A Defense of 'Lord of the Rings' against Modernist criticism

[Bêthberry]

I'm not a regular reader of Tolkien Studies but perhaps I should be. I just came across this scholarly article by Professor Michael Drout which defends Tolkien against Modernist criticism by way of linguistic analysis.

Tolkien's Prose Style and its Literary and Rhetorical Effects

There's some intriguing connections with Shakespeare's King Lear and an analysis of Tolkien's defense of kingship, to say nothing of an insightful suggestion about Denethor and the Witch King.

As a rout of Modernist antipathy to Tolkien it should make many a Downer's day.

[Feanor of the Peredhil]

Oh my darling, you are mischievous.

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by Feanor of the Peredhil

Oh my darling, you are mischievous.

It was a slow night on the forum, m'dear.

But it is fascinating to see how Drout proves that Tolkien belongs up there with the big guns.

[Feanor of the Peredhil]

I find it fascinating that different areas of literature (and their relevant enthusiasts) constantly feel the need to defend and express their own validity. However it's possible that I'm spoiled: all of my essays over the past two years have been craft-oriented.

Instead of reading it as Tolkien-validation, I took this surprisingly readable piece more as a how-to guide of identifying the ingredients JRR used to bake his story. A kilo of Lear, a liter and a half of Old English, and a splash and a pinch of anachronisms for added taste...

The use of uncommonly employed words draws subconscious - if not directly conscious - parallels between works. I doubt this is to say, "Look, LotR is just like Lear! Art!" but more to say, "Remember the themes in Lear of power, insanity, betrayal, redemption? You just keep that in the back of your mind, dear reader." One might say the parallels being drawn are being stretched a bit past plausibility, but think on it this way: if you see an author finish a thought with, "So it goes..." and you don't think of Vonnegut, it means you never read Vonnegut. To me, the use of intertextual lit references isn't swiping, and it neither confirms nor denies a text's cultural significance. It's laying a librarian-friendly scavenger hunt for your bibliophile audience, and it's playing psych games.

Still, I was most interested in this paragraph about the use of sentence clarity and structure to convey power dynamics between characters:

Éowyn's final statement in the scene "I will smite you, if you touch him" is structurally parallel with her previous threat "I will hinder it, if I may," but this time the warning is made more pointed, directly at the Nazgûl. "I will smite you" is nearly as simple a sentence as can be formed in modern English (only the modal "will" makes the sentence even slightly complex) and her change from the subjunctive "if I may" to "if you touch him" gives Éowyn complete command of the situation even though both statements are if-clauses. Just as the sound of her ringing sword begins to cut through the haze of fear generated by the Lord of the Nazgûl, so too does the parallel "steel" of her voice shatter the supernatural malice of the monster as effectively as her eventual sword stroke.

'I will hinder it,' is indistinct. 'I will smite you,' is strong, active, decisive. 'If I may,' suggests vulnerability, uncertainty. 'If you touch him,' is a threat, a moment of absolute resolve. The pattern of language is clear. The transition from hidden identity and uncertainty of place to confident warrior is so simply managed through economy of language.

Oh man, JRR, I sometimes forget why you're my literary homeboy...

[Morthoron]

Well, considering modernism was no longer modern decades ago, and we've past the point of post-modernism, I think Tolkien's already ancient text will certainly outlive any number of new delineators for modernity (hyper-modern?). That is, until we old sods shuttle off this mortal coil and everyone stops reading altogether, because the chips in their heads play four dimensional interactive movies 24 hours a day.

Where is my soma? I had it right here with the melange I was going to ingest prior to dinner.

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by Feanor of the Peredhil

I find it fascinating that different areas of literature (and their relevant enthusiasts) constantly feel the need to defend and express their own validity. However it's possible that I'm spoiled: all of my essays over the past two years have been craft-oriented.

Instead of reading it as Tolkien-validation, I took this surprisingly readable piece more as a how-to guide of identifying the ingredients JRR used to bake his story. A kilo of Lear, a liter and a half of Old English, and a splash and a pinch of anachronisms for added taste...

