"They Began to Hum Softly", Murray Smith

[Faramir Jones]

Sorry for taking so long to reply to your last post, Bêthberry.

In terms of Gondor being an amalgam of several allusions:

Originally Posted by Bêthberry

These are fascinating comparisons Tolkien makes. Clearly he was not implying an allegorical equivalence (his meaning of allegory) whereby Gondor literally is both Venice and Constantinople....Gondor cannot be both: it cannot wholly resemble an up-and-coming modern nation state if it is crumbling into impotence the way Tolkien thought Constantinople did—and there is a reason why cold stone is the distinguishing characteristic of Gondorian architecture. Gondor, then, is a literary amalgam of several suggestive allusions rather than a specific depiction of any one city.

I agree with you here, but have to add something more, in that Tolkien said, in a
14th October 1958 letter to Rhona Beare, that the Gondorians resembled Egyptians in many ways:

The Númenóreans of Gondor were proud, peculiar and archaic, and I think are best portrayed in (say) Egyptian terms. In many ways they resembled 'Egyptians'
- the love for, and power to construct, the gigantic and massive. And in their great
interest in ancestry and in tombs. (But not of course in 'theology': in which they were Hebraic and even more puritain - but this would take long to set out:
(Letters, Letter 211, p. 281)

He later said in the same letter:

I think the crown of Gondor (the S. Kingdom) was very tall, like that of Egypt, but with wings attached, not set straight back but at an angle.

After giving two sketches of what he was talking about, he continued:

The N. Kingdom had only a diadem (III 323). Cf. the difference between the N. and S. Kingdoms of Egypt. (Ibid.)

In terms of Tolkien's explanation about using 'Anglo-Saxon' in the names and occasional glimpses of the language of the Rohirrim:

Originally Posted by Bêthberry

Tolkien’s explanation of how the Anglo Saxon nature of Rohan “does not imply that the Rohirrim closely resembled the ancient English otherwise, in culture or art, in weapons, or modes of warfare, except in a general way due to their circumstances.” (Sorry, I’ve lost the reference to which letter and my Letters is misplaced as well so I’m quoting from Heidi Steimel’s paper, which quotes it from Hargrove’s book. Terribly incorrect to mount a discussion this way, eh wot?)

A little, but I know the piece you're talking about. In one of his letters, he explained this reason further, saying that he used Anglo-Saxon 'as a device of "translation"'. (Letters, Letter 297, p. 381)

What is interesting, but not mentioned by him, but by his son Christopher in Unfinished Tales, is that

the names of the early kings and princes of the Northman and the Éothéod are Gothic in form, not Old English (Anglo-Saxon) as in the case of Léod, Eorl, and the later Rohirrim.
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Since, as is explained in Appendix F(II), the language of Rohan was 'made to resemble ancient English', the names of the the ancestors of the Rohirrm are cast into the forms of the earliest recorded Germanic language. (Unfinished Tales, p. 311, footnote 6)

Personally, however, I'm inclined to agree with Tom Shippey's view that Tolkien 'was stretching the truth a long way in asserting that [his remarks in Appendix F], to say the least!' He said that there was

one obvious difference between the people of Rohan and the 'ancient English', and that is horses....The Rohirrim are nothing if not cavalry. By contrast the Anglo-Saxons' reluctance to have anything militarily to do with horses is notorious. (The Road to Middle-earth, Second edition, p. 140)

He suggested that the Rohirrim should possibly be equated with, not the Anglo-Saxons of history, but those of legend:

The chapter 'The King of the Golden Hall' is straightforwardly calqued on Beowulf....More importantly the poem and the chapter agree, down to minute detail, on the procedure for approaching kings. (Ibid., p. 141)

He believed that

Tolkien was trying to go beyond translation to 'reconstruction'. And this is what explains the horses. Tne feeling of Anglo-Saxon poetry for these was markedly different from that of Anglo-Saxon history. (Ibid., p. 143)

I have to agree that Tolkein was more than just translating; he made the Rohirrm resemble the Anglo-Saxon English in certain deliberate ways, at least their fictional view of themselves.

In terms of use of the word 'modern', I was using it in the context of a couple of Oxford English Dictionary definitions:

2. a. Of or relating to the present and recent times, as opposed to the remote past; of, relating to, or originating in the current age or period.

3. a. Characteristic of the present time, or the time of writing; not old-fashioned, antiquated, or obsolete; employing the most up-to-date ideas, techniques, or equipment. (In early use chiefly with reference to warfare.)

