Glamis? Cawdor? A bookworm's musings
 

I have had these nagging thoughts for a while. It all started when I was exploring Ian McKellen's official site. On it, a fan posted a question that basically asked, "Do you think that there is any evidence of Shakespeare's direct influence in Tolkien's works?" Ian McKellen said that he didn't think so...
Well, for those of you who have read Shakespeare's Macbeth, are there not at least two clear instances in LotR that remind you of the tragedy?
First of all, Saruman being attacked by the Ents, made me remember the prophecy that Macbeth was given, "Macbeth shall never vanquished be until/Great Birnam Wood to high Dunsinane Hill/Shall come against him." Macbeth laughs it off, until soldiers dressed with tree branches from Birnam forest show up in his land. This may not be a direct relation, but it certainly smacks of the same kind of oversight. Who would ever expect a FOREST to attack them? Certainly not Macbeth, nor Saruman. Eh?...
Second of all, the confrontation between the Witchking and Eowyn made me rub my chin and say, "hmmmm", as well. Remember: Macbeth was told that no man born of woman could ever harm him. In the same fashion, the Witchking knows that no man can destroy him. Both get the shock of their lives when they realize, that their respective enemies, Macduff and Dernhelm are in a position to kill them, because Macduff was "from his mother's womb untimely ripped," and Dernhelm is actually the golden-haired woman, Eowyn.
Even if these are mere coincidences, they are still pretty cool. Or, at the very least, this is what the English Geek Who's Really From Russia thinks. [img]smilies/cool.gif[/img]

In a footnote to Letter #163 (to WH Auden, btw):

"Their [the Ents'] pan in the story is due, I think, to my bitter disappointment and disgust from schooldays with the shabby use made in Shakespeare of the coming of 'Great Birnam wood to high Dunsinane hill': I longed to devise a setting in which the trees might really march to war."

Swe-e-et! I knew it, I knew it, I knew it!
I will write a memo to Sir Ian McKellen then.

I'd noticed that too (Sharku beat me to citing the bit from Tolkien's letters [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img]). And the bit about "you look upon a woman" is so close to the bit in "Macbeth" about "I was from my mother's womb/Untimely ripp'd" that it never really occurred to me that they weren't related. (The funny thing is that I read LOTR before Macbeth, so when I got to that scene I was thinking "Hmm, this sounds like Eowyn and the Witch-King" instead of the other way around). Interesting how the Witch-King sort of does a double-take after Eowyn says that, obviously thinking that he didn't read the fine print in the fiery letters quite closely enough...

I read Macbeth at school, and didn't really think about the links... but you're right, that's really strange!
EEG

Bravo, Lush! I'm surprised that Sir Ian missed that one, too.

Maybe he thought it was bad luck to quote from "the Scottish play" on his website. [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img]

[ March 17, 2002: Message edited by: Birdland ]

We just finished MacBeth in English, and the Birnham Wood thing made me think of the Ents right away, but I didn't see the Witch-King connection. neat.

Correct me, isn't Dernhelm something to do with LotR? Don't hit, I read through them so fast. In little over a month, I have gotten through them, Hobbit, Silm, and half through UT, some of BoLT2 and Lays.

Never mind that last question!!! [img]smilies/redface.gif[/img] [img]smilies/redface.gif[/img] [img]smilies/redface.gif[/img]

I just remembered that Eowny was Dernhelm!

Didn't have enough sleep last night.

"Scottish play", Birdland? You mean: "Macbeth"?! [img]smilies/tongue.gif[/img]
Greetings,
E. Blackadder

It's considered bad luck to call it "Macbeth", so people sometimes refer to it as "The Scottish Play".

I think the reason that he refers to Macbeth as "the Scottish play." is due to the legend of the famous Macbeth Curse. Sir Ian, as an accomplished actor, would certainly know about that.
[img]smilies/eek.gif[/img] [img]smilies/eek.gif[/img] [img]smilies/eek.gif[/img]

oh god, im doing macbeth in school at the moment...*groan*.....
lol
amy

Beware, little Amy. If you do not appreciate Macbeth, he will get back at you swiftly, and the very firstlings of his heart shall be the firstlings of his hand.
When I read it in school, I was struck down with insomnia for three weeks. In context of the play-very creepy.

Hello, Voronwe and Lush - my question was purely facetious! Ever seen Blackadder?! [img]smilies/tongue.gif[/img]

Hahahaha, apparently not! I am mostly an uncultured swine, as a matter of fact.

Insomnia for three weeks Lush? What can I say? I've seen the play last month and it was very modern and depressing. [img]smilies/biggrin.gif[/img]

By the truth I've never thought about this kind of context between Macbeth and LOTR... But I could imagine that Shakespeare's works have influenced Tolkien.