The use of uncommonly employed words draws subconscious - if not directly conscious - parallels between works. I doubt this is to say, "Look, LotR is just like Lear! Art!" but more to say, "Remember the themes in Lear of power, insanity, betrayal, redemption? You just keep that in the back of your mind, dear reader." One might say the parallels being drawn are being stretched a bit past plausibility, but think on it this way: if you see an author finish a thought with, "So it goes..." and you don't think of Vonnegut, it means you never read Vonnegut. To me, the use of intertextual lit references isn't swiping, and it neither confirms nor denies a text's cultural significance. It's laying a librarian-friendly scavenger hunt for your bibliophile audience, and it's playing psych games.

I think you are spot on about each 'school' having its own row to plough, but I think you are indeed most spoiled if you are so immune to the enduring and still pervasive influence of T.S. Eliot to claim that intertextual references neither confirm nor deny a text's significance. (Then again, maybe his influence has faded faster in his native land.)

It was Eliot's "Tradition and the Individual Talent" that firmly established the concept in academe that a poet's greatness does not lie with his deviation or retreat or departure from tradition but with his fidelity to past literature, expressed by Eliot as "the whole of the literature of Europe from Homer". The finest and best poets were those whose work re-informed the entire classical structure of European literature. For Eliot, tradition was the classical tradition. There was no female tradition, no post-colonial tradition, no northern tradition, no local folklore tradition, just this intimate dialogue with past greats. Talent was not a genius one was born with, but something developed through intimate acquaintance and study of past poetry.

So when Tolkien came along and justified and valorised Northern Literature and mythologies, he was doing something outside the prevailing formalisation of the English canon. Thus, for over fifty years defenders of Tolkien have laboured in the shadow of Eliot and attempted to demonstrate how Tolkien's intertexual references demonstrate his place in Eliot's theory and his right to be regarded as part of the accepted literary canon. (Note here, I'm not accepting Eliot's theory, just explaining that generations of English students before you could not blithely claim that intertexual references don't establish significance.)

I'm probably overgeneralising here, but I think this kind of defense has been much more common than any using any other literary theory. I cannot recall, for instance, seeing Bloom's theory of "the anxiety of influence" being applied to demonstrate Tolkien's rebellion against his predecessors. Probably some of the feminists have had a go at Tolkien, but few others.

It might be fun to examine how each literary theory picks up (or doesn't) aspects of Tolkien: Freudian, Jungian, Lacanian for psychology, Kristeva, Derrida, post-colonial theory.

Ultimately I think I would hear Tolkien's own voice: "But what of the banana peel?"

[Feanor of the Peredhil]

Originally Posted by Bêthberry

if you are so immune to the enduring and still pervasive influence of T.S. Eliot to claim that intertextual references neither confirm nor deny a text's significance

Bwahaha. Perhaps the curious matter is that which is meant by significance. What do we consider Great, and why do we think it so? I will blithely and committedly say that if something has created no cultural paradigm shift, it's not Great. Ergo Harry Potter is Great, and Great Expectations, I expect, is not. Yet which do we read in high school English?

And can Greatness be bestowed posthumously? Everyone knows that artists are dirt poor and misunderstood (excepting fiends like Damien Hirst) until well after death. So too with literature? Does the popularity and cultural milieu of LotR have postmortem effects on the Vulsunga Saga or Beowulf or etc? Would anyone care at all about Detective Comics if they hadn't created a spinoff with that weird and kinda interesting character, Batman? What I'm asking, I suppose, is if we can grant greatness retroactively, by way of what it birthed. And is it still great if nobody cares about it?

I suppose I'm asking a tree falling in the woods question. Proust. Proust is great, right? How many people have actually read any of his work? And how many people pronounce his name right? How significant is Joseph Conrad if his biggest dead guy claim to fame is, "More high schoolers didn't read my book than didn't read yours!"?

So what is significance?

If significance is a specific set of conditions in which only European white boys fit, then yes, I suppose we might run into some problems with literature that glorifies legends of border cultures. And in that case, LotR is basically a nerdy professor writing fantasy fan fic about myths.

However if significance is something that can be determined by the reaction of those confronted with it (either positive or negative), then we've got a bit of play room.

It might be fun to examine how each literary theory picks up (or doesn't) aspects of Tolkien: Freudian, Jungian, Lacanian for psychology, Kristeva, Derrida, post-colonial theory.

