First, Curious, that was an extremely good, thought-provoking post. There
may, however, be another angle from which to approach the phenomena (the shift
from "modern times" to "archaic and heroic times") which you have mentioned;
quite possibly the two approaches are perfectly complementary and simply
merge.
Many characters in both The Hobbit and the LotR seem to be
both "modern/practical" and "archaic/heroic" at the same time. In fact,
the characters who are wisest and fare best are those who manage to keep one
foot in both worlds. Take Éomer's interrogation of Aragorn in "The Riders
of Rohan" in T2T: Éomer asks Aragorn, "Do we walk in legends or on the green
earth in the daylight?" Aragorn responds, "A man may do both." Some
characters in Middle-earth manage to pull that off; those who are too much (or
even exclusively) in one world tend to get ground up.
For whatever reason, examples from The Hobbit occur to my mind
most rapidly, though I will come back to the LotR and Aragorn's
assertion. Take Bard the Bowman. He is eminently practical,
perfectly modern in outlook and actions. When Smaug attacks Laketown,
Bard takes charge: "[He] ran to and fro cheering on the archers and urging the
Master to order the men to fight to the last arrow." That should be
"round" of course; the idiom is modern (even anachronistically so) and Bard is
acting like a good modern field officer. But Bard also has the sense to
keep the Black Arrow, an heirloom of his house; and he has the sense to listen
to the Thrush. After the battle, as the Master of Laketown takes charge
again, Bard thinks briefly of "Dale rebuilt, and filled with golden
bells." Then he strides off to order the camps and care for the
wounded. Tolkien surely had here the field hospitals and lazarettes of
the Great War in the back of his mind -- again, an anachronistic image (heroes
like Beowulf and Sigurd/Siegfried don't bother with lazarettes because the
heroic poets didn't mention such things). Bard is perfectly modern and
practical in his actions as a field officer during and after the battle.
But that doesn't mean that he undervalues the old legends (for which the Master
of Laketown cares nothing) or doesn't appreciate his heritage from Girion, King
of Dale.
Interestingly, when Bilbo decisively intervenes in the
dispute between Thorin (a character who lives almost entirely in the
"archaic/heroic" world) on the one hand and the Elves and Men of Laketown on
the other, Bilbo -- another modern character who has been introduced into the
archaic/heroic world -- asks to deal not with the more heroic Elvenking, but
rather with Bard: "Bard will remember me, and it is Bard I particularly want to
see." Now listen to Bilbo's negotiations with Bard and the Elvenking:
"'Really you know,' Bilbo was saying in his best business manner, 'things are
impossible... I wish I was back in the West... But I have an
interest in the matter -- one fourteenth share, to be precise, according to a
letter which fortunately I believe I have kept.' He drew from a pocket in
his old jacket (which he still wore over his mail) ... Thorin's
letter..." Notice, first, that Bilbo is speaking in "his best business
manner" -- modern and practical. Also, Bilbo has on a "jacket," that most
thoroughly modern sartorial appurtenance of gentlemen. But he wears his
jacket *over his mail*. He's dressed for both worlds; like Bard he has a
foot in both. Bilbo's handing the Arkenstone to Bard -- two sensible
Englishmen of the same class coming to an understanding -- forces Thorin to
agree to hand over the one fourteenth share to Bard, a bargain which Dain will
in the end honour. Both Bilbo and Bard (who sees to it that Bilbo is well
taken care of in the end) come off best in the story. Bilbo is wealthy
and has proved himself in an "adventure" against the likes of Thorin
Oakenshield, Smaug the Dragon, and the Elevenking. Bard refounds Dale and
becomes its King.
Now look at what happens to other characters. First,
the thoroughly and exclusively modern Master of Dale: he did not "think much of
old songs, giving his mind to trade and tolls, to cargoes and gold to which
habit he owed his position." The Master is a wily, unscrupulous
politician (okay; so that's a tautology) who only pretends to give way on
occasion, but always keeps his eye on his position and especially money.
When the Dragon (in whom the Master doesn't believe) comes, the Master looks to
his own skin and flees. When everything has been settled and the Master
has received a good deal of the gold from Smaug's hoard, he "come[s] to a bad
end. Bard had given him much gold for the help of the Lake-people, but
being of the kind that easily catches such disease he fell under the
dragon-sickness, and took most of the gold and fled with it, and died of
starvation in the Waste, deserted by his companions." So much for those
who are only modern.
Then Thorin Oakenshield. Thorin lives almost
exclusively in the Past. He insists on the title "King under the
Mountain" before he even comes to the Lonely Mountain. He yearns for the
Arkenstone and detests the practical smithying he must do until he can reclaim
his ancient kingdom. In this he is most unlike Bard who accepts his lot
as a field officer and archer, is in fact a very dutiful one. Thorin
abides by the archaic/heroic code of honour (which for a Northman meant
constantly being on his dignity, avenging slights, carrying on ancestral feuds,
and the like). Yet Thorin is badly shown up in his interview with Bard
(who can think "modern" when he has to); and in the final battle, Thorin is
killed, having been "King under the Mountain" for the briefest space
possible.
