Tolkien, Race and Cultural History

Tolkien, Race and Cultural History
	Kaleidoscopic cover image of Moseley Bog, made by the author
Author	Dimitra Fimi
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English
Genre	Literary criticism, Tolkien research
Publisher	Palgrave Macmillan
Publication date	2008
Awards	Mythopoeic Scholarship Award 2010
ISBN	978-0-230-21951-9
OCLC	3

Last updated April 05, 2024

Tolkien, Race, and Cultural History: From Fairies to Hobbits is a 2008 book by Dimitra Fimi about J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth writings. Scholars largely welcomed the book, praising its accessibility and its skilful application of a biographical-historical method which sets the development of Tolkien's legendarium in the context of Tolkien's life and times. Major themes of the book include Tolkien's constructed languages, and the issues of race and racism surrounding his work.

Context

J. R. R. Tolkien (1892–1973) was an English Roman Catholic writer, poet, philologist, and academic, best known as the author of the high fantasy works The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings .^[1] Tolkien's Middle-earth fantasy writings have been accused of embodying outmoded attitudes to race.^[2] Against this, Tolkien strongly opposed Nazi racial theories, as in a 1938 letter to his publisher,^[3] while in the Second World War he vigorously opposed anti-German propaganda.^[4] His Middle-earth has been described as definitely polycultural and polylingual.^[2]

Dimitra Fimi is a Greek scholar and author; she is a lecturer in fantasy and children's literature at the University of Glasgow.^[5]^[6]

Book

Part I examines the origins of Tolkien's legendarium, relating it to the diminutive elves and fairies in Victorian children's books, and to English and European folklore.

Part II explores the roots of Tolkien's thought in linguistics, and his linguistic aesthetic, involving the creation of constructed languages.

Part III analyses Tolkien's desire to create a world with its own history. Middle-earth's flat-world and round-world cosmologies are discussed. The question of race is examined, along with racial mixture, the appearance of evil in the Orcs, and the charge of racism. The material culture of Middle-earth is explored, with aspects such as ship burials, winged helmets, Anglo-Saxon culture, and the far more modern Victorian era rural culture of the Shire.

The text ends with an epilogue discussing Tolkien's transition from fairies to the far more down-to-earth hobbits. There are academic notes, a bibliography, and an index.

The book is illustrated with 13 monochrome images in the text, including historic depictions of fairies and elves, some of Tolkien's own drawings and paintings, and a photograph of Sarehole Mill by the author.

The book appeared in hardback in 2008, and was reprinted in paperback in 2010.^[7]

Awards

Tolkien, Race, and Cultural History won the Mythopoeic Scholarship Award for Inklings Studies in 2010.^[8]

Reception

Literary development in its historical context

Mark Hooker, writing in the Mythopoeic Society's journal Mythprint , suggests that the book should have been titled Tolkien in His Historical Context, as the discussion is by no means limited to the issues of race and fairies mentioned on the book's cover, and Fimi states explicitly that her method consists of setting the author in his historical period. He finds the book admirably "well-written and accessible".^[10]

Philip Irving Mitchell, in Christianity & Literature, similarly notes Fimi's historical contextualising. He finds it "terribly ironic" that Tolkien should have chosen Sarehole Mill, an early Industrial Revolution building, as the idealised symbol, the Old Mill in the Shire's central village, Hobbiton, for a lost idyll of rural England.^[9]

Thomas Honegger, in Tolkien Studies , notes that Fimi uses a "biographical-historical" method, relating events in Tolkien's life and period to the development of his legendarium. He finds the text clear and informative, but in some places "not really new", as Tolkien's [then] unpublished writings and poetry were inaccessible; that made the biographical-historical method impossible to apply in full detail.^[11]

Lori Campbell, writing in Modern Fiction Studies , adds that Tolkien's own "endless documentation of how he viewed his own work and its meaning" in his essays and letters supports Fimi's approach comparing fiction and biography. Campbell finds that the materials are skilfully used, as Fimi "deftly intertwines" Tolkien's words with the threads of history. She notes how Fimi explores Tolkien's "admiration" for Elias Lönnrot's Kalevala , a compilation of Finland's national mythology, and the matching desire in England for something similar.^[12]

