Tolkien -- Enemy of Rome

[Crispvs]

Dan,<br>
<br>
Despite the seemingly interminable length of some of your recent postings on this thread, you seem always to be harping on about a single point: that Tolkein's work, and in particular 'The Lord of the Rings' was nothing more than a thinly disguised attempt to elevate the warriors of Ariovistus and Arminius into the saviours of the world, to be admired by all. If this is the case could you answer a few small points of my own?<br>
<br>
1. Hobbits do not resemble ancient Germans in the slightest. Rather, they are depicted as idealised eighteenth or early nineteenth century rustics, of a type not uncommon in Thomas Hardy's works. As hobbits are central characters in both 'The Hobbit' and 'The Lord of the Rings' how do they help to elevate Ariovistus and co into cultured savours of the universe?<br>
<br>
2. The Rohirrim (or Riders of Rohan) are the most 'Germanic' of the peoples Tolkein describes, but (and I am not referring in any way to the recent films here) they are hardly 'Germans' of the type Tacitus describes. They are in fact a formerly nomadic warrior nation (who are perhaps closer in some ways to the Huns than Anglo-Saxons) who has been given territory to occupy and defend by the rulers of Gondor, in order to bolster the defence of their northern border, in a way analagous with the late Roman practice of using German tribes as foederati in areas where Rome's power was weak. In what way does an analogy of late Rome glorify your mud hut and pointy stick brigade?<br>
<br>
3. You say that the people of Middle Earth speak a Germanic language. Does that extend to those peoples who are represented as speaking Quendi, Khazak or Black Speech?<br>
<br>
4. Throughout 'The Lord of the Rings' the reader is told that most of the peoples of the regions of Eriador and Gondor speak 'Westron', which is a slightly debased form of the language of Numenor. Tolkein states in the appendices to 'The Lord of the Rings' that the Westron language has been expressed as English in the book for the purpose of avoiding the need to translate most of the speech of the characters. What bearing does this have on your veiw that Tolkein's characters speak a Germanic language?<br>
<br>
5. The peoples of Middle Earth are not the ancient peoples of European history. They are fictional peoples who have been both consciously and unconsciously inspired by historical peoples. This surly is common to all fictional peoples in novels and in fact all characters in novels, plays, films or television programmes. How could it be otherwise? If 'The Lord of the Rings' is a perfidious attack on the memory of the Roman Empire because it has people who resemble in part ancient Germans, then what are Mervyn Peake's 'Gormengast' and Frank Herbert's 'Dune'?<br>
<br>
6. You call 'The Lord of the Rings' a fairytale. In one sense this is true. It does depict a faerie world (ie: a world as real and fully developed as ours but separate from it) and so could be descibed as a work of fairie. However by fairytale I suspect you are using the term in its 'children's bedtime story' sense. This it is not! Whether you enjoy the book or not, it is conscously an epic, in the ancient sense of the term, and in that respect has much in common with the work of Homer, Apollonias Rhodias, Virgil and Lucan. It is devided into 'books' like its epic predecessors; it involves larger than life characters; the characters travel a great distance and endure hardships; the characters meet strange and unexpected peoples along their journey; and the characters have an important mission to accomplish. In fact the only defining characteristic of epic that it lacks is that it is not written in hexameter (but then we today don't write in the iambic pentameter that Shakespeare wrote in). If I am right in this respect, is your indiscriminate use of the word 'fairytale' appropriate?<br>
<br>
I look forward to your response.<br>
<br>
Crispvs <p></p><i>Edited by: <A HREF=http://pub45.ezboard.com/bromanarmytalk.showUserPublicProfile?gid=crispvs>Crispvs</A> at: 2/26/04 1:29 am<br></i>