‘Strains of Elvish Song and Voices', Bradford Lee Eden

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by Faramir Jones

I'm in agreement that Tolkien had fun with 'Crossing the Bar', just as he had fun with the nursery rhyme 'Hey Diddle Diddle', inventing its 'ancestor' in the shape of 'The Man in the Moon Stayed Up Too Late'. But I don't see any evidence that a reason for having such fun in this case was due to a dislike of Tennyson and his works. I don't rule your theory out as a possibility; it's just there is no evidence for it.

Having written a long post in reply this afternoon, only to have the Downs crash when I attempted to post it, I have now remembered the wisdom of Word.

The evidence lies in the exposition, which is an acceptable method of scholarly argument, particularly in the absence of historical references such as that provided by letters. My main point of contention in my first post is that Eden’s essay lacks a solid method for establishing the possibility of influence. He failed to provide either historical evidence or discussion about the nature and type and method of establishing relationship; his essay was not much more than quotation, summary and description. There are ways of exploring influence and conceiving of the “retextualisation” of earlier sources even in the absence of historical data. Were I to write a scholarly article, I would elaborate further on how Tennyson’s translation of The Battle of Brunanburh fails to satisfy Tolkien’s criteria for successful translation. There are a great many more points in Tolkien’s preface on translating Beowulf which could be applied to Tennyson’s poem. The deductions would be my own, but they would be based on Tolkien’s criteria and so my method would be legitimate. For instance, Tennyson’s poem was in fact based on his son Hallam’s prose translation of the Old English poem (first published in The Contemporary Review November, 1876) and some of the more egregious errors are Hallam’s rather than Tennyson’s. (See here for comparison: Comparison of Tennyson's translation with Hallam's. But Tennyson repeated them. He was clearly not working with original sources and this was Tolkien’s frustration with Wagner in particular, as well as other writers of more generally good renown. It is also interesting that the summary of the events which Tennyson provided didn't in fact present what is now understood to be the facts about the poem's provenance and significance.

Tennyson’s translation first appeared in his Ballads and Other Poems in 1880 and was very popular. I’m sure that students, as is the wont of students, would grasp at any opportunity for a crib and I’m equally sure that their teachers were wise to their ways. I would happily make another trek to Oxford to explore curricula and journals and diaries of the days as there is a good possibility of finding evidence there that Tolkien would have directly known the translation.

What I would also do, in this theoretical paper of mine, is consider how Tolkien handled other literary influences. Here particularly I would point out the importance of George MacDonald. If I remember correctly (my Tolkien books were put in storage during home renovations and unfortunately I haven’t been able to find their boxes) Tolkien began to write a preface to a new edition of The Golden Key but he became more and more convinced that MacDonald got it wrong. And so Tolkien abandoned the preface to explore how to get it—faerie--right in Smith of Wootton Major. Again, I would be establishing Tolkien’s habits of writing. I’ve forgotten who now, but one critic I’ve read even suggested that Nokes somehow represented MacDonald himself. I’ll have to track down that reference and see if it’s really worth using.

I might also use your example, with appropriate acknowledgement of course, of Tolkien’s “The Man in the Moon”.

Of course, the nature of parody is tricky. It can be a sign of respect or a sign of ridicule, humourous or satirical. What I am doing really is using Shippey’s explanation of Tolkien’s point about the integrity of original sources and the failures of tone and spirit in some modern writers and by analogy applying it to a possible relationship between Tennyson and Tolkien over “Bilbo’s Last Lay” and “Crossing the Bar”. (By the way, apparently Joy Hill owns the poem and not the Estate.) And my argument would be as open to debate as Shippey's argument about Smith is, from Flieger's point of view. But it would be an acceptable method.