Race and racism in context

Campbell finds Part III "perhaps the most intriguing" section of the book, as myth turns to history, and men take centre stage, displacing elves. She notes that Fimi "helpfully exonerates" Tolkien from racism, offering arguments on historical and Middle-earth grounds, but that Fimi does not state that "dark" need not mean skin colour in Tolkien's writings; instead, Campbell writes, Tolkien's light and dark are "signifiers of goodness or its absence", relating to the light of the Silmarils and the Two Trees of Valinor. Mordor is black in lacking "things that are of the light, that is, belief, joy, imagination, and perhaps most importantly, diversity." In sum, she finds the book "both sophisticated and accessible", adding strength to Tolkien research.^[12]

Mitchell writes that despite some traces of its doctoral thesis ancestry, the book is "rich in background and has the grace to avoid too much theoretical jargon." He notes that Part III occupies nearly half the book, and that its subject matter is well-developed. In his view, Fimi provides a "nuanced and quite balanced" analysis of race in the context of Tolkien's shifting attitudes, from his schoolboy views to his position on Nazi racism and words like "Aryan", "Nordic", and "peoples". In Mitchell's view, Fimi handles Tolkien's treatment of the human race, including "the Three Houses of Men, the "Swarthy Easterlings", the Númenórean and Gondorian view of blood, and the 'noble savages' that are the Wild Men of the Wood[s]" particularly well.^[9]

Constructing languages

Henry Gee, in the Tolkien Society's journal Mallorn , remarks that Fimi's statement that "the period 1880–1914 witnessed 145 [language construction] projects" sets Tolkien's creation of elvish languages and his knowledge of Esperanto in a fresh context. For Gee, Fimi brings out "a kind of creative logic" which almost necessitated a legendarium. This consisted of a welcoming attitude (among his friends) to folklore and fairies; a romantic desire for a national mythology; and a love of language and language construction. Gee finds the book exceptionally readable for an academic text. He admires, too, Fimi's kaleidoscope image of Moseley Bog (a nature reserve near Tolkien's childhood home in Warwickshire), which he finds entirely appropriate for the book's cover.^[13] Hooker adds that Fimi's analysis of the British and European tradition of inventing languages makes Tolkien's "secret vice" more understandable.^[10]

Related Research Articles

The English philologist and author J. R. R. Tolkien created several constructed languages, mostly related to his fictional world of Middle-earth. Inventing languages, something that he called glossopoeia, was a lifelong occupation for Tolkien, starting in his teens.

In J. R. R. Tolkien's legendarium, the Elves or Quendi are a sundered (divided) people. They awoke at Cuiviénen on the continent of Middle-earth, where they were divided into three tribes: Minyar, Tatyar and Nelyar. After some time, they were summoned by Oromë to live with the Valar in Valinor, on Aman. That summoning and the Great Journey that followed split the Elves into two main groups, which were never fully reunited.

The Lhammas is a work of fictional sociolinguistics by J. R. R. Tolkien. It was published in The Lost Road and Other Writings (1987), volume five of The History of Middle-earth series. The word lhammas is a Noldorin word meaning "account of tongues". In Tolkien's later development of Sindarin he changed the rules governing initial l- and r- whereby they ceased being devoiced, resulting in the word becoming lammas.

The Mythopoeic Awards for literature and literary studies are given annually for outstanding works in the fields of myth, fantasy, and the scholarly study of these areas. Established by the Mythopoeic Society in 1971, the Mythopoeic Fantasy Award is given for "fiction in the spirit of the Inklings", and the Scholarship Award for non-fiction work. The award is a statuette of a seated lion, with a plaque on the base. It has drawn resemblance to, and is often called, the "Aslan".