You minx.

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by Feanor of the Peredhil

Bwahaha. Perhaps the curious matter is that which is meant by significance. What do we consider Great, and why do we think it so? I will blithely and committedly say that if something has created no cultural paradigm shift, it's not Great. Ergo Harry Potter is Great, and Great Expectations, I expect, is not. Yet which do we read in high school English?

It could probably be fairly argued that Dickens was the Rowling of his day. (And look at the success the RSC had with Nicholas Nickleby in the 1980s.)

It would also be fair to suggest that literature of the past can benefit from being taught in a classroom because the cultural and temporal distance can use a bit of explication. If all we read in school (or even on our own)l was of our own time, what paultry, pitiful minds we would have: without some kind of historical context or memory, we are blinkered. This is not, by the by, to defend Eliot's critical judgements (although some of his understanding of what happens when a poet really confronts other poets, of the past as well as of his own time, are interesting).

And can Greatness be bestowed posthumously? Everyone knows that artists are dirt poor and misunderstood (excepting fiends like Damien Hirst) until well after death. So too with literature? Does the popularity and cultural milieu of LotR have postmortem effects on the Vulsunga Saga or Beowulf or etc? Would anyone care at all about Detective Comics if they hadn't created a spinoff with that weird and kinda interesting character, Batman? What I'm asking, I suppose, is if we can grant greatness retroactively, by way of what it birthed. And is it still great if nobody cares about it?

John Donne was by and large ignored until Eliot championed him. There are clear political reasons why Eliot would champion Donne and not Milton, but the fact remains that there are now a good many readers who count Donne among their favourite poets. The entire corpus of Old English literature was forgotten until the Victorians rediscovered it. There are many women writers and working class writers whose work fell by the wayside of critical taste who are now 'rediscovered'. So, yes, the waxing and waning of aesthetic tastes and judgements does produce a mixed bag. What is crucial to one generation of readers might not be to the next.

How significant is Joseph Conrad if his biggest dead guy claim to fame is, "More high schoolers didn't read my book than didn't read yours!"?

He was kind of significant to the filmmaker who made "Apocalypse Now" (although perhaps that film is no longer widely appreciated--another shift in taste).

So what is significance?

If significance is a specific set of conditions in which only European white boys fit, then yes, I suppose we might run into some problems with literature that glorifies legends of border cultures. And in that case, LotR is basically a nerdy professor writing fantasy fan fic about myths.

However if significance is something that can be determined by the reaction of those confronted with it (either positive or negative), then we've got a bit of play room.

By "those confronted with it" do you mean the writers or do you mean readers? I would agree with you that the creative influence of a text is a better guide to understanding the soup, but then always there's the problem with accounting for minority responses and accounting for the tastes of readers and writers who are formed by a wider range or differing range of reading than others. (Note that I wouldn't claim Eliot had a wider range of reading. Once I was soundly lambasted for discussing Charlotte Bronte in the same sentence as St. Augustine.)

Originally Posted by Bethberry

It might be fun to examine how each literary theory picks up (or doesn't) aspects of Tolkien: Freudian, Jungian, Lacanian for psychology, Kristeva, Derrida, post-colonial theory.

You minx.

I shall not cease from reminding you of your ideas and the end of all the prodding will be to arrive at a place where you do find the time and inclination to post them here.

[Feanor of the Peredhil]

Originally Posted by Bêthberry

It could probably be fairly argued that Dickens was the Rowling of his day.

Truth. The first chapter of Hard Times is hilarious.

There are many women writers and working class writers whose work fell by the wayside of critical taste who are now 'rediscovered'.

Ditto on visual artists. My brother just bought an art history textbook, but prior to purchasing it, he asked his professor what the difference was between the new and indecently expensive edition, and the few-years-old and cheap on ebay edition. Only difference? Female artists.

By "those confronted with it" do you mean the writers or do you mean readers?

On this note, I believe there is a fascinating difference between writers who read, and readers who read. There are also readers who write, but we typically just call them 'writers.' As anyone in the upper echelon of literary academia knows, there are writer's writers, and reader's writers. There is an entire slew of contemporary writers widely understood right now to be the best we have. But who understands it? Not the market, it seems, because if you start listing author names, you'll be met with blank glances, unless you happen to be speaking with a creative writing professor.

