[The Squatter of Amon Rûdh]

I was talking to Estelyn about Tolkien's use of archaisms during our recent meeting, and used the following draft letter for illustration. It's one of my favourites:

Dear Hugh,
....Don't be disturbed! I have not noticed any impertinence (or sycophancy) in your letters; and anyone so appreciative and so perceptive is entitled to criticism. Anyway I do not naturally breathe an air of undiluted incense! It was not what you said (last letter but one, not the one that I answered) or your right to say it, that might have called for a reply, if I had the time for it; but the pain that I always feel when anyone - in an age in which almost all auctorial manhandling of English is permitted (especially if disruptive) in the name of art or 'personal expression' - immediately dismisses out of court deliberate 'archaism'. The proper use of 'tushery' is to apply it to the kind of bogus 'medieval' stuff which attempts (without knowledge) to give a supposed temporal colour with expletives, such as tush, pish, zounds, marry, and the like. But a real archaic English is far more terse than modern; also many of things said could not be said in our slack and often frivolous idiom. Of course, not being specially well read in modern English, and far more familiar with works in the ancient and 'middle' idioms, my own ear is to some extent affected; so that though I could easily recollect how a modern would put this or that, what comes easiest to mind or pen is not quite that. But take an example from the chapter that you specially singled out (and called terrible): Book iii, 'The King of the Golden Hall'. 'Nay, Gandalf!' said the King. 'You do not know your own skill in healing. It shall not be so. I myself will go to war, to fall in the front of battle, if it must be. Thus shall I sleep better.'

This is a fair example - moderated or watered archaism. Using only words that still are used or known to the educated, the King would really have said 'Nay, thou (n')wost not thine own skill in healing. It shall not be so. I myself will go to war, to fall...' etc. I know well enough what a modern would say. 'Not at all, my dear G. You don't know your own skill as a doctor. Things aren't going to be like that. I shall go to the war in person, even if I have to be one of the first casualties' - and then what? Theoden would certainly think, and probably say 'thus shall I sleep better'! But people who think like that just do not talk a modern idiom. You can have 'I shall lie easier in my grave', or 'I should sleep sounder in my grave like that rather than if I stayed at home' - if you like. But there would be an insincerity of thought, a disunion of word and meaning. For a King who spoke in a modern style would not really think in such terms at all, and any reference to sleeping quietly in the grave would be a deliberate archaism of expression on his part (however worded) far more bogus than the actual 'archaic' English that I have used. Like some non-Christian making a reference to some Christian belief which did not in fact move him at all.
Or p.127, as an example of 'archaism' that cannot be defended as 'dramatic', since it is not in dialogue, but the author's description of the arming of the guests - which seemed specially to upset you. But such 'heroic' scenes do not occur in a modern setting to which a modern idiom belongs. Why deliberately ignore, refuse to use the wealth of English which leaves us a choice of styles - without any possibility of unintelligibility.
I can see no more reason for not using the much terser and more vivid ancient style than for changing the obsolete weapons, helms, shields and hauberks into modern uniforms.
'Helms too they chose' is archaic. Some (wrongly) class it as 'inversion', since normal order is 'They also chose helmets' or 'they chose helmets too'. (Real mod. E. 'They also picked out some helmets and round shields.) But this is not normal order, and if mod. E. has lost the trick of putting a word desired to emphasize (for pictorial, emotional or logical reasons) into prominent first place, without addition of a lot of little 'empty' words (as the Chinese say), so much the worse for it. And so much the better for it the sooner it learns the trick again. And some one must begin the teaching, by example.
I am sorry to find you so affected by the extraordinary 20th C. delusion that its usages per se and simply as 'contemporary' - irrespective of whether they are terser, more vivid (or even nobler!) - have some peculiar validity, above those of other times, so that not to use them (even when quite unsuitable in tone) is a solecism, a gaffe, a thing at which one's friends shudder or feel hot under the collar. Shake yourself out of this parochialism of time! Also (not to be too donnish) learn to discriminate between the bogus and genuine antique - as you would if you hoped not to be cheated by a dealer!

Letter #171 (September 1955)

Tolkien was obviously thinking out his argument as he went, and eventually he decided that he should discuss this with Hugh Brogan in person (Oh, to have been a fly on the wall at that conversation!) but it serves to demonstrate how carefully he thought about every cadence and nuance of the language he used, even in simple phrases. It also demonstrates how foolish many of the criticisms levelled against his style can be proven to be with a little research.

[ August 16, 2003: Message edited by: The Squatter of Amon Rûdh ]