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 fictional races and peoples that appear in J. R. R. Tolkien's fantasy world of Middle-earth include the seven listed in Appendix F of The Lord of the Rings: Elves, Men, Dwarves, Hobbits, Ents, Orcs and Trolls, as well as spirits such as the Valar and Maiar. Other beings of Middle-earth are of unclear nature such as Tom Bombadil and his wife Goldberry.

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>Tolkiens Legendarium: Essays on The History of Middle-earth</i>

Tolkien's Legendarium: Essays on The History of Middle-earth is a collection of scholarly essays edited by Verlyn Flieger and Carl F. Hostetter on the 12 volumes of The History of Middle-earth, relating to J. R. R. Tolkien's fiction and compiled and edited by his son, Christopher. It was published by Greenwood Press in 2000. That series comprises a substantial part of "Tolkien's legendarium", the body of Tolkien's mythopoeic writing that forms the background to his The Lord of the Rings and which Christopher Tolkien summarized in his compilation of The Silmarillion.

Verlyn Flieger is an author, editor, and Professor Emerita in the Department of English at the University of Maryland at College Park, where she taught courses in comparative mythology, medieval literature, and the works of J. R. R. Tolkien. She is well known as a Tolkien scholar, especially for her books Splintered Light and A Question of Time. She has won the Mythopoeic Scholarship Award four times for her work on Tolkien's Middle-earth writings.

The cosmology of J. R. R. Tolkien's legendarium combines aspects of Christian theology and metaphysics with pre-modern cosmological concepts in the flat Earth paradigm, along with the modern spherical Earth view of the Solar System.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Middle-earth</span> Continent in Tolkiens legendarium

Middle-earth is the setting of much of the English writer J. R. R. Tolkien's fantasy. The term is equivalent to the Miðgarðr of Norse mythology and Middangeard in Old English works, including Beowulf. Middle-earth is the human-inhabited world, that is, the central continent of the Earth, in Tolkien's imagined mythological past. Tolkien's most widely read works, The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, are set entirely in Middle-earth. "Middle-earth" has also become a short-hand term for Tolkien's legendarium, his large body of fantasy writings, and for the entirety of his fictional world.

In J. R. R. Tolkien's writings, Elves are the first fictional race to appear in Middle-earth. Unlike Men and Dwarves, Elves are immortal, though they can be killed in battle. If so, their souls go to the Halls of Mandos in Aman. After a long life in Middle-earth, Elves yearn for the Earthly Paradise of Valinor, and can sail there from the Grey Havens. They feature in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. Their history is described in detail in The Silmarillion.

<i>The Road to Middle-Earth</i> Book of literary criticism of Tolkien

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Dimitra Fimi is a Greek academic and writer and since 2020 the Senior Lecturer in Fantasy and Children's Literature at the University of Glasgow. Her research includes that of the writings of J. R. R. Tolkien and children's fantasy literature.

J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth fantasy writings have often been accused of embodying outmoded attitudes to race. However, scholars have noted that he was influenced by Victorian attitudes to race and to a literary tradition of monsters, and that he was anti-racist both in peacetime and during the two World Wars.

England and Englishness are represented in multiple forms within J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth writings; it appears, more or less thinly disguised, in the form of the Shire and the lands close to it; in kindly characters such as Treebeard, Faramir, and Théoden; in its industrialised state as Isengard and Mordor; and as Anglo-Saxon England in Rohan. Lastly, and most pervasively, Englishness appears in the words and behaviour of the hobbits, both in The Hobbit and in The Lord of the Rings.

Richard Carroll West was an American librarian and one of the first Tolkien scholars. He is best known for his 1975 essay on the interlace structure of The Lord of the Rings, for which he won the 1976 Mythopoeic Scholarship Award for Inkling Studies.

J. R. R. Tolkien, a devout Roman Catholic, created what he came to feel was a dilemma for himself with his supposedly evil Middle-earth peoples like Orcs, when he made them able to speak, so they were sentient and sapient, and portrayed them talking about right and wrong. This meant, he believed, that they were 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. Orcs serve as the principal forces of the enemy in The Lord of the Rings, where they are slaughtered in large numbers in the battles of Helm's Deep and the Pelennor Fields in particular.