The dynamics between big city publishing and artist-endorsed literary experiments are... fluctuating. And odd. And full of blame casting.

However, in my statement about the effect on 'the readers' I meant, specifically, readers who are neither writers nor academics. Your casual bookstore browsers, your train commuters, your vast numbers of people that want a book to read but have no interest in discussing whether or not it's appropriate to ascribe contemporary ideals of beauty and importance to works of a different era.

there's the problem with accounting for minority responses and accounting for the tastes of readers and writers who are formed by a wider range or differing range of reading than others. (Note that I wouldn't claim Eliot had a wider range of reading. Once I was soundly lambasted for discussing Charlotte Bronte in the same sentence as St. Augustine.)

I don't see it as a problem.

But I'm the same chick that finds half the pleasure she takes in Buffy marathons is due to having seen American Pie first. Hey Buffy, Xander, Giles: this one time? At band camp? Also, this is a similar discussion as whether your opinions about the LotR books are as astute if you saw the movies first.

And it's a discussion we had a month ago at school, sitting around our workshop table with tea and coffee and fancy chocolates. That makes it sound more highbrow than it was: the chocolates were a present, not the norm, and the tea and coffee were dining hall fare, which means they were awful. In any case, one novelist drafted a short story that drew from several literary sources, most specifically My Fair Lady.

It should probably be noted that I was the only one in the room that was unfamiliar with My Fair Lady (I've seen parts, and I know a few quotes, but that's about it). I felt equally left out when I was the only one that had seen Harry Potter 7 Part 1 in theaters, granted, but the point remained that this discussion about interliterary acquisitions centered on what experiences (literary or life) you can justifiably expect your readers to have, and if it's fair to blame the reader if they don't get your brilliant references.

Say we're reading Eliot's The Waste Land and get as far as:

Originally Posted by TS

London Bridge is falling down falling down falling down Poi s'ascose nel foco che gli affina Quando fiam ceu chelidon—O swallow swallow Le Prince d'Aquitaine à la tour abolie These fragments I have shored against my ruins 430 Why then Ile fit you. Hieronymo's mad againe. Datta. Dayadhvam. Damyata. Shantih shantih shantih

Should I call it a day and assume I'm just too dumb to get it? Is it respectful to a general readership to muck about with language and to alter signifiers? And do authors hold a responsibility to their readership to make a story accessible?

I hold to the philosophy that if nobody understands it, I've done something wrong, and if I'm writing for myself and not for readers, I should go write in a diary instead of somewhere public. But obviously not all writers follow that.

I suppose the question here is what responsibilities, if any, do the writers have in the creation of their work, and what responsibilities, if any, do the readers have?

I like to think we meet half way. Most of my undergrad lit profs took the established critical route of, "The text is holy. All the information is there. If you don't get it, it's your own failings. You probably lack strong moral fiber. You will never hold an advanced degree." Most of my graduate writing professors think we are contractually obligated to our readers from the first page: as long as you set up the parameters of the world and the story, you're free to do what you want as long as you follow the laws of your own creation.

The other question, then, would be: why do we write? And who do we write for? And does it matter.

I shall not cease from reminding you of your ideas and the end of all the prodding will be to arrive at a place where you do find the time and inclination to post them here.

Heh. That or all my ideas will emerge through the essays I don't intend to write as you instigate the dispersal of my opinions!

[Pitchwife]

Originally Posted by Feanor of the Peredhil

Say we're reading Eliot's The Waste Land and get as far as:

Should I call it a day and assume I'm just too dumb to get it?

I'm not sure there is anything to get here other than Eliot having a pee contest with Ezra Pound about who can drop the most random references to/quotes from tradition in the shortest sequence of verses...

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by Feanor of the Peredhil

Say we're reading Eliot's The Waste Land and get as far as:

Should I call it a day and assume I'm just too dumb to get it? Is it respectful to a general readership to muck about with language and to alter signifiers? And do authors hold a responsibility to their readership to make a story accessible?

