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Why it is dangerous to study Tolkien? · Mythmakers

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  Hello and welcome to Mythmakers. Mythmakers are the podcast for fantasy fans and fantasy
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  creators brought to you by the Oxford Centre for Fantasy. My name is Julia Golding and
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  today I want to talk to you about the issue of why it is dangerous to study Tolkien.
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  And yes here I am looking at you academics, all those people out there who are producing
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  these great big books on Tolkien these days are going to look at why it is so dangerous
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  what they are doing. But first of all let's give this some historical context. There's
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  a short term historical context and there's a longer term so I'm looking further back.
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  Fifty years ago when Tolkien passed away in 1973 it would have been very unnatural for
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  people to suggest that he would be studied at university. That was still the true when
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  it came to the eighties when I was at college myself. He was regarded as on one hand an
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  English professor of older languages Medieval and Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic those
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  languages. But he was also well known of course as a writer of popular fiction and it's
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  that popular there which made him thought to be below the interest of academic study.
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  Now in the eighties that was just beginning to change and be quite interesting to find
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  out when the very first academic article was written about him actually so if you know
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  do send me a line. But at the end of my undergraduate study at Cambridge I told my supervisor that
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  I wanted to do my final thesis on Tolkien and CS Lewis and creativity. That's the whole idea
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  of myth appear. The subcreation, the secondary creativity of the author and other creatives
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  in a context where you think of there being like a creator god that's how they pursue creativity.
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  And I found that idea really inspiring because it gave you the idea that you could be a subcreator
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  of your own world and in way for me that released a whole sort of new aspect to creativity.
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  Anyway when I said I wanted to do this so this is Cambridge in the late eighties there was a bit
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  of a mmm from the people who were in charge of finding me a supervisor. They did find me one
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  and I was allowed to do it but there was definitely a feeling that it wasn't quite fully academic.
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  I remember even thinking at the time that surely it'd be fine because I'm doing all these you
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  know stiff papers on tragedy and you know all sorts of other serious subjects so I was allowed
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  to do a little bit of what I actually loved in my thesis. And I think that attitude was prevalent
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  in the university systems of the eighties began to fade a bit in the nineties but still today you
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  can find an element of sniffiness about Tolkien. I noticed for example that most universities who
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  do teach Tolkien tend to do him as a gateway to medieval and old English. It is though he's a sort of
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  gateway drug. Once you get hooked on Tolkien you'll then be interested in Beowulf and
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  Sagawayne in the green night. It's kind of a utilitarian way of looking at Tolkien rather than
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  someone to be studied in their own right as you would study Dickens or you know Jane Austen.
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  It has to be linked to something which is already recognisably an academic discipline.
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  Okay so things are changing and I think that thanks to the work of scholars in the nineties and
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  the two thousands but certainly to say you wanted to study Tolkien at that stage in the eighties
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  nineties was dangerous. It was a career risk really but now we've moved on to a different
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  kind of danger and this was brought home to me at the beginning of the month of September 2023
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  when there were two conferences running in Oxford at the same time both were there to mark
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  the 50-year anniversary since the death of Tolkien. One of these conferences was the Tolkien
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  Society Entmute which took place at St. Catherine's College. If you went to that do let me know how
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  it went I met a couple of people who participated in that so it seemed to be good fun but a more
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  sort of rigorously academic conference was held at the much smaller college right next door to
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  the college where Tolkien was a professor so it's next door to Merton College and it's a tiny
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  little college called Corpus Christi and that was aimed at the academic world so we had
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  leading scholars such as John Garth, Michael Ward, Holly Ordway and it was convened by a Tolkien
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  expert called Giuseppe Pazzini. Now this one was a day and a half's conference and it brought
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  home to me the dangers of actually studying Tolkien in great depth but in a new way.
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  So what did I learn from this conference? I thought I would kind of report back to you to give you
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  some of a flavor of the studies that are going on about Tolkien at the moment because many people
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  were talking about upcoming articles or books they've just published. The first insight it gave me
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  is how international study of Tolkien has become so we had scholars from all over the world.