I think it's normal. I've learnt a lot from the good old man myself too. [img]smilies/cool.gif[/img] [img]smilies/tongue.gif[/img]

Oh yeah, it's all quite normal until Macbeth actually decides to get back at you for approaching his tragedy with too light a heart. I hope Tolkien could sleep, 'cause I sure didn't, and this was right before exams too... [img]smilies/eek.gif[/img]
Anyway, I just wanted to say that I thought these little connections were all really cool. It's like a little *wink wink* *nudge nudge* from Tolkien.

I meant it's normal to learn from Shakespeare. [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img] He had great ideas about mankind - and forests as well. [img]smilies/biggrin.gif[/img]

Better dreams! [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img]

Speaking of learning from Shakespeare (and, my apologies, this has nothing to do with Macbeth, but I'm just so pleased I found a halfway appropriate place to mention it, and it IS related, just read till you get to the end)....

Although Sam refers to Gollum as "the old villian," the latter is in fact an EXTREMELY hobbit-like creature, a fact highlighted by his true name, Smeagol,about which Appendix F of RotK says So there's a direct relationship between his name and the homes of the hobbits.


.....
Which just goes to show that one may smial and smial and be a villian! [img]smilies/biggrin.gif[/img]


...... Yes, it's silly, of course... but I wonder if Tolkien didn't intend just that joke???

(hey, cool, I seem to have disintegrated!)

[ March 20, 2002: Message edited by: Belin ]

Actually, Tolkien hated Shakespeare's works (and didn't much care for plays of any sort, it seems).

From Tolkien's Biography:

Just because you may not like someone's character, does not mean you can't borrow from, or expand upon their writing.
It saddens me though when people are too snobbish to accept the fact that someone as "lowly" as Shakespeare could wield the English language with such mastery. [img]smilies/frown.gif[/img]

Tolkien was quite prickly about a lot of authors - the only thing I don't like about reading his letters is cringing every time he broadsides some writer whom I love. Granted, when your perspective is that of someone capable of writing the epic of the 20th century, other writings doubtless do look feeble. But he was very hard to please.

That said, there is a passage in the letters somewhere (and I wish I could find exactly where) where he mentions reading "Macbeth" in school and being disappointed by it, specifically thinking that for "Birnam Wood moving on Dunsinane" that to have that prophecy come true by having men disguised as trees was a cop-out - he wanted them to be real trees. And he said particularly that he wrote the Storming of Isengard partially out of memory of Birnam Wood, and the way he would have liked it to happen. So Immortal Shakespeare did influence Immortal Tolkien, as little as the latter may have liked it...

Yes, Tolkein says:

lol [img]smilies/biggrin.gif[/img]

*bump*

On this thread you will find incontrovertible proof about the true origins of Legolas and Gimli.

Okay, here's a contribution more befitting a Ghost Prince of Cardolan *pauses for effect and for pat on own back...*

Tevildo, Prince of Cats was originally one of Morgoth's top cronies, right? I bet that when JRRT discovered he had accidentally ripped off Tybalt (Romeo and Juliet) he screwed up the manuscript and threw it into the fire!

Keynes said something to the effect that even one who claims to be uninfluenced by "philosophy," will have their whole belief system based on the principles of some great thinkers of the past. Methinks JRRRT didst protest too much.

But whether Tolkien really detested Shakespeare or no, I'm not sure is affirmed by one quote about something he found lame in MacBeth, which is tremendous but not flawless. Shakespeare was really footloose with history and legends, which Tolkien might not have liked much, and he probably would have preferred the more accurate history of the last truly Celtic King of the Scots, rather than Shakespeare's use of very entertaining myths later invented and favored by British political interests in his time.

Still, this is a great observation by Lush.

I've read Humphrey Carpenter's biography of Tolkien and his biography of the Inklings, which supports this quote from the letters with greater background based on recollections among Tolkien's children and colleagues. I can study up and get more specific if you like.

I would hate to accuse our beloved professor of literary posturing but this I fear is what his Shakespeare-loathing amounted to. Tolkien was a scholar of early and mediaeval literature and was very sniffy on principle about ANYTHING written post-1400, even the works of great and glorious Shakespeare.
In the same way, the pre-Raphaelite painters of the 19th century were so called because they claimed that all painting after Raphael was bogus. (Other than their own, naturally...) This may be demonstrably untrue, but once you have decided on a position it is very hard to climb down...

Wow, this was a really long time ago.

Voronwë's quote is concerned with Shakespeare's life. As far as the works go, Tolkien, though he may have disliked Macbeth, did recognize Shakespeare's abilities as a playwright:

"On Fairy-Stories," emphasis mine.

He goes on to talk about this inadequacy of drama, but that is not of course the fault of Shakespeare.

--Belin Ibaimendi

I had not seen the connection between the Ents and Birnham Wood in Macbeth until I read another thread on this topic. However, I was interested to hear the comments of one old chap in the cinema, in the row behind me, on TTT. He was clearly not familiar with the works of JRRT, but was muttering something about the Ents' destruction of Isengard being marvellous and quoting the Birnham Wood lines from Macbeth.

