The Road to Middle-Earth

Last updated

The Road to Middle-Earth
TheRoadToMiddleEarth.jpg
First edition
Author Tom Shippey
CountryUnited Kingdom
LanguageEnglish
Subject Middle-earth
GenreLiterary criticism
Publisher Allen & Unwin
Publication date
1982 (3rd. ed. 2005)
Media typePrint (hardback & paperback)
ISBN 978-0-261-10275-0
OCLC 60000827

The Road to Middle-Earth: How J. R. R. Tolkien Created a New Mythology is a scholarly study of the Middle-earth works of J. R. R. Tolkien written by Tom Shippey and first published in 1982. The book discusses Tolkien's philology, and then examines in turn the origins of The Hobbit , The Lord of the Rings, The Silmarillion , and his minor works. An appendix discusses Tolkien's many sources. Two further editions extended and updated the work, including a discussion of Peter Jackson's film version of The Lord of the Rings .

Contents

The book's various versions, including new editions in 1993 and 2005, have been welcomed by Tolkien scholars and others as rigorous, convincing, and "the single best book written on Tolkien". [1] Shippey won the 1984 Mythopoeic Scholarship Award in Inklings Studies for the book.

Book

Background

Tom Shippey is, as Tolkien was, a philologist. Early in his career he taught English at the University of Oxford, using the same syllabus as Tolkien. He became a full professor at the University of Leeds, a post that Tolkien had once held. He then moved to St. Louis University, Missouri. [2] Since the 1980s, he has worked on Tolkien studies, becoming a leading expert on the subject. [3]

Synopsis

The book discusses Tolkien's inspiration in creating the world of Middle-earth and the writing of works including The Hobbit , The Lord of the Rings , and The Silmarillion . A recurrent theme is that of Tolkien's detailed linguistic studies (particularly of Old Norse and Old English) and the creation of languages (such as Sindarin and Khuzdul) which feature prominently throughout his works.

Shippey discusses the possible location of the original Mirkwood, a term reused by Tolkien, in the 4th-century Goth-Hun borderlands between the Carpathian Mountains and the River Dnieper, their mentions in legend analysed and reconstructed by philology. Mirkwood between the Carpathians and Dnieper.svg
Shippey discusses the possible location of the original Mirkwood, a term reused by Tolkien, in the 4th-century Goth-Hun borderlands between the Carpathian Mountains and the River Dnieper, their mentions in legend analysed and reconstructed by philology.

The book begins by explaining Tolkien's philology, his belief in its ability to show what happened as the Gothic empire fell in the 4th century as hinted at in brief mentions of the mythical Mirkwood, and his feeling that if he reconstructed an imagined past on such foundations, it would not be wholly false. It then examines the origins of The Hobbit, how Tolkien rebuilt a picture of Elves and Dwarves from the available clues, and from the different ways of speaking of each race, how he ended up writing a richly-characterised story. Three chapters then explore The Lord of the Rings, its map-based plot, its elaborate interlacement of narrative threads, its roots in literature including Shakespeare, and its underlying mythical and Christian themes. A chapter examines The Silmarillion's origins and structure, looking at Christopher Tolkien's 1977 selection from his father's legendarium, and his further selection in 1980, published as Unfinished Tales . These had dark themes, especially of death and immortality, and Shippey notes that readers have found them difficult, providing a good reason for a chapter on them. Another chapter looks at Tolkien's minor works.

An appendix discusses Tolkien's many sources, from the Elder Edda and Beowulf through to the many languages that Tolkien knew. Also attached are four of Tolkien's "asterisk" poems (so called as, like conjectured wordforms, they are not actually recorded in any medieval manuscript), written to appear to be the ancient origins of more recent works: for instance, Ofer Widne Garsecg is stated by Tolkien to be "An Old English version of 'Twas in the broad Atlantic in the equinoctial gales / That a young fellow fell overboard among the sharks and whales'". Two of the poems concern the Birch tree, symbolising to Tolkien the "B" stream of English studies at Oxford, which covered "Lang[uage]" (including Old English) as opposed to "Lit[erature]" (including Shakespeare).