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  I've mentioned Giuseppe Pazzini who won, who convened the conference he obviously is Italian
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  but we had Yokohemi from Japan showing that interesting Tolkien has gone over there which isn't
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  that surprising because when I was doing my own doctorate in the romantic period it was clear
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  that there was a great love of British nature writing as a sort of romantic poets in that case
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  but I can totally understand the connection between the nature loving Japanese culture and Tolkien's
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  work and there was also a scholar from Poland called Wukash, Newbauer and so on there was lots
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  of real international flavour to that room plus the participants were from all over as well
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  so it gave me a sense of the breadth of Tolkien's scholarship. So what were the highlights of the
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  conference? Well there were many. A couple of the things I loved listening to so for example
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  Michael Ward who you might be aware of as the author of Planet Narnia so he's well known for his
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  work on C.S. Lewis and in Planet Narnia he gives a revelation about how you can read the Narnia
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  stories mapping it onto medieval cosmology but he's turned his attention to Tolkien and Tolkien's
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  use of the calendar. Michael's own background is his a Catholic so he's particularly aware of the
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  the church calendar from Catholicism and how it might be brought to bear on Lord of the Rings.
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  Now obviously already you've probably noticed if you looked at the appendices some key dates so for
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  example the the actual birthday when Frodo and Bilbo have their birthday but also when both Bilbo
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  and Frodo set off on their journeys is the 22nd of September and that's very close to some
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  michaelmas that is sort of the autumn festival of the church and then when they leave
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  Rivendell it falls on the 25th of December which is as christmas I sure you know. Tolkien apparently
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  said that was just a happy coincidence but he was happy with the coincidence but what was
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  totally on purpose was the date in which the ring goes into the cracks of doom and that is the 25th
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  of march which is lady day in the old festivals and it was the day on which the church's new year
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  was dated it's it's marries day in the church so it's the beginning of a new year which
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  you see that sense of moving into a new age is very much linked to the day on which the ring is
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  destroyed anyway so those are well-known dates that have significance but what
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  Michael Ward was doing was looking at the date the 8th of April you're scratching your head thinking
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  what happens on the 8th of April well it's the date on which the scene the fields of corn mullend
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  takes place now perhaps this is a scene that you don't think about very much it comes after the
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  the ring has gone into the far but before they go back to gondol for the coronation of arrogant
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  it's when Sam and Frodo wake up and there is a feast in the honour they're reunited with most of
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  the fellowship ones who survive and they hear a song about their journey sung by a bard which
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  fulfills a kind of moment of wish which they express when they're when they're in the darkest part
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  of their tale on the stairs of Kirith Ungl anyway this actual scene Michael was stressing was the
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  most important scene in the entirety of the Lord of the Rings to Tolkien so obviously go back
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  and read it now now you've heard that and he showed us a photograph of the manuscript talking
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  talks about crying as he writes this and sure enough on the manuscript there are tear drops
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  which I found so moving to see that why is it important well lots of reasons but it is the moment
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  in which they are recognised it doesn't make it into the Peter Jackson films if that's your main
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  familiarity with Lord of the Rings but it is referenced I suppose at the coronation where
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  arrogant says no one bows to you and everybody bows and the four hobbits are left standing in the
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  novel version of that same sentiment arrogant puts Frodo and Sam on his throne his chair and that's
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  when everybody recognises their heroism that's important because it's the reward it's the payoff
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  it's the happiest moment and for Tolkien it was the culmination because of course then they get
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  the song which is like his book it's telling of their their heroism anyway that's an important
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  scene yes we can all agree that but why is it set on the 8th of April I will leave Michael to
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  publish his article about it but let it be said that there is a connection between the private
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  story of Tolkien and his wife and what happens nine months later a sort of a sense of that
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  so um actually notice the other way around it's what happened nine months before there we go Michael
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  I was listening um I actually was thinking maybe that might be going a bit far on reading in
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  today's but this is where academics will scroll scroll with each other um anyway it was fun to think
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  through the significance of the calendar another excellent highlight was from professor Simon Horobin
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  he currently holds the same position at Mordlin College that C. S. Lewis held during his lifetime
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  when he was at Mordlin he's the medievalist he's been writing mostly about C. S. Lewis recently
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  but he's been looking at how C. S. Lewis was converted by Tolkien now not to faith
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  but to into an appreciation for philology which obviously was Tolkien's world of linguistics and