<i>Perilous Realms</i> 2005 Marjorie Burns book

Perilous Realms: Celtic and Norse in Tolkien's Middle-earth is a 2005 scholarly book about the origins of J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth, and the nature of his characterisation, by the scholar of literature Marjorie Burns. Some of the chapters discuss "Celtic" and "Norse" influence on Tolkien's writing, while others explore literary themes. The book won a Mythopoeic Award for Inklings' Studies in 2008.

J. R. R. Tolkien derived the characters, stories, places, and languages of Middle-earth from many sources. Among these are the Celtic legends and languages, which for Tolkien were principally Irish and Welsh. He gave multiple conflicting reasons for his liking for Welsh. Tolkien stated directly that he had made use of Welsh phonology and grammar for his constructed Elvish language Sindarin. Scholars have identified multiple legends, both Irish and Welsh, as likely sources of some of Tolkien's stories and characters; thus for example the Noldorin Elves resemble the Irish Tuatha Dé Danann, while the tale of Beren and Lúthien parallels that of the Welsh Culhwch and Olwen. Tolkien chose Celtic names for the isolated settlement of Bree-land, to distinguish it from the Shire with its English names.

References

↑ Carpenter 1978, pp. 111, 200, 266 and throughout.
1 2 Straubhaar 2004, pp. 101–117.
↑ Carpenter 2023 , #29 to Stanley Unwin , #30 to Rütten & Loening, both 25 July 1938
↑ Rearick, Anderson (2004). "Why is the Only Good Orc a Dead Orc? The Dark Face of Racism Examined in Tolkien's World". Modern Fiction Studies . 50 (4): 866–867. doi:10.1353/mfs.2005.0008. JSTOR 26286382. S2CID 162647975.
↑ "Profile for Dr Dimitra Fimi - The Cardiff School of Education and Social Policy, Cardiff Metropolitan University". Archived from the original on 7 May 2018. Retrieved 6 May 2018.
↑ "University of Glasgow - Schools - School of Critical Studies - Our staff - Dr Dimitra Fimi". University of Glasgow.
↑ Fimi 2010, Front matter.
↑ "The Mythopoeic Society: Mythopoeic Scholarship Award Finalists". Mythopoeic Society . Retrieved 25 March 2024.
1 2 3 Mitchell, Philip Irving (2010). "Tolkien, Race, and Cultural History: From Fairies to Hobbits by Dimitra Fimi (review)". Christianity & Literature. 59 (3 (Spring 2010)). Project Muse: 563–565. doi:10.1177/014833311005900318.
1 2 Hooker, Mark T. (September 2010). "Reviews: Tolkien, Race and Cultural History". Mythprint . 47 (9).
↑ Honegger, Thomas (2009). "Tolkien, Race and Cultural History: From Fairies to Hobbits (review)". Tolkien Studies . 6 (1): 289–294. doi:10.1353/tks.0.0030. ISSN 1547-3163.
1 2 Campbell, Lori M. (2011). "Review: [Tolkien, Race, and Cultural History]". Modern Fiction Studies . 57 (2): 355–357. doi:10.1353/mfs.2011.0058. JSTOR 26287265.
↑ Gee, Henry (2009). "Away with the fairies". Mallorn (47 (Spring 2009)): 13.

Sources

Carpenter, Humphrey (1978) [1977]. J. R. R. Tolkien: A Biography. Unwin Paperbacks. ISBN 978-0-04928-039-7.
Carpenter, Humphrey, ed. (2023) [1981]. The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien Revised and Expanded Edition. New York: Harper Collins. ISBN 978-0-35-865298-4.
Fimi, Dimitra (2010) [2008]. Tolkien, Race, and Cultural History: From Fairies to Hobbits. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 978-0-230-21951-9. OCLC 222251097.
Straubhaar, Sandra Ballif (2004). "Myth, Late Roman History, and Multiculturalism in Tolkien's Middle-Earth". In Chance, Jane (ed.). Tolkien and the invention of myth: a reader. University Press of Kentucky. ISBN 978-0-8131-2301-1.