In the third edition, the book concludes with a chapter on Peter Jackson's film version of The Lord of the Rings; it notes the film trilogy's enormous popular and commercial success, and considers how far the films are faithful to the book. In Shippey's view, the films tend both to "democratisation" and to "emotionalisation" of the narrative, though he welcomes the fact that Jackson has brought a fresh audience to Tolkien's work. [4]

Publication history

The book was first published in 1982, by Allen & Unwin in Great Britain and by Houghton Mifflin in the United States. The second edition, published by HarperCollins in 1993, included discussion of the 12-volume History of Middle-earth edited by Tolkien's son Christopher. The third edition was published in 2003. [5]

The book has been translated into at least four languages. A Polish edition was published in 2001 by Zysk i S-ka in Poznań. A Spanish edition was brought out by Planeta-De Agostini in Barcelona in 2002. A Russian edition appeared in 2003, published by Limbus Press of Saint Petersburg. A German edition was published by Klett-Cotta in Stuttgart in 2018. [5]

Reception

Jessica Yates, in Mythlore , writes that Shippey, a holder of Tolkien's old professorial chair at Leeds, and a Tolkien fan, had two goals for the book: to explain to instinctive lovers of Lord of the Rings why they are right to do so; and to refute the hostile criticism from literary figures like Edmund Wilson. She states that this second reason explains "the rigorous tone" of the book. [6]

Kirkus Reviews in 1983 called the work "In sum: the most useful book on Tolkien since the Carpenter biography". The review describes the book as an "erratically enlightening study", one that sometimes goes into great detail on minute points, but that powerfully sets out a major thesis. This is, states the review, that clues from philological study – Tolkien's profession – of Old English and other languages of that period suggested "the greatness of some hidden pre-literate Northern past", and that Tolkien set about inventing "the world that should have existed for legend to take place in, and constructed the epic that should have lain behind the 'asterisk-world' of philogical conjecture". [7]

Gergely Nagy, in Tolkien Studies , writes that the 2005 revision is "the good old Road", with useful additions. The book was in his view from 1982 "emblematic" of the "source-study" or "comparative study" approach to Tolkien criticism. Nagy calls it "the seminal monograph", [8] and recalls that Glen GoodKnight, founder of the Mythopoeic Society, had called it "the best single book written on Tolkien". GoodKnight noted, too, Shippey's comments in the preface to the second edition that he had not had to make many changes despite the publication of Christopher Tolkien's detailed The History of Middle-earth, meaning that his early predictions had proven accurate. [1]

Charles Moseley, in The Observer in 2000, writes that the book demonstrated that Shippey was "one of Tolkien's most acute critics and convincing apologists". [9]

The historian Bradley J. Birzer, reviewing another of Shippey's books, his 2000 J. R. R. Tolkien: Author of the Century in Catholic Social Science Review, writes that it contains similar information to his scholarly The Road to Middle-Earth, but aimed at a well-educated general audience. [10]

Awards

In 1984 the first edition of the book received the Mythopoeic Scholarship Award in Inklings Studies , [11] an award "given to books on J.R.R. Tolkien ... that make significant contributions to Inklings scholarship." [12]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tom Shippey</span> British medievalist (born 1943)

Thomas Alan Shippey is a British medievalist, a retired scholar of Middle and Old English literature as well as of modern fantasy and science fiction. He is considered one of the world's leading academic experts on the works of J. R. R. Tolkien about whom he has written several books and many scholarly papers. His book The Road to Middle-Earth has been called "the single best thing written on Tolkien".