Originally Posted by Pitchwife

I'm not sure there is anything to get here other than Eliot having a pee contest with Ezra Pound about who can drop the most random references to/quotes from tradition in the shortest sequence of verses...

Speaking as someone who was able to avoid studying any modern poetry, I'd say that passage leaves me 'etherised like a patient on a table', and I'd defend the allusion to Eliot by using Tolkien's defense of dramatic purpose.

And I'm serious about referring to Tolkien because I think his essay on Beowulf sets out a fairly interesting theory of poetic art. He of course was attacking critics who saw in the poem nothing but an historical document, a quarry for anthropological, sociological, historical mining. Not that he denigrates those disciplines, but that he argues the situation ignores the most profound quality of the poem, its art.

Originally Posted by The Monsters and the Critic

The illusion of historical truth and perspective, that has made Beowulf seem such an attractive quarry, is largely a product of its art. The author has used an instinctive historical sense--a part indeed of the ancient English temper (and not unconnected with its reupted melancoly), of which Beowulf is a supreme expression; but he has used it with a poetical and not an historical object. The lovers of poetry can safely study the art, but the seekers after history must beware lest the glamour of Poesis overcome them.

I would claim that Eliot and Pound were themselves guilty of ignoring the Poetic art in favour of building edifices of historical purpose. Tolkien argued that the shadow of research has lain upon criticism. It also fell upon those who felt a poetic urge and were unable to write a story or poem which did justice to art as well as archeology.

So I think it might also be fun to apply some of Tolkien's literary theories to other authors.

This is to ignore Fea's question about who the general reader is, because that is a thorny one indeed. I don't think a general reader exists; we are too splintered a culture and community and if in the past there was a sense of catholic (meaning universal) reader, it existed only because so much fell outside its range of vision.

Most of my undergrad lit profs took the established critical route of, "The text is holy. All the information is there. If you don't get it, it's your own failings. You probably lack strong moral fiber. You will never hold an advanced degree."

As far as I'm concerned the School of The Moral Superiority of Literary Studies was thoroughly undermined by the Nazi regime. Most of those brutes were highly educated cultural elites. But somehow that didn't sink in to a discipline that was floundering in its attempt to justify itself. If it wasn't creating new knowledge, like the sciences, what was it doing? Heaven forbid that the arts (that is, the humanities) were mere amusement. The bourgeois belief in moral worth overlooked the baroque attitude towards art, that it is entertainment, but entertainment that could still provide some thoughtful perspective on itself and its culture. Tolkien's worth is that he respected story and verse.

Originally Posted by Fea

The other question, then, would be: why do we write? And who do we write for? And does it matter.

Tolkien's professional life was devoted to literature that for the most part was anonymous. So questions of authorial intent, psychology, purpose were irrelevant. The text's the thing wherein to catch the conscience of the reader.

I saw the most amazing production of Hamlet the other night. (I'm remembering that Tolkien enjoyed theatre.) It opened up the play like I had never imagined it. It breathed new life into the old scrip (cliched old metaphor I know, but true). It set the story in modern and ancient Japan, employed three actors to play Hamlet, and cross-gender casting. Eliot and Pound never, ever gave me any sense of appreciation for the older literatures they alluded to, only a pathetic sense that they felt this museum-like dirge. Both that production and Tolkien, I think, have captured the sense of how to breath new life into old works.

[Feanor of the Peredhil]

Originally Posted by Bêthberry

Tolkien's professional life was devoted to literature that for the most part was anonymous. So questions of authorial intent, psychology, purpose were irrelevant. The text's the thing wherein to catch the conscience of the reader.

Indeed. Would that we all had anonymous manuscripts to play with.

But with the knowledge of the author, and the in depth knowledge of his life, are we obliged to take his life into account when we talk about his work?

I say no, clearly, we are not. Not obliged, that is to say. However taking his life into account can give us new insight, if we want it. Or we can ignore his life and look at the work as an independent entity, singular unto itself.

In that same way, we can gain new insight by approaching literature via different avenues of literary theory and criticism, but only if we want to, only if the question 'what if?' has us willing to suspend our disbelief in the validity of certain approaches long enough to consider what we might learn from them if, for a time, we think of them with complete seriousness.