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  languages so how this works out is that C. S. Lewis finished his first degree which was basically
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  classics as we now call it and he was told in order to be more employable as a university level he
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  should take some of the papers from the English syllabus so that he could potentially get a job in
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  English faculty it's turned out to be excellent career's advice because that's exactly what happened
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  but one of the things he had to do is go and sit through some lectures of a professor of philology
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  a guy called professor wild and clearly he took strongly against this professor to the extent
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  that he had his textbook and he kept writing poems in dishonor of this professor how much he
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  disliked every word that came from his mouth but the funny thing is he was doing it in different
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  languages so there's a Latin one and there's an old English one and so on the old English one
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  is quite remarkable because he'd only just started learning old English so he'd had to really
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  struggle with that one and there was a German one and so on and the revelation that Simon had was
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  by showing this primer this textbook to a handwriting expert on C. S. Lewis was to find out that the
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  handwriting was actually indicative of 10 years of C. S. Lewis's handwriting because it changed
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  over that time so you get a picture not just that he was annoyed by this guy sitting there as a
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  a young man as a student but he was still carrying this you know annoyance 10 years later when he
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  was a colleague in the same faculty which was I must admit absolutely hilarious but that was the
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  bad version of philology at which C. S. Lewis really disliked and it took meeting Tolkien with his
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  love of language and showing him the the possibilities of a love of language and the inspirational love
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  of language that then C. S. Lewis changed his mind about the value of the subject and in fact you'll
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  remember if you've read his out of the silent planet and his ransom trilogy the space stories
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  that a philologist is becomes his hero a little bit of a nod there to Tolkien and John
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  Garth was there which was great because I never met him and I've used his books a lot particularly
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  the ones about the places that inspired Tolkien's work it's a wonderful book save up your pennies
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  for that book he's also of course written about Tolkien and the Great War he's currently working
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  on Tolkien and literary biographies and this is one of the ways in which a conference is so great
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  because while I was listening to his work and talking about the suspicion that Tolkien had about
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  literary biography because how do any of us know what really goes on in the mind of any author
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  even the author themselves but it made me think about talking himself as a kind of biographer the way
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  he tells the same life stories again and again so take for example Baron and Luthian he tells
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  that in prose he tells it in poetry he tells it in longer form shorter form so many versions of
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  the same tale so he himself even though they're fictional characters he treats them as real people
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  in this suspended disbelief that he has he makes middle-earth reals so therefore these are real
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  historical figures within his own creation so I was thinking about that in the relationship how he
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  has to find a way to be a biographer himself anyway so that was great listening to John Garth
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  Holly Ordway who people who listen to this podcast well have met her recently on two occasions
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  her book on Tolkien's faith has just come out and I'm halfway through that myself learning a lot
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  but she also has written a book called Tolkien's Modern Reading about all the material post 1850
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  that Tolkien read and she was drawing on some of that for what she was talking about at the conference
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  and it underlined something she touched on in her interview with me which is about how different
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  Tolkien was to other writers focusing on the kind of empire period in British history
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  the scene in Lord of the Rings which brings this to the fore there's the skirmish with the south
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  ronds and Sam sees for the first time the war of men against men and he sees a fallen victim from
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  the enemy side they've just met pharomies men the mumma kill the big elephant thing comes through
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  the landscape with the men alongside and Sam is horrified and he has this moment of humanity where
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  he thinks about what was it that brought this man here and his motives and how he in a way is the
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  hero his own tale how he has his own reasons for being here not looking at the enemy as holy evil
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  so one of the things that this sets him apart this is Tolkien now is that he always questioned
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  the existing race relations of his day having been born in South Africa he had no truck with
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  that system he hated it he said he hated it and when he was asked by a German publisher
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  in the 30s about his Aryan background he was very unhappy about that kind of questioning
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  so if Holly was comparing Tolkien's approach to the more gung-ho boys own stories of the era which
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  schoolboys of his generation brought up with with their stereotypical views of natives you couldn't
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  even that word native is problematic isn't it and things which we find totally abhorrent
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  now were accepted as being just ordinary then and it was his reading against that kind of casual racism