And to return this to my original point. I didn't begin with a desire to denigrate Tennyson or Swinburne or Morris. In fact, I quoted his contemporaries’ opinions about the Idylls to suggest that there were many different points of view about how to recontextualise medieval material—there was no one way and a great deal of difference amongst the writers who were handling the material. I began with deep frustration that a scholar had such a poor grasp of method and material. There have been several very good studies of the influence of Victorian medievalism on Tolkien that aren't limited by a limited presentation of music and sea imagery. And in particular I didn't like Eden's suggestion that Tolkien was not quite upfront about his influences--"whether he chose to admit it or not" (p. 162). The study of influences on writers is a far, far more complex subject than Eden gives thought to. It's also one deserving of a great deal of care and respect. Didn’t Tolkien himself say something to the effect that the ways in which a story-germ uses the soil of older literature are extremely complex?

EDIT: Helen, I've had no time to follow up your gracious note about Vestr Um Haf. Sorry.

[mark12_30]

Originally Posted by Bêthberry

The study of influences on writers is a far, far more complex subject than Eden gives thought to. It's also one deserving of a great deal of care and respect. Didn’t Tolkien himself say something to the effect that the ways in which a story-germ uses the soil of older literature are extremely complex?

Off of a quotes page from a Google search ; I am entirely ignorant of the particular source:

"One writes such a story not out of the leaves of trees still to be observed, nor by means of botany and soil-science; but it grows like a seed in the dark out of the leaf-mould of mind: out of all that has been seen or thought or read, that has long ago been forgotten, descending into the deeps. No doubt there is much selection, as with a gardener: what one throws on one's personal compost-heap; and my mould is evidently made largely of linguistic matter." ~On the creation of LotR

[Faramir Jones]

Bêthberry and mark, you're quite right about the difficulties of trying to discern the possible literary influences on a writer, in this case on Tolkien. As you showed, mark, the latter himself made it clear of his own awareness that a lot of such influences are unconscious.

I'm sure we agree that any person writing about such possible influences needs to exercise humility, making clear that there is a large element of speculation involved. Words like 'might', 'may' and 'possible' need to be used a lot. I myself have tried to say this in my own writings. Whether I have succeeded or not is another matter.

I came across something interesting on this subject by the writer George MacDonald Fraser (1925-2008), in his book The Light's on at Signpost (2002), which dealt with his scriptwriting days in Hollywood, but which also included other matters. He said that he was working for the newspaper The Glasgow Herald in the 1960s; and there was a debate in the canteen on whether the orcs in LotR were the same as the goblins in The Hobbit. He wrote to Tolkien, and received a reply:

Yes, orcs and goblins were identical, and he added the fascinating information that they had been inspired by his childhood reading of The Princess and the Goblin and The Princess and Curdie, eerie spellbinders which had helped to freshen my own infant nightmares. Their author was a Scottish minister named George MacDonald. (George MacDonald Fraser, The Light's on at Signpost: Memoirs of the movies, among other matters, (London: Harper Collins Publishers, 2003), p. 53.)

Fraser, after saying that this George MacDonald was related to him through his paternal grandmother, discussed the difficulty of discerning other inspirations, giving as an example what had been written on himself:

His [Tolkien's] orcs and goblins are George MacDonald's, but as to other inspirations, who knows? It is a common mistake to think that one can spot with certainly the wellsprings of an author's imagination, as I know only too well, having had a critic state flatly that I was plainly much influenced by Conrad - of whom I had not read a single word at that time. (Ibid., pp. 53-54.)

That said, I think that what you, Bêthberry, wrote in your last post is worthy of publication; and I hope to see it in print in the future.

[Bêthberry]

You are too kind, Faramir. Really, the pleasure was having a good discussion here amongst we Downers and I thank you and Helen, and Pitchwife and Aiwendil, for that.

And interesting stuff from George MacDonald Fraser. Thanks for posting that.

[Bêthberry]

There's something else I might add to that hypothetical paper of mine, that demonstrates something of how Tolkien thought of Tennyson.

Originally Posted by The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth Beorhthelm's Son

It is the heroism of obedience and love not of pride or wilfulness that is the most heroic and the most moving; from Wiglaf under his kinsman's shield, to Beorhtwold at Maldon, down to Balaclava, even if it is enshrined in verse no better than The Charge of the Light Brigade.

I read this some years ago and quite forgot about this detail, so I must thank Squatter for recently reminding me of it.