The Notion Club Papers is an abandoned novel by J. R. R. Tolkien, written in 1945 and published posthumously in Sauron Defeated, the 9th volume of The History of Middle-earth. It is a time travel story, written while The Lord of the Rings was being developed. The Notion Club is a fictionalization of Tolkien's own such club, the Inklings. Tolkien's mechanism for the exploration of time is through lucid dreams. These allow club members to experience events as far back as the destruction of the Atlantis-like island of Númenor, as narrated in The Silmarillion.

The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to the real-world history and notable fictional elements of J. R. R. Tolkien's fantasy universe. It covers materials created by Tolkien; the works on his unpublished manuscripts, by his son Christopher Tolkien; and films, games and other media created by other people.

The term Middle-earth canon, also called Tolkien's canon, is used for the published writings of J. R. R. Tolkien regarding Middle-earth as a whole. The term is also used in Tolkien fandom to promote, discuss and debate the idea of a consistent fictional canon within a given subset of Tolkien's writings.

The works of J. R. R. Tolkien have generated a body of research covering many aspects of his fantasy writings. These encompass The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion, along with his legendarium that remained unpublished until after his death, and his constructed languages, especially the Elvish languages Quenya and Sindarin. Scholars from different disciplines have examined the linguistic and literary origins of Middle-earth, and have explored many aspects of his writings from Christianity to feminism and race.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tolkien's legendarium</span> J. R. R. Tolkiens mythological writings

Tolkien's legendarium is the body of J. R. R. Tolkien's mythopoeic writing, unpublished in his lifetime, that forms the background to his The Lord of the Rings, and which his son Christopher summarized in his compilation of The Silmarillion and documented in his 12-volume series The History of Middle-earth. The legendarium's origins reach back to 1914, when Tolkien began writing poems and story sketches, drawing maps, and inventing languages and names as a private project to create a unique English mythology. The earliest story drafts are from 1916; he revised and rewrote these for most of his adult life.

<i>The History of The Hobbit</i>

The History of The Hobbit is a two-volume study of J. R. R. Tolkien's 1937 novel The Hobbit. It was published by HarperCollins in May and June 2007 in the United Kingdom, with both volumes released in the United States by Houghton Mifflin on 21 September 2007; a boxed set combining The Hobbit with The History of The Hobbit was released on 26 October 2007. A single-volume edition was released on 27 October 2011.

<i>J. R. R. Tolkien: Author of the Century</i> Book by Tom Shippey

J. R. R. Tolkien: Author of the Century is a 2001 book of literary criticism written by Tom Shippey. It is about the work of the philologist and fantasy author J. R. R. Tolkien. In it, Shippey argues for the relevance of Tolkien today and attempts to firmly establish Tolkien's literary merits, based on analysis of The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, The Silmarillion, and Tolkien's shorter works.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Influences on J. R. R. Tolkien</span> Sources of Tolkiens fiction

J. R. R. Tolkien's fantasy books on Middle-earth, especially The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion, drew on a wide array of influences including language, Christianity, mythology, archaeology, ancient and modern literature, and personal experience. He was inspired primarily by his profession, philology; his work centred on the study of Old English literature, especially Beowulf, and he acknowledged its importance to his writings.

<i>The Silmarillion</i> Collection of J. R. R. Tolkiens mythopoeic works

The Silmarillion is a collection of myths and stories in varying styles by the English writer J. R. R. Tolkien. It was edited and published posthumously by his son Christopher Tolkien in 1977, assisted by the fantasy author Guy Gavriel Kay. It tells of Eä, a fictional universe that includes the Blessed Realm of Valinor, the once-great region of Beleriand, the sunken island of Númenor, and the continent of Middle-earth, where Tolkien's most popular works—The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings—are set. After the success of The Hobbit, Tolkien's publisher Stanley Unwin requested a sequel, and Tolkien offered a draft of the writings that would later become The Silmarillion. Unwin rejected this proposal, calling the draft obscure and "too Celtic", so Tolkien began working on a new story that eventually became The Lord of the Rings.