Okay, back now to the LotR. Bilbo and Bard manage to
give the truth to Aragorn's words that a man may live both in legends and on
the green earth in the daylight. What about other characters in the
LotR? Here is a thoroughly modern character, modern straight through:
Saruman. Listen to his words to Gandalf in the FotR: "We may join with
that Power. It would be wise, Gandalf. There is hope that
way. Its victory is at hand; and there will be rich reward for those that
aided it. As the Power grows, its proved friends will also grow; and the
Wise, such as you and I, may with patience come at last to direct its courses,
to control it, We can bide our time, we can keep our thoughts in our
hearts, deploring maybe evils done by the way, but approving the high and
ultimate purpose...There need not be, would not be, any real change in our
designs, only in our means." The words, the thoughts are all from
the 20th century; and we all recognise the sentiments behind them. Indeed
it was the 20th century which first gave us the words to describe this sort of
thought: collaborateur, Mitläufer, Quisling, appeasement, Peace with Honour;
the fatal idea that "that Power" is actually reasonable, may be steered,
brought under control; that the "evils done by the way" somehow won't matter;
that only the "means" (not the "designs") would suffer a "real change."
Saruman remains perfectly modern throughout: Treebeard in T2T says he has a
mind of "wheels and machines." Saruman turns Isengard into a gigantic
factory for churning out armaments, the military-industrial complex in
archetype. Pippin observes that Saruman's wizardry seems to have been
falling off -- Saruman has placed all his trust in armies and machines.
At the battle of Helm's Deep Sarauman's troops use some sort of chemical
warfare with their flamethrower or whatever we are to imagine it as being
(flamethrowers were, by the way, already in existence during the Great
War). In "The Scouring of the Shire" Saruman is a thoroughly modern,
petty despot. We all know his end, no need to go through that.
The LotR gives us various characters who tend to live
exclusively in the heroic world: Boromir is one. His archaic outlook is
best seen in his speech at the Council of Elrond. He speaks in a high
rhetorical, thoroughly archaic style, replete with inverted sentences (e.g.
"Loth was my father to give me leave" for modern "My father was loth etc."),
archaic morphology (e.g. "I am come" for modern "I have come"), and stilted
diction (e.g. "verily"). Like Thorin, Boromir follows an older code which
requires him to seek personal glory and to be second to no man. (Faramir
confirms this, by the way, when speaking with Frodo.) Boromir chafes,
first, under Gandalf's leadership and later under Aragorn's. Boromir is
determined to save Minas Tirith (to which he is honour-bound) and, far more
importantly, to win renown while doing so. Because of this heroic code
which he follows, he easily falls prey to the Ring's temptation and is
destroyed.
Other characters manage the trick of living in both
worlds. Sam Gamgee is fascinated by Elves and Dragons, but for all that
relentlessly practical, with his mind on rope, cooking gear, and how to make
his and Frodo's food last till Mt. Doom. After all, where there's life,
there's hope -- "and need of vittles." Aragorn can speak Boromir's
language when he wants to (e.g. at the Council of Elrond and elsewhere: "Less
thanks have we than you" for modern "We have less thanks than you," a
Boromir-type inversion), but he can also speak to the Hobbits as they
speak. He is not always on his dignity: at the gates of Isengard, when he
sits with Pippin and the others, we read, "He wrapped his grey cloak about him,
*hiding his mail-shirt*, and stretched out his long legs. Then he lay
back and sent from his lips a thin stream of smoke." The mail-shirt of
the heroic world disappears underneath a walking-cloak; Aragorn is "off-duty"
and taking a cigarette-break.
I could go on, but this post is already too long.
Anyway, the wiser, more sensible characters tend to have the ability to get off
their dignity in distinctly modern fashion and to display a strong, practical
bent when it comes to solving real-world problems. In the Inn at Bree
Aragorn decides that the Hobbits shall not sleep in their original rooms: "The
hobbit-rooms have windows looking north and close to the ground. We will
all remain together and bar this window and the door, but first Nob and I will
fetch your luggage." First, "luggage" is thoroughly modern -- does
Strider think the Hobbits have brought Samsonite suitcases? -- and the phrase
"fetch your luggage" is clearly such that no-one living exclusively in the
heroic world could have said it; and I for one certainly can't imagine Boromir
going off with the bell-boy to fetch anyone's luggage. But Aragorn does
say and do precisely this; and he and Nob rig up the Hobbits' original room to
make it appear that the Hobbits are still there. After the same token, at
Rauros, it's Aragorn (this time with Legolas) who settles down to solving the
practical problem of finding a way to get the boats around the rapids.
The characters who go modern all the way or who stick only
to the heroic code do badly. So, yes, the narrative of the LotR, to
get back to Curious' original, exciting post, does move between modern and
heroic times; I think, however, that the shifts are more frequent, more subtle
than all that. In particular, that some characters (like Samwise Gamgee
or Aragorn or Bard the Bowman) tend to keep a foot in both worlds, such that
modern and heroic times almost coëxist.
Finally, I express the wish that we may at some point in
the future get around to discussing Tolkien's two attempts at (transparent)
time-travel novels, namely The Lost Road and the The Notion Club
Papers.
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All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.
From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
A light from the shadows shall spring;
Renewed shall be blade that was broken,
The crownless again shall be king.
