Fantasy - The Barrow-Downs Discussion Forum

Morthoron · 12-07-2008, 03:36 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lalwendë

...We know Tolkien was capable of describing horrors without going OTT but also without simply glossing over them, and that included describing what happened in battles and skirmishes. He writes about them in other works, but why not in Lord of the Rings?

Actually, what might help here (I'll put my teacher head on now) is to look closely at the most significant part of the text for details of what actually happened on Pelennor, so here it is for your enjoyment:

Quote:

...We heard of the horns in the hills ringing,
the swords shining in the South-kingdom.
Steeds went striding to the Stoningland
as wind in the morning. War was kindled.
There Theoden fell, Thengling mighty,
to his golden halls and green pastures
in the Northern fields never returning,
high lord of the host. Harding and Guthlaf,
Dunhere and Deorwine, doughty Grimbold,
Herefara and Herubrand, Horn and Fastred,
fought and fell there in a far country:
in the Mounds of Mundburg under mould they lie
with their league-fellows, lords of Gondor.
Neither Hirluin the Fair to the hills by the sea,
nor Forlong the old to the flowering vales ever,
to Arnach, to his own country returned in triumph;
nor the tall bowmen, Derufin and Duilin, to their dark waters,
meres of Morthond under mountain-shadows.
Death in the morning and at day's ending
lords took and lowly. Long now they sleep
under grass in Gondor by the Great River.
Grey now as tears, gleaming silver,
red then it rolled, roaring water:
foam dyed with blood flamed at sunset;
as beacons mountains burned at evening;
red fell the dew in Rammas Echor.

Isn't the text you referenced the perfect example of an Anglo-Saxon elegaic verse? As I said before, Tolkien is offering a tale of Faery (or in this case, a legendary war if you prefer) in its classical form, presented as it would be heard by those in mourning of their battle-slain kin or for later generations as sung by bard or minstrel.

As far as Lord of the Rings being approached differently than Tolkien's other works (like the Silmarillion), with nothing further to go on but my own intuition, I believe LotR was written in its certain style because it was, after all, initially a sequel to The Hobbit, as required by his publishers. Tolkien, of course, pushed the envelope in his own inimitable manner, and forced integral elements of his own beloved mythology (The Sil) into LotR so that the story fell in line with the older chronology of Middle-earth without sacrificing the cute, little Hobbits his publisher was clamoring for (I can see Unwin now: "But dash it all, John Ronald, the hobbits...where are the blasted Hobbits?").

Hmmm...but it seems I've lost my train of thought, or where I was going with this, but as The Hobbit was a children's book, and whereas LotR is less so, it is still within the realm of being read to children without requiring censors and expletive deletions, and there are clear-cut villains (and heinous traitors who get their deserved comeuppance) who do nasty things, and noble heroes who are above reproach (or at least repent of their folly 'ere the end). Black and White with very little Gray (as we argued about a year or so ago) -- this is the make-up of Faery as Tolkien sees it, or at least as he presents it in LotR; whereas, things are not so black and white in The Sil (in fact, good guys are often the bad guys as well in the 1st Age, selfish and even Oedipal), which is a much more scholary and adult read than either The Hobbit of LotR.