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Old 03-03-2010, 06:11 PM   #6
Aiwendil
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Join Date: Mar 2001
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Bethberry
One of the points, too, that I wished Eden had considered is why the later accounts don't have the strong references to music which the earlier versions do. Was Tolkien working against the Victorian medievalism Eden tries to prove--or was that part of the effect of Christopher Tolkien's editing?
I don't see how it could be the latter. Christopher Tolkien's approach throughout HoMe is scholarly and analytical; where the texts are subjected to editing the alterations are always minor, and whenever he does not give a text in full, he gives a precis of the abridged content. Indeed, if anything, the tendency in the later volumes is toward less abridgement than in the earlier ones.

I think, rather, it's a matter of Tolkien's taste and style changing. I do think that the Victorian mediavalists exerted a strong influence over much of Tolkien's early writing (in particular the Book of Lost Tales and associated poetry), but I would say that this influence began to wane as early as the 1920s and was more or less gone (except, perhaps, unconsciously and very indirectly) by the time of LotR.

This thread made me curious, so I looked for references to Morris, Swinburne, and Tennyson in Letters. There are two references to Morris. The first is from the very first letter in the collection, to Edith in October 1914:

Quote:
Originally Posted by Tolkien
Amongst other work I am trying to turn one of the stories [from the Kalevala] - which is really a very great story and most tragic - into a short story somewhat on the lines of Morris' romances with chunks of poetry in between . . .
This, of course, was the ultimate germ of the story of Turin. The other reference is from letter 226, of 31 December 1960, to Professor L.W. Forster. After Tolkien denies any influence of World War II upon the plot of LotR, he says:

Quote:
Originally Posted by Tolkien
The Dead Marshes and the approaches to the Morannon owe something to Northern France after the Battle of the Somme. They owe more to William Morris and his Huns and Romans, as in The Houses of the Wolfings or The Roots of the Mountains.
There are no references to Swinburne or Tennyson.

On the subject of Victorian Romanticism in Tolkien, though, one must also consider George MacDonald, to whom there are several references in Letters. Indeed, in a 1938 letter to the editor of the 'Observer', Tolkien says that The Hobbit is:

Quote:
Originally Posted by Tolkien
derived from (previously digested) epic, mythology, and fairy-story - not, however, Victorian in authorship, as a rule to which George Macdonald is the chief exception.
In a letter from 7 September 1964 to Michael di Capua (a publisher), he wrote:

Quote:
Originally Posted by Tolkien
I should like to write a short preface to a separate edition of The Golden Key. I am not as warm an admirer of George MacDonald as C.S. Lewis was; but I do think well of this story of his.
The other references to MacDonald relate to his use of the word 'goblin'.

I seem to recall Tolkien mentioning MacDonald and/or Morris in 'On Fairy Stories' as well, but I don't have it near at hand.

In any case, I would say that if one is to go by Tolkien's own comments on the subject, the only significant influences on him from among the Victorian Romanticists were Morris and MacDonald.
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