Literary Tolkien
Robert Barrett
the works I'm going to mention are not ripoffs at all, I think the post
can stand on its won.
"Fantasy" before Tolkien
Anything by George MacDonald (esp. *The Princess and the Goblin*, *The
Princess and Curdie*, and *At the Back of the North Wind*--I have yet to
read *Phantastes* or *Lilith*). Perhaps the greatest of the Victorian
fantasists--MacDonald was a free-thinking minister whose work contains a
deep-seated Christian strain a la Williams, Lewis, and Tolkien. But the
books are funny and enjoyable as well (check out the short tale *The
Light Princess*).
Anything by Lord Dunsany (esp. *The King of Elfland's Daughter*). It
doesn't get much better than Dunsany.
E. R. Eddison's *The Worm Ouroboros* (I don't know the Mezentian books).
The fantasies of William Morris.
Anything medieval. Remember that Tolkien's essay "*Beowulf*: The
Monsters and the Critics" rescued everyone's favorite Anglo-Saxon epic
from the historico-philological graveyard to which it had been resigned.
Tolkien also edited the influential Oxford edition (with E. V. Gordon) of
*Sir Gawain and the Green Knight*, one of, if not the, greatest Arthurian
romances. Don't forget to take a look at *Pearl* and *Sir Orfeo*, both
of which Tolkien translated. In fact, anything in Old English would be
worth reading (such as *The Battle of Maldon*); so would the Middle High
German *Nibelungenlied* and the Icelandic sagas (which Morris read and
helped to popularize via English translation).
Some notes on "fantasy" contemporary with Tolkien
Do yourselves a favor: skip Narnia and take a look at C. S. Lewis's *Til
We Have Faces*, a retelling of the Cupid-Psyche myth from Apuleius' *Golden
Ass*. It's without a doubt the most inventive and
stylistically/artistically daring book that Lewis ever wrote.
Mervyn Peake's *Gormenghast* books are indeed back in print in a trade
paperback edition. Just make sure to look for them in the regular
"literature" section--the industry doesn't classify them as "fantasy" per se.
A comment about Tolkien's literary reputation
I don't think it's useful or productive to deny/support the supposition
that *LotR* is the greatest thing written in the Twentieth Century (or
any other supposition about the value of Tolkien's work vis a vis other
authors and texts). The important fact is this: as someone who works in
the lit-crit and theory business, I've noted a steady upswing in the
critical literature on Tolkien. He, Williams, and Lewis were important
figures in a Christocentric literary movement in mid-century Britain
(it's telling that W. H. Auden, one of this century's great poets in
English, was a big fan of Tolkien's work), and the pile-up of entries on
their work in the MLA Bibliography shows that scholars are taking them
seriously. Moreover, more and more critics are taking hard looks at
Tolkien's politics, his style, his theories of Fairy Stories; in other
words, we're seeing less of the fannish "he belongs" thesis and less of
the Jungian/Campbellesque mythopoetic stuff that kept Tolkien trapped out
on the fringe of critical inquiry over the last twenty years.
Two obstacles remain, and they're important ones. (1) *LotR* only really
caught on in the mid- to late 1960s, so there really have only been about
25 to 30 years in which Tolkien's work was popular enough to attract
widespread attention. His representation in curricula and library
collections is about average for a modern writer under critical scrutiny
for that period of time (i.e., he's not Toni Morrison, Derek Walcott, or
Gabriel Garcia Marquez, but he's right up there with the Updikes,
Oateses, and Rushdies). (2) Tolkien wrote *long* works, and a trilogy
doesn't really fit the framework of a survey course, whether a broad one
beginning with 1798 (*Lyrical Ballads*) and ending yesterday or a more
specific British modernism course (since I agree with the posters who
linked Tolkien's own anxieties about power and war to WW1). Moreover,
those works of his which fit the shortness criterion of the average
English course don't fit the "seriousness" quotient of that course: *The
Hobbit* and *Farmer Giles* would look out of place when surrounded by T.
S. Eliot, Auden, Joyce, Woolf, Larkin, etc (although *Smith of Wotton
Manor* and *Leaf by Niggle* might fit very well indeed). So Tolkien's
most important work really only works w/in the set-up of a seminar
devoted wholly to the Professor himself--and such single author seminars
are rare birds on the curricular scene (only Chaucer, Shakespeare, and
Milton ever get seminars on a biennial or even annual basis).
In short, I don't think Tolkien will disappear or end up relegated to the
fantasy ghetto. Students of 1930s-1950s British fiction will definitely
be encouraged to look at the Inklings' work seriously--and so will anyone
interested in questions of utopias, language, power, warfare and
violence, counterculture values, etc., etc.
Best,
Rob Barrett
--
Robert W. Barrett, Jr. * "The pellet with the poison's
rbar...@dept.english.upenn.edu * In the flagon with the dragon;
Dept. of English / BH 119 * The vessel with the pestle
University of Pennsylvania * Has the brew that is true."
Phila., PA 19104-6273 * -- from *The Court Jester*
D. Beagley
: I suppose I should have tacked this onto the "Ripoffs" thread, but since
: can stand on its won.
Or on its own, too!
I agree, and thanks for your thoughts on literary/critical place. It's
got me thinking along lines that had become rusty from disuse.
...(snip) ...
: Anything medieval. Remember that Tolkien's essay "*Beowulf*: The
: Monsters and the Critics" rescued everyone's favorite Anglo-Saxon epic
: from the historico-philological graveyard to which it had been resigned.
: Tolkien also edited the influential Oxford edition (with E. V. Gordon) of
: *Sir Gawain and the Green Knight*, one of, if not the, greatest Arthurian
: romances. Don't forget to take a look at *Pearl* and *Sir Orfeo*, both
: of which Tolkien translated. In fact, anything in Old English would be
: worth reading (such as *The Battle of Maldon*);
Oh, yes, of course! Read *The Wanderer* and picture Aragorn during his
wandering years "hreran mit hondum hrimcealde sae" (stirring with
hand the rime-cold sea) or dreaming of the halls of home only to wake
to the sounds of the "bathian brimfuglas" (bathing sea-birds) on a
lonely shore. It is one of the most heart-breaking poems in English.
Or *The Seafarer* or *The Dream of the Rood* ... so much of the small
amount of OE poetry that we have provides a wonderful back drop to the
cultural, social and personal details of Middle-Earth ("Middengeard"!
I just remembered another one!)
: ... so would the Middle High
: German *Nibelungenlied* and the Icelandic sagas (which Morris read and
: helped to popularize via English translation).
I've often felt that the Icelandic sagas, with their air of relentless
fate and grudges, are very Dwarvish, or should that be that Tolkien
drew on the sagas to make the Dwarves very Icelandic? That could also
be one of the issues to be resolved in the critical analysis of
Tolkien - the propensity of fans to define everything in terms of
the world view of LotR, rather than viewing it as a work of fiction
in a particular tradition.
--
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David Beagley * Learning Resource Centre
big...@bendigo.latrobe.edu.au * Latrobe University, Bendigo
* Victoria, Australia 3550
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"What!" Biggles exclaimed. "How am I going to get up there? I can't
fly higher than my Camel will go!"