J. R. R. Tolkien: Author of the Century

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Tom Shippey. J. R. R. Tolkien: Author of the Century

J. R. R. Tolkien. Author of the Century. T.A. Shippey

Table of Contents

Foreword. AUTHOR OF THE CENTURY. Fantasy and the fantastic

Tolkien’s life and work

The author of the century

Tolkien and the polls

Tolkien and the fantasy genre

An author of the twentieth century

Plan and scope of this book

CHAPTER I. THE HOBBIT: RE-INVENTING MIDDLE-EARTH. A moment of inspiration?

The world of fairy-tale

The author’s voice

The contest for authority

Philological fictions

The clash of styles

Bridging the gap

CHAPTER II. THE LORD OF THE RINGS (1): MAPPING OUT A PLOT. Starting again

Back-tracking

The Council of Elrond: character revealed

The Council of Elrond: organizing the plot

More re-creations

Cultural parallels: the Riders of the Mark

Cultural contrasts: Rohan and Gondor

The ironies of interlace

CHAPTER III. THE LORD OF THE RINGS (2): CONCEPTS OF EVIL. The concept of the Ring

Wraiths and shadows: Tolkien’s images of evil

Two views of evil

Evil and the Ring

Positive forces: 1Luck

Positive forces: 2Courage

Some conclusions

CHAPTER IV. THE LORD OF THE RINGS (3): THE MYTHIC DIMENSION. Allegory and applicability

Saruman and Denethor: technologist and reactionary

Mythic mediation

The myth of Frodo

Timeless poetry and true tradition

Three Shire-poets: Shakespeare, Milton, and ‘Anonymous’

Moments of eucatastrophe

Further mythic moments

Style and genre

CHAPTER V. THE SILMARILLION: THE WORK OF HIS HEART. Lost lore and lays

A parallel mythology

‘A passion for family history’

The ‘Human-stories’ of the elves

Angels and the evangelium

Some comparisons

CHAPTER VI. SHORTER WORKS: DOUBTS, FEARS, AUTOBIOGRAPHIES. Tolkien’s shorter works considered

Autobiographical allegory: 1‘Leaf by Niggle’

Poems written and rewritten

The Lost Road

Popular lays, a lai, and an anti-lay

Autobiographical allegory: 2Smith of Wootton Major

Afterword. THE FOLLOWERS AND THE CRITICS. Tolkien and the critics

Tolkien and Joyce

Tolkien and modernism

Tolkien’s legacy

Relevance and realism

List of References. WORKS BY J.R.R. TOLKIEN

WORKS OF REFERENCE

FURTHER REFERENCES

Index

Acknowledgements

Copyright

About the Publisher

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Cover Page

Title Page

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‘My walls are adorned wondrously with milk-white marble-stones…’ This, one might say, is what the modern children’s riddle’s ancient ancestor must have looked like. It is (see p. xv above) an ‘asterisk-riddle’.

When Bilbo replies to Gollum’s ancient riddles with modern ones, then, the two contestants are not so very far apart. As Gandalf was to say to Frodo many years later (by which time the concept of Gollum had admittedly changed a good deal), ‘They understood one another remarkably well…Think of the riddles they both knew, for one thing’. What this suggests, though, is that while Bilbo remains an anachronism, a middle-class Englishman in the fairy-tale world, he is indeed ‘not quite like ordinary people’. The difference is that he has not quite lost his grip on old tradition. Nor, of course, have all ‘ordinary people’. But they have downgraded old tradition to children’s tales and children’s songs, become ashamed of it, made it into ‘folklore’. Bilbo and hobbits are in this respect wiser. Their unforgotten wisdom puts Bilbo for the first time on a level with a creature from the world into which he has ventured.

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