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  which led to such scenes in Lord of the Rings so anyway that was lovely to hear her talking about that
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  and one of my favorite speeches of the whole conference was the convener's
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  Giuseppe Pesini's because he talked about Tolkien's creative process and I thought I'd share
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  with you a couple of the quotes that he came up with because they're such they're such fun
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  and as an author I find this really inspiring so Tolkien is asked what is Lord of the Rings about
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  so he writes in one of his letters the Lord of the Rings is to me anyway largely an essay in
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  linguistic ascetic as I sometimes say to people who ask me what it is all about it is not about
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  anything but itself if you've read the preface to Lord of the Rings you'll see that he tries to
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  separate himself from any simplistic allegory about you know the ring being the atom bomb and so on
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  but he's saying that what it is about is exploring the beauty of the language it he was creating
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  and then the stories grow out of that it doesn't mean you as the reader can't find applications
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  to our lived experience but he doesn't want you to feel that you've got a one-on-one allegory going on
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  and he goes on in a letter to his son Christopher no one believes me when I say that my long book
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  is an attempt to create a world in which a form of language agreeable to my personal ascetic might
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  seem real but it is true an inquirer among many asked what the Lord of the Rings was all about
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  and whether it was an allegory and I said it was an effort to create a situation in which a common
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  greeting would be Ellen Sila Lumen Ormien Tielmo and that was the phrase and that phrase long
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  antidated the book I forgive forgive me if my Elvish pronunciation isn't up to scratch but that's
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  the greeting I think Frodo says it to the Elves on first meeting so echoes throughout the Lord
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  of the Rings and he had this language in his head and thought okay I've got this wonderful language
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  let's go and write the place in which it could be spoken so from that tiny seed grew this enormous
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  myth and when I look at my own experiences as an author obviously I'm nothing like to the
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  nothing of the standard of talking but I've written a lot of books I can see similar seeds which
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  get into the creative process and they sprout so for example my very first novel is set in
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  jury lane theatre and it led to a series of six books and that came about because I grew
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  fascinated by the location of jury lane theatre in 1790s because it was in a particularly exciting
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  part of London at a pivotal moment in history French revolution is going on and so I thought
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  and studied and dreamed about the place and eventually thought I've got to have a story I want
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  to live here so I'm going to occupy it by writing a story where I can go from the down from the
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  basement up to the Attics and that's how that book grew it came from a place so if place was my
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  spark language was Tolkien's have you noticed that there is on some editions of Lord of the Rings
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  a kind of initial of Tolkien where each of his letters J are put over the top of each other
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  it's quite a strong almost like emblem emblem or a heraldic device that goes on the front of some
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  of the books it looks like something that might appear on a flag you can see the J and the R and the R
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  they're sort of all laid on top of each other something Tolkien designed but there's also
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  a sort of loop sticking out on one side which kind of looks so maybe that's just a flourish
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  but actually between John Garth and Holly Ordway who've obviously been talking about this
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  between them they've worked out that this is actually because Tolkien had a name that we've all
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  kind of ignored so yes is John Ronald rule but he had another four name this was the name he took
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  when he got baptized as a Catholic when he was about 10 and that name was Philip a P
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  and he does actually use it in his correspondence it's a name that was important to him because it
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  was part of his life of faith which is obviously yeah a big part of Tolkien's world view
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  so that had been hidden there in plain sight and all of us had ignored it because it's not on
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  the spine of the book so I suppose we should be calling him John Ronald rule
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  Philip that's a bit much isn't it so perhaps we'll just stick with J are anyway and now I can
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  look at that initial and see what's really going on underneath the surface there were two more
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  wonderful parts of the conference which were the exhibitions where we got a chance to see the
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  manuscripts things belonging or indicative of Tolkien's life in Oxford the first was an
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  exhibition at an annex of extra college extra was where Tolkien was a young man and undergraduate
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  they had him signing in as he joined Oxford for the first time that must have been a very special
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  moment for him they had pictures of him in his rugby team his year photo and of course that has
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  the added melancholy because so many of the people in that picture didn't make it through
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  the First World War and we all recognise that Lord of the Rings has this undertow of melancholy
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  and the loss of companions and seeing those faces of those hopeful young men in sort of 1913 is
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  very very moving but he had even in his I suppose the teenager isn't he teenage Tolkien had