<i>A Companion to J. R. R. Tolkien</i> 2014 scholarly book edited by Stuart D. Lee

A Companion to J. R. R. Tolkien is a 2014 book edited by Stuart D. Lee and published by Wiley-Blackwell. It is a part of the Blackwell Companions to Literature series, which have been described as prestigious reference works, and features authors well-known in the field of Tolkien studies.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tolkien's maps</span> Use of cartography in J. R. R. Tolkiens world-building

J. R. R. Tolkien's maps, depicting his fictional Middle-earth and other places in his legendarium, helped him with plot development, guided the reader through his often complex stories, and contributed to the impression of depth and worldbuilding in his writings.

Tolkien's Middle-earth family trees contribute to the impression of depth and realism in the stories set in his fantasy world by showing that each character is rooted in history with a rich network of relationships. J. R. R. Tolkien included multiple family trees in both The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion; they are variously for Elves, Dwarves, Hobbits, and Men.

Tolkien's monsters are the evil beings, such as Orcs, Trolls, and giant spiders, who oppose and sometimes fight the protagonists in J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth legendarium. Tolkien was an expert on Old English, especially Beowulf, and several of his monsters share aspects of the Beowulf monsters; his Trolls have been likened to Grendel, the Orcs' name harks back to the poem's orcneas, and the dragon Smaug has multiple attributes of the Beowulf dragon. The European medieval tradition of monsters makes them either humanoid but distorted, or like wild beasts, but very large and malevolent; Tolkien follows both traditions, with monsters like Orcs of the first kind and Wargs of the second. Some scholars add Tolkien's immensely powerful Dark Lords Morgoth and Sauron to the list, as monstrous enemies in spirit as well as in body. Scholars have noted that the monsters' evil nature reflects Tolkien's Roman Catholicism, a religion which has a clear conception of good and evil.

<i>A Tolkien Compass</i> 1975 book of literary criticism of Tolkien

A Tolkien Compass, a 1975 collection of essays edited by Jared Lobdell, was one of the first books of Tolkien scholarship to be published; it was written without sight of The Silmarillion, published in 1977. Some of the essays have remained at the centre of such scholarship. Most were written by academics for fan-organised conferences. The collection was also the first place where Tolkien's own "Guide to the names in The Lord of the Rings" became widely available.

<i>Splintered Light</i> Book of literary criticism of Tolkiens Middle-earth

Splintered Light: Logos and Language in Tolkien's World is an 1983 book of literary criticism by the leading Tolkien scholar Verlyn Flieger, in which she argues that light is a central theme of Tolkien's Middle-earth mythology, in particular in The Silmarillion. It has been admired by other scholars to the extent that it has become a core element of Tolkien scholarship.

<i>Tolkiens Art: A Mythology for England</i> 1979 book by Jane Chance

Tolkien's Art: 'A Mythology for England' is a 1979 book of Tolkien scholarship by Jane Chance, writing then as Jane Chance Nitzsche. The book looks in turn at Tolkien's essays "On Fairy-Stories" and "Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics"; The Hobbit; the fairy-stories "Leaf by Niggle" and "Smith of Wootton Major"; the minor works "Lay of Autrou and Itroun", "The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth", "Imram", and Farmer Giles of Ham; The Lord of the Rings; and very briefly in the concluding section, The Silmarillion. In 2001, a second edition extended all the chapters but still treated The Silmarillion, that Tolkien worked on throughout his life, as a sort of coda.

