Twentieth Century Tolkien

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by Morthoron

18th, 19th and 20th century anachronisms are rife in the Shire. I'm not sure how anyone can consider the Hobbits "medieval," save perhaps for their weaponry. I am far too lazy currently to research, but the impression I get of the Hobbits is that of pre-WWI rural English farmers, more apt to doff the cap or tug the forelock to a local squire (like the Tooks or Brandbucks) than to know the first thing about distant kings, or to care about outlandish doings further than a few miles from where they were born.

WWI creeps in with Samwise being the loyal batsman to Frodo, or the Dead Marshes, of course; but really all the anachronisms I can recall: tea-time, pocket-handkerchiefs, "drawing-room sofas", golf, weskits (and waistcoat buttons), clarinets, clocks, mention of an "express train", the Satanic Mills of Sharkey, pipes and tobacco, the public post (home service and not the more military and administrative system of the Romans, or of business with the merchants and bankers of the Renaissance), etc., can all be traced to 18th or 19th century England. Maybe the 17th century with mentions of telescopes in the hands of regular folk.

Tolkien was a 20th century writer with a 19th century set of morals and proprieties -- he even despised the internal combustion engine.

I wasn't thinking of the anachronisms, Morthoron, when I posted this thread, so thanks for bringing them up. What could be their purpose?

The Shire definitely is a parochial pastoral fabular world with not much interest in "progress" or science. Sharkey brings in the destruction of industrialism and authoritarianism which must be removed in the Scouring of the Shire.

So why is the Shire so full of the anachronisms you mention? Was Tolkien harkening back to an imagined past but wanted to signal its relationship to his readers in the mid-twentieth century? Was it a nostalgia he wanted to invite his readers into through items he knew they would recognise? Did he expect his readers to identify them as anachronisms or was he simply creating a vision of a community with things that he enjoyed like waistcoats and pipe smoking? I don't think it is clear in that first chapter that this is a "third age" community for readers of a "seventh age".