"They Began to Hum Softly", Murray Smith

[Faramir Jones]

Thanks for the compliments, Esty and shadowfax! I was particularly interested in what the latter said here:

Originally Posted by shadowfax

If I may criticse nevertheless, I personally find the authors working definition of nationalism - and by extension nationalist music - to be very 19th and first half of 20th Century. The Anglo Saxons didn't have an equivalent of the Rule Britannia and nationalism as a whole was very different then and should be looked at more in terms of tribalism rather than identification with songs and flags. Hence the lack of such songs among most Middle-earth nations thus isn't really surprising. By having some sort of a national anthem, as Smith suggests, Gondor was thus very much ahead of its time, but having a national anthem is not in itself a qualifier for being a post enlightenment state built on nationalist principles. The national anthem of Gondor, if indeed it exists, is thus an anachronist element. Looking into this topic from that angle might have led to some interesting conclusions.

You're right that my definition of such music was of that period; because it was the period in which Tolkien was born, grew up, and fought, as did two of his three sons.

I suggested that the song sung by Aragorn sounded like a national anthem; because the indications were that Gondorians were conscious of being part of a state, although not 'a post enlightenment state built on nationalist principles'. The main reason for this consciousness amongst Gondorians appeared to be the result of having fought wars against many enemies, in particular Sauron.

The 'problem', if one likes, is that Gondor is medieval in appearance; so the idea of a 'national anthem' is anachronistic. However, no medieval European state had to cope with the fact that not only was Satan real; he also lived in a fortress not very far away, and was planning to conquer that state and make its people worship him. Despite this, the Gondorians are lacking in xenophobia towards Sauron, his followers and allies. There is no Gondorian military music shown. By contrast, there is a large amount of military music shown from their allies in Rohan. Gondorians are shown as being, or trying to be, more 'civilized'.

Tolkien can be said to be guilty of a similar, though different anachronism, in his portrayal of the Hobbits of the Shire. He admitted as much in a letter of 25th September 1954 to Naomi Mitchison, that his deliberate attempt to make the Shire resemble an English village in 1897 led him into inconcistencies in portraying the hobbits, in particular ‘Some of the modernities found among them (I think especially of umbrellas)’. They are ‘probably, I think certainly, a mistake, of the same order as their silly names'; both are tolerable only as ‘a deliberate ‘anglicization’ to point the contrast between them and other peoples in the most familiar terms’. He did not think people ‘of that sort and stage of life and development’ could be both ‘very peaceable and very brave and tough ‘at a pinch’'. Experience in two wars ‘has confirmed me in that view’ (Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien, Letter 154, p. 196).