).  Denethor, perhaps because he lacks the right to use the stone, which makes it folly for him to try, seems to himself to have won the contest of wills with Sauron, but the Dark Lord is deceiving him by influencing what he sees (RK 5.vii.856). Like Saruman, Denethor's wisdom fails. His pride and despair work against each other to counter his strength and undermine his reason.  Thus he fails the test, just as Abraham, through faith and humility, passed it. And in failing the test Denethor causes unnecessary death -- his own not least -- and strife among his own, in contrast to the unity and obedience that prevails among those who follow Abraham.

Both Abraham and Denethor, moreover, receive visits from messengers.  Denethor in fact receives two such visits, first by his own men who seek to recall him to his duty: 'What are your commands? You are still the Lord and Steward' (RK 5.iv.825).  His mad response so terrifies them that 'without bow or answer they turned and fled.' Their failure to bow signifies the breakdown of the bonds between them, in much the same way as Beregond's subsequent choice to forsake his post and draw his sword to protect the helpless Faramir (RK 5.iv. 826-27; vii.850-52, 854-55).

The second messenger is of course Gandalf -- all of the Istari 'were messengers sent to contest the power of Sauron' (RK B 1084) -- and like the 'angel of the Lord' in Genesis he comes explicitly to stop the 'burnt offering' about to be kindled.² And every word of Gandalf's conversation with Denethor underlines the fact that, unlike Abraham, Denethor had no 'authority' to do as he was doing. Rather he was acting out of pride and despair, like 'the heathen kings, under the domination of the Dark Power' (RK 5.vii.851-54). Gandalf's 'authority is not given to you' (by whom?) and his reference to 'heathen' kings are rare suggestions of supernatural authority in The Lord of the Rings, which the transition to a discussion of the earthly power of the Steward and the return of the King emphasizes by contrast.

Nor is Tolkien any stranger to making use of this passage in Genesis, but adapting it to his own needs. In the mid to late 1950s he wrote the chapter of The Silmarillion entitled Of Aulë and the Dwarves.³  There, in a passage whose language is quite biblical, Aulë is surprised by Ilúvatar after he has created the race of Dwarves.

Now Ilúvatar knew what was done, and in the very hour that Aulë's work was complete, and he was pleased, and began to instruct the Dwarves in the speech that he had devised for them, Ilúvatar spoke to him; and Aulë heard his voice and was silent. And the voice of Ilúvatar said to him: 'Why hast thou done this? Why dost thou attempt a thing which thou knowest is beyond thy power and thy authority? For thou hast from me as a gift thy own being only, and no more; and therefore the creatures of thy hand and mind can live only by that being, moving when thou thinkest to move them, and if thy thought be elsewhere, standing idle. Is that thy desire?' 

Then Aulë answered: 'I did not desire such lordship. I desired things other than I am, to love and to teach them, so that they too might perceive the beauty of Eä, which thou hast caused to be. For it seemed to me that there is great room in Arda for many things that might rejoice in it, yet it is for the most part empty still, and dumb. And in my impatience I have fallen into folly. Yet the making of things is in my heart from my own making by thee; and the child of little understanding that makes a play of the deeds of his father may do so without thought of mockery, but because he is the son of his father. But what shall I do now, so that thou be not angry with me for ever? As a child to his father, I offer to thee these things, the work of the hands which thou hast made. Do with them what thou wilt. But should I not rather destroy the work of my presumption?'  

Then Aulë took up a great hammer to smite the Dwarves; and he wept. But Ilúvatar had compassion upon Aulë and his desire, because of his humility; and the Dwarves shrank from the hammer and were afraid, and they bowed down their heads and begged for mercy. And the voice of Ilúvatar said to Aulë: 'Thy offer I accepted even as it was made. Dost thou not see that these things have now a life of their own, and speak with their own voices? Else they would not have flinched from thy blow, nor from any command of thy will.' Then Aulë cast down his hammer and was glad, and he gave thanks to Ilúvatar, saying: 'May Eru bless my work and amend it!'

(Silmarillion, 43-44)

In humility and obedience, 'as a child to his father,' Aulë offers up what he has created without authority, and even asks if it would not be better to destroy 'the work of my presumption.'  For his submission he is rewarded, just as Abraham was. Denethor transgresses as well, by daring to use the palantír without the right to do so, by scorning the return of the lawful King, and finally by preferring suicide and murder to courage and duty. Unlike Abraham and Aulë he will not submit to authority. His pride and despair prevent it and destroy him.  Thus in The Pyre of Denethor Tolkien transforms the elements of the story of Abraham and Isaac to shape a powerful mythic portrayal of the terrible consequences of Denethor's flaws and errors of judgement. 

If, as Garth persuasively argues, Tolkien's portrayal of the relationship between Faramir and Denethor also draws form and power from the relationship between the young soldiers in the trenches and their generals who 'spent their sons' with such profligacy, then Tolkien's use of Genesis here, likening Denethor to an Abraham who refused the messenger's command to spare his son, seems even more powerful and damning. And, if anything, it is that detail, which both Tolkien and Owen share -- the refusal to heed the messenger -- that makes me believe Tolkien likely did know Owen's poem. 

_________________________

¹ As John Garth has also pointed out in class and in correspondence, the parallel between The Pyre of Denethor and The Parable of the Young Man and the Old has also been noted before here and here.

² 'Angel' comes from the Greek ἄγγελος, a translation of the Hebrew מלאך, 'malakh,' both of which mean 'messenger.' Quite frequently in the letters Tolkien refers to the Ainur in general as 'angelic.' See, for example, Letters, 153, p. 193-94. See also letter 181, p. 237 on Gandalf: 'His function as a "wizard" is an angelos or messenger from the Valar or Rulers: to assist the rational creatures of Middle-earth to resist Sauron, a power too great for them unaided.'

³ See The War of the Jewels: The Later Silmarillion, Part Two. The History of Middle-Earth (New York 1994) IX 212-13.