I agree that perhaps 'our differences here relates to the various meanings the word ‘modern’ can have'. This, I also agree, comes out in your view of Gondor:

Originally Posted by Bêthberry

My first comment comparing Gondor to Venice was derived from Tolkien’s comparison, the geography of the city within Middle-earth, and its limited range of power. Gondor does not have an empire, nor even much of a kingdom any more. Despite its kingship and steward, the overall tone of Gondor is that of a small clique of men who owe allegiance to each other and whose place in the hierarchy of power is dependent upon personal relationships rather than a rule of law or meritocracy. Blood lines still matter as does the ancient belief that the hands of the king are hands of healing. If it is a nation, it is a nation in the old, original, racial meaning of the word—descendents of Numenoreans-- rather than in the new political meaning of a large group of people who seek their own particular government. (See nation at dictionary.com. So, from my perspective, Gondor has dwindled to a military entity largely (although not exclusively) confined to the site of Minas Tirith and is not a full nation state in the political sense.

I wouldn't say that the men in power 'owe allegience to each other'. It appears that they, as well as humbler Gondorians, owe allegiance to a nation called Gondor as well as to its king, or the steward if there is no king.

While blood lines still matter, they're not everything. Just because Aragorn II is the heir of Isildur may make him a viable candidate for the throne of Gondor; but to be a serious candidate he needs to do really impressive things, such as killing a lot of Gondor's enemies on the field of battle.

Also, I wouldn't say that Gondor, though a 'Númenórean state', is based on race; because there can't have been that many Númenóreans who survived the Downfall, either those Faithful already in Middle-earth or who fled with Elendil. Even allowing for the passage of thousands of years, and Gondorians who will presumably be proud of any Númenórean ancestors, they'll also have other ancestors on their family trees.

The term 'Númenórean state', as used by Tolkien, appears to be based (among other things) on a common Númenórean-derived culture. One example is the speaking of Sindarian as a second language among many Gondorians, a legacy of the Faithful of Númenor.

Originally Posted by Bêthberry

Unfortunately, I cannot see Gondor in any way resembling the UK in the first half of the twentieth century. True, it has the characteristics of a city under siege, but that does not make it resemble Old Blighty even with Britannia’s crumbling empire. For one thing, Tolkien’s words in the Foreword to the Second Edition stand as a stark warning about the difference between the shadow of WWII and the shadow of Sauron. For me, the long march to Gondor represents a journey to an even more distant past than that of The Shire, not a journey out of a recent past towards to an era contemporary with the writing of LotR.

I think that many people took Tolkien's warning against reading the War of the Ring as an allegory of WWII to mean that his portrayal of the former was not influenced by the latter, as well as by WWI.

I don't believe that this is correct. My opinion is that the journey of Bilbo in The Hobbit and that of Frodo, Sam, Merry and Pippin in LotR can be seen as a journey from a 'modern' period to a more distant, let's say 'medieval' past, but also vice versa.

Tolkien based the Shire on an English village c. 1897, at the end of Victoria's reign. The hobbits seem nineteenth century, such as in their frequent use of umbrellas and aneroid barometers; so in one sense they are the most 'modern' people in Middle-earth.

But Tolkien deliberately based the Shire on a village in his childhood, in his own past and that of his contemporaries, before the two World Wars. When the hobbits go to other states at war, organised for that purpose, with medieval weapons and equipment, it might appear to be in the remote past; but it can also be seen as more 'modern'.

This is because the UK in both World Wars had to accustom itself to fighting, the peaceful days of the Pax Britannica having come to an end. In doing so, things became more 'medieval', for example in terms of government explicitly asking, particularly in WWI, for people to give their aid in terms of chivalry and sacrifice. Also, that war led to the reintroduction of some traditional 'medieval' armour. While new armour came in the form of tanks, soldiers soon wore metal helmets to protect their heads, something that had not been done since the 17th century. German infantry on sentry duty also wore thick body armour.

Originally Posted by Bêthberry

To me, Tolkien was attempting to resurrect an heroic or cultural ideal that was being lost with the incursions of industrialization and technology. He started writing a sequel to The Hobbit, but the Legendarium flowed into his imagination and LotR became something different. His response to his WWI experiences was very different from those of the War poets--Sassoon, Owen, Brooke to name a few--who wrote bitterly with sarcasm and irony and satire; they wrote without any place for that perilous realm called Fairie but it was that realm which gave Tolkien his inspiration, rather than historical realism.

I agree about his response to his experiences being different to that of the War poets. And, of course, we're all glad that it was!

Originally Posted by Bêthberry

Thus, it would be preferable to me to consider Tolkien’s aesthetic object and world view when considering the absence of similarity to actual war songs and ditties than to say that he was avoiding making Gondor resemble the UK too closely.

Perhaps your quotation marks around modern were meant to provoke this kind of discussion.

I used the word in quotation marks because I knew we fans have very different views of what is 'modern' and 'medieval', and that discussion would take place about this.