I had previously made the connection between the prophecies concerning the fate of the Witch King of Angmar and Macbeth ("no man of woman born" etc). Having studied Macbeth for 'O' Level English, I recall that Shakespeare was himself drawing upon some older source for this kind of prophecy. Alas, the passing of years is such that I cannot now recall the identity of this source. [img]smilies/frown.gif[/img]

Sir Ian Mc Kellen, would not say Macbeth due to the superstition that if it is spoken, in a theatre, while a production is being planned as it causes things to go wrong. The reason why they say their is a curse, is because it is believed, Shakespeare had a playright call Christopher Mallory killed, and took his writings and claimed them as his own, and Mallory knew of Shakespeares jealosy of him, when Mallory was stabbed,Mallory is suposed to have cursed any work that shakespeare claimed to be his, if it had not been.

Did you mean to write Marlowe?

Besides that, its not that McKellen couldn't refer to Macbeth directly, there are euphemisms. He had originally posted that he believes that Shakespeare had little or no direct influence on the LOTR. Though this was a while ago. Who knows what's his take on the subject now? I certainly don't.

[ March 22, 2003: Message edited by: Lush ]

Ah, this thread is back again. [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img]

Here's another example of what appears to be JRRT borrowing from the works of Shakespeare. In the letter which Gandalf leaves with Butterbur for Frodo concerning Aragorn, he includes a poem to enable Frodo to recognise the real "Strider". It starts as follows:

The suggestion is that what seems fair on the outside is not necessarily so on the inside. The point is echoed later when Frodo concludes that a servant of the Dark Lord would "seem fairer and feel fouler" than Aragorn.

Now, in the Shakespeare play, The Merchant of Venice, Portia's suitors are required to take a test in order to win her hand in marriage by choosing between three caskets, of gold, silver and lead. If they make the correct choice, then she is theirs. Of course, the correct casket is the lead one. However, the first of her would-be suitors, the Prince of Morroco, goes for the gold casket and finds a scroll enscribed with a rhyme, which commences:

Often, this is misquoted as "All that glitters is not gold". In any event, he has chosen the fairest seeming casket, but when he looks inside he finds that it is not the correct one.

Now, correct me if I am wrong, but are those two lines (and the meanings behind them) not distinctly similar ... [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img]

I, too, thought of MacBeth when reading about the Ents' attack on Isengard and the Witch King/Eowyn battle. My English Major friends and I have had numerous conversations about it and concluded (purely on speculation--we're bad that way) that it's highly likely that both Shakespeare and Tolkien were pulling from the same older sources. (Saucepan Man, I believe, already suggested something similar.) Anybody know of any legends/myths etc older than Shakes with these same motifs?

i'm studying macbeth at the moment in school, and i do see the connections between the scenes, after i had read these opinions.
[img]smilies/biggrin.gif[/img] [img]smilies/rolleyes.gif[/img] [img]smilies/biggrin.gif[/img]

How about this one:
(The Battle of the Pelennor Fields)
(King Lear Act I, Scene i)

To put Théoden in the place of Cordelia and Éowyn in that of Kent is very funny in itself, but to then have Lear's words echoed almost verbatim by the Lord of the Nazgûl, a 'King' unknowingly on the very verge of destruction, is sheer brilliance.

[ March 30, 2003: Message edited by: The Squatter of Amon Rûdh ]

Niiiice, S, [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img].

My friend at the English Department in Duke has pointed out that Éowyn is Tolkien's answer to Shakespeare in terms of what Tolkien percieved to be Shakespeare's attitude toward language.

Tolkien, apparently, was disappointed that in Macbeth the power of language in prophecy seems to be denied, i.e., he viewed Macduff and the incident with the Birnum Wood as cop-outs.

This thread is fascinating. Having studied a grand total of five Shakespeare plays I don't feel very qualified to comment. However I just went to the Saucepan Man's link and had to delete a very embarassing post by me from months and months ago. Thank you for giving me that opportunity!

There is one thing I just thought of, which is the "woman disguised as a man" ploy- Eowyn/Dernhelm and Viola/Cesario being the examples I thought of. I seem to remember a commentator who wrote that only while disguised can Viola be free. On the other hand she didn't particularly want to be disguised- it was for protection. So I suppose I just proved my point was rubbish! Ho hum.

[ June 01, 2003: Message edited by: Lyra Greenleaf ]

all these connections are quite amazing! i never noticed them. however, i did notice a connection between Paradise Lost and Lotr. both of them seem to deal with degenrative cycles. evil becomes powerful and nearly triumphs, but them one or two good people are willing to sacrifice everything and just barely mannage to stop it. unfortunately, things aren't quite as good as they were before, and evil isn't completely whiped out, so eventually it rises again, and we go through the entire cycle again. i don't know if any of you have read paradise lost, but i thought it was interesting. of course, it may just have been something both writers got from the bible (i know both of them were very religeous).