LOTR - classist?

[Lalwendë]

Originally Posted by littlemanpoet

According to Tolkien's letters and other sources, he believed in hierarchy. He would have preferred monarchy to any other form of government. Along with monarchy comes inevitable aristocracy and peasantry. I think "classist" is a slightly different thing since it has more to do with modern political philosophy. Tolkien did not much like many developments that occured after the 1500s, nor English literature that was written after perhaps 1600, and deplored modernism.

Tolkien most certainly did like literature written after 1600! He loved both recent and contemporary work, including H Rider Haggard, ER Eddison, Isaac Asimov (yes, he was a sci-fi fan!), Mary Rennault, even 'literary fiction' by Iris Murdoch. William Morris, the socialist and prime mover of the Arts and Crafts movement, was a huge influence. Tolkien also knew his art and was a fan of Burne-Jones. He took newspapers including 'leftist' Sunday paper, The Observer. He was fully up to date with current affairs and enjoyed 'popular' fiction, he was not locked in a Medievalist's bubble, and had even owned a car when he needed one for his family.

Tolkien's politics are ambiguous, as there is an essential conflict between his idealisation of both monarchies (Gondor) and anarchism (The Shire), so we cannot say he liked one or the other; as in many other areas, Tolkien often contradicts himself in his letters so its not entirely possible to fix on what he did think. And nothing wrong with that, it seems entirely ordinary to me to have some conflicting views; bear in mind that Tolkien was not a politician nor was he a Political writer so we cannot expect him to have fixed on one ideology. The only thing we know for sure is that he did not approve of massive machines of State.

But as I was once told, we might not set out to concern ourselves with Politics but as we exist in the world we cannot avoid them. And Tolkien made (maybe unwittingly, but I suspect not) some marvellous satire on the English classes with his Hobbits. Look at this satire and he is anything but 'classist' (and I am particularly sensitive to this ) as he pricks a lot of bubbles.

He makes fun of the 'nouveau-riche' in his portrayal of the Sackville-Bagginses - and allegedly also of the aesthetic, intelligentsia Bloomsbury set of the Sackville-Wests. He shows how bumbling the English country squire could be by showing the 'all lads together' japery of Merry and Pippin, the squires' sons. He makes humour out of the narrow world vision and superstitions of the local farm labourers. And he makes us laugh with his portrayal of Bilbo and all his suburban, Daily Mail influenced paranoia about 'strangers' and keeping up appearances (Bilbo effectively goes on his quest because he is so horribly English and cannot say "clear off!" when the Dwarves arrive at his door).