<i>Master of Middle-Earth</i> 1972 book of literary criticism by Paul H. Kocher

Master of Middle-earth: The Fiction of J. R. R. Tolkien, alternatively subtitled The Achievement of J.R.R. Tolkien, is a 1972 book of literary criticism of J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth fantasy writings, written by Paul H. Kocher, and one of the few to be published in Tolkien's lifetime. It focuses especially on The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, and also covers some of his minor works such as "Leaf by Niggle" and "Smith of Wootton Major".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tolkien's sentience dilemma</span> Ethical issue with Orcs in Middle-earth fiction

J. R. R. Tolkien created a dilemma for himself with his supposedly evil Middle-earth peoples like Orcs when he made them able to speak. This meant they were sentient and open to morality, like Men. In Tolkien's Christian framework, that in turn meant they must have souls, so killing them would be wrong without very good reason. If he wanted killing them not to be such a problem, then they had to be non-sentient and without any moral sense, like ordinary animals. Both Tolkien and other scholars have been aware of the contradiction implied by this position: if Orcs were essentially "beasts", then they should not have had a moral sense; if they were corrupted Elves, then treating them as "other" to be slaughtered was straightforward racism. Tolkien made repeated attempts to resolve the dilemma.

In Tolkien's legendarium, ancestry provides a guide to character. The apparently genteel Hobbits of the Baggins family turn out to be worthy protagonists of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. Bilbo Baggins is seen from his family tree to be both a Baggins and an adventurous Took. Similarly, Frodo Baggins has some relatively outlandish Brandybuck blood. Among the Elves of Middle-earth, as described in The Silmarillion, the highest are the peaceful Vanyar, whose ancestors conformed most closely to the divine will, migrating to Aman and seeing the light of the Two Trees of Valinor; the lowest are the mutable Teleri; and in between are the conflicted Noldor. Scholars have analysed the impact of ancestry on Elves such as the creative but headstrong Fëanor, who makes the Silmarils. Among Men, Aragorn, hero of The Lord of the Rings, is shown by his descent from Kings, Elves, and an immortal Maia to be of royal blood, destined to be the true King who will restore his people. Scholars have commented that in this way, Tolkien was presenting a view of character from Norse mythology, and an Anglo-Saxon view of kingship, though others have called his implied views racist.

References

  1. 1 2 GoodKnight, Glen (1993). "The Road Goes Ever On". Mythlore . 19 (3). article 14.
  2. ↑ "Publication information for The Road to Middle-earth". Houghton Mifflin . Retrieved 26 September 2020.
  3. ↑ Houghton, John Wm.; Croft, Janet Brennan, eds. (2014). Tolkien in the New Century: Essays in Honor of Tom Shippey. McFarland. pp. 1–5, 11–15. ISBN   978-1-4766-1486-1 . Retrieved 28 November 2021.
  4. ↑ Shippey 2005, Peter Jackson's Film versions.
  5. 1 2 "ti:The Road to Middle-Earth au:Shippey". WorldCat . Retrieved 26 September 2020.
  6. ↑ Yates, Jessica (1984). "The Road Goes Ever On". Mythlore . 9 (4). article 15.
  7. ↑ "The Road to Middle-earth". Kirkus Reviews. 1 April 1983. Retrieved 26 September 2020.
  8. ↑ Nagy, Gergely (2005). "The Road to Middle-earth, Revised and Expanded Edition (review)". Tolkien Studies. 2 (1): 258–261. doi:10.1353/tks.2005.0026. ISSN   1547-3163. S2CID   170416664.
  9. ↑ Moseley, Charles (7 October 2000). "A Creature of Hobbit". The Observer . Retrieved 26 September 2020.
  10. ↑ Birzer, Bradley J. (2002). "Shippey, T.A. 'J. R. R. Tolkien: Author of the Century'. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2001. 347 pp. $26.00 hardcover.'". Catholic Social Science Review. 7: 225–227. doi:10.5840/cssr2002721.
  11. ↑ "Mythopoeic Awards - List of Winners". The Mythopoeic Society. Archived from the original on 6 October 2014. Retrieved 7 January 2021.
  12. ↑ "Mythopoeic Awards - About the Awards". The Mythopoeic Society. Retrieved 7 January 2021.

Sources

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.