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  one forehand writing so puts us all to shame and then the second of his he had several
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  colleges in Oxford but the one where he spent a lot of his time as a professor which was
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  Merton College they put together an exhibition of letters and other things that he'd written during
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  his time at the college there in fact it was a college that he retired to and he lived in college
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  accommodation until very late in his life he had there was a few years when he went away and lived
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  in Bournemouth which is a seaside town with his wife when his wife passed away he lived in
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  college accommodation it just so happened he was down in Bournemouth visiting friends when he
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  had his final illness so he died in hospital down there but anyway it was very lovely on this
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  anniversary year to see again things that connect us to the man himself the pages is touched the
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  letters is written the kind of things that were going on in his head and also just to mention that
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  Merton College Library is the most gorgeous ancient library the building itself is so inspiring
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  you can think of the libraries in Gondor must have looked something like that why is it dangerous
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  to study Tolkien I started off by saying it was dangerous in the eighties because it was looked
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  on as being not sufficiently academic I think now we've reached a point where it's suddenly going
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  to be a very popular area to study there are some things which are going to help that there's a
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  new addition of his letters that is about to come out or shortly I'm not sure we know the exact date
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  but soon and these will bring into everybody's reach more letters than were in the original volume
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  edited by Humphrey Carpenter and Holly Ordway has pointed out when I interviewed her that quite a
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  lot of the selections that Humphrey Carpenter made when he was editing that volume are ones which
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  cut off some interesting parts of the letter there's some lack of sympathy between Humphrey
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  Carpenter and his subject some biases which you can see if you read the four letters I think that's
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  how she describes it is but anyway there are shortcomings so we'll have to get the new volume when
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  it comes out we want to see the four letter without these editorial interference
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  and that will encourage scholars to uncover yet more new angles to Tolkien and I think
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  the danger now is that Tolkien is an author who has such depth he connects not just to Medieval
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  and Old English Viking sagas and so on you can look at him in that sense but he also connects to
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  the classical tradition this is particularly in the Silmarillion with it's quite harsh it feels
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  they feel more like Greek tragedies many of the stories there and if we think about him having
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  done classics first as many did in their generation you can see those influences so there is so much
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  to uncover but there's also a lot to understand in about Tolkien shaping of our modern period
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  the cultural reception of Tolkien which only grows in scope as time passes and I'm not talking here
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  about fandom only though that's a big part of it I'm talking about how he has given us a shared
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  language to describe good and evil for example and how he has shaped the idea of what fantasy looks
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  like and what it does I think we're very lucky it was him to kick this all off because his work is
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  so rewarding of this in-depth study so where does the danger come the danger comes in in that
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  you can get lost in that as a creative I think that there is a famous book called The Anxiety
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  of Influence which you've done any English literature you will remember from your 20th century
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  literary criticism but the thesis there is that we all get kind of overwhelmed by the voices
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  have come before us and it kind of stifles our own creativity I think it's a creative and if as a
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  fantasy creative in particular what you need to do is you need to be able to enjoy but also to a
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  certain extent uses a springboard or set aside an escape you've got to walk out of your fascination
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  with Tolkien so that you don't just make ersatz poor versions of Tolkien's world you've got to
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  think well what would it be for me and going back to what I've been describing in this podcast I
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  think the key thing is to find out your seed if you're interested in languages great have at it
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  make up your own language do do it like different don't do elves do something completely different
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  and see where you go but it could also be a place like I was describing or a certain character you
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  might find somebody in the real world who's for you a fascinating character study and you want to
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  sort of sit and play with that character it could be historical character for example
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  which would lead you to explore a whole kind of historical fantasy for you so make sure you find
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  your own seed and you grow it and you don't say stay doing the equivalent of fan fiction within
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  middle earth because of course there is only one Tolkien and any attempts to come on afterwards
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  to expand his world have not been entirely satisfactory have they so I would say it is dangerous
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  to study Tolkien but by Georgie is also a wonderful pleasurable delightful experience
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  so yeah danger deep water but also is quite fun to swim thank you very much for listening
• 32:48
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