Michael Drout’s paper, “The Rhetorical Evolution of ‘Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics’” dealt with Tolkien’s influential essay on the Old English poem Beowulf.  In case that sounds extremely dull, let me assure you that Drout was discussing how the early drafts of this essay allow us to see how Tolkien developed his argument in ways similar to his fiction.  Drout also talked about some parts of the essay drafts that give us insight into how Tolkien thought about his own work; you don’t have to know Beowulf in order to see what he was talking about in the passages that I cite below. 

“Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics” is the published version of a lecture that Tolkien gave to the British Academy in 1936, and  Drout was talking about two earlier drafts of that essay, the A and B versions of something called “Beowulf and the Critics,” most likely a compilation of lecture notes for Oxford students, which Drout discovered among Tolkien’s papers in the Bodleian Library at Oxford.  Drout acknowledged that in a 20-minute oral presentation it was difficult to talk about detailed revisions in these three texts; these will probably be analyzed in the published version of the Marquette conference papers.  If you can’t wait that long, you can read the early versions of Tolkien’s published essay in Drout’s book, Beowulf and the Critics, which is a detailed edition of both A and B texts with full explanatory and textual notes (be warned, though, it’s expensive).  What I thought might be interesting for us here would be to look at a couple of revisions that Drout discussed which have a bearing on Tolkien’s fiction.

“Beowulf and the Critics” was probably begun around 1934 as a series of Oxford lectures to students.  The references, the humour, the digressions, the pacing of the first draft seem to indicate oral delivery for such an audience.  Drout felt that Tolkien was finding his argument as he was presenting it, and he said that you could almost see in Tolkien’s handwriting when he was on a roll. Tolkien had compiled all his evidence in the early drafts, but by the final version, he had removed a lot of material, such as detailed analyses of certain Old English words, to the appendices of the final published essay.  Drout commented that the result is the same as in LotR: the reader gets a feeling that there is an enormous background to the main piece. 

One of the features of Tolkien’s method of composition, according to Drout, is to create literary tableaux as basic structures around which the argument develops. In “Beowulf and the Critics,” Tolkien creates an allegory of a rock garden as a tableau; this becomes an allegory of a tower in the final published essay. The point of the allegory is to show how the Beowulf-poet constructed a poem out of older folktale and mythical elements and how previous critics had only been interested in identifying the various sources, quarrying the poem for historical details without looking at it as a poem on its own merits.  You may find that the allegories apply in some ways to Tolkien and his fiction as well.  Here are the two versions:

B-text, “Beowulf and the Critics:

I present you with the following allegory, which I should like to have borne in mind.  A man found a mass of old stone: it was part of the old wall of his small house and garden which had recently been considerably altered and enlarged.  Of this stone he made a rock garden.  But his friends coming at once perceived that the stones had formerly been part of a more ancient building; and they turned the stones  upside down to look for hidden carvings and inscriptions; some suspected a deposit of coal under the soil and began to dig for it.  They all said “This garden is most interesting,” but they also said  “What a jumble and confusion it is in!” And even the gardener’s best friend, who might have been expected to understand, or at least to enquire,  what he had been about, was heard to say: “He’s such a tiresome fellow – imagine his using these beautiful old stones just to set off commonplace flowers that are found in every back-garden: he has no sense of proportion, poor man!” I might add that, of course, the less friendly when they were told that the gardener was an Anglo-Saxon and often alluded to beer, understood at once. A love of freedom may go with beer and blue eyes, but that yellow hair unfortunately grows always on a muddled head.

(Drout noted that the reference to the “less friendly” is a dig at the French critic Jusserand who was quick to interpret any reference to drinking in Beowulf as a sign of a general Anglo-Saxon tendency toward drunkenness.)

Published version, “Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics”:

I would express the whole industry in yet another allegory.  A man inherited a field in which was an accumulation of old stone, part of an older hall.  Of the old stone some had already been used in building the house in which he actually lived, not far from the old house of his fathers.  Of the rest he took some and built a tower.  But his friends coming perceived at once (without troubling to climb the steps) that these stones had formerly belonged to a more ancient building.  So they pushed the tower over, with no little labour, in order to look for hidden carvings and inscriptions, or to discover whence the man’s distant forefathers had obtained their building material.  Some suspecting a deposit of coal under the soil began to dig for it, and forgot even the stones.  They all said: “This tower is most interesting.”  But they also said (after pushing it over): “What a muddle it is in!”  And even the man’s own descendants, who might have been expected to consider what he had been about, were heard to murmur: “He is such an odd fellow!  Imagine his using these old stones just to build a nonsensical tower!  Why did not he restore the old house?  He had no sense of proportion.”  But from the top of that tower the man had been able to look out upon the sea.

Possible questions for discussion:

1.  Rock garden or tower?  How does each one work in creating an image of the poem and its poet?  Does one work better than another for this allegory?  In changing the rock garden to a tower, is there an evolution in Tolkien’s thinking about stories like  Beowulf which use older elements from folktale and myth?

2.  Tolkien is supposed to be describing the Beowulf- poet, but could any of this description apply to Tolkien as a fiction writer?

3.  Tolkien is also describing the work of critics who analyze Beowulf in a certain way. Are we behaving in the same way when we analyze Tolkien’s work?  What do you think literary criticism should do?

4.  Other comments?

If you have the stamina for one more passage, it’s worth reading Tolkien’s conclusion to the published essay.  As Drout pointed out, Tolkien revises his way to a soaring rhetorical conclusion in the final draft.  In the earlier B-text, Tolkien’s final paragraph is similar to what is quoted below except that he concludes with the last line:  “For such reasons ultimately do we study ‘Anglo-Saxon.’” (A good conclusion, you might say, when lecturing to students.) The conclusion to the final version, however, is more powerful.  It reminds the reader of a discussion earlier in the essay about the necessity of monsters such as dragons in Beowulf, and, according to Drout, it encompasses a wider view of Beowulf in the world than the earlier versions.  Drout spoke about how Tolkien’s essay generally gives us the very big picture without abandoning the smaller details, as in Tolkien’s fiction.  Feel free to comment on this conclusion to “Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics”:

And one last point, which those will feel who to-day preserve the ancient pietas towards the past: Beowulf is not a ‘primitive’ poem; it is a late one, using the materials (then still plentiful) preserved from a day already changing and passing, a time that has now forever vanished, swallowed in oblivion; using them for a new purpose, with a wider sweep of imagination, if with a less bitter and concentrated force.  When new Beowulf was already antiquarian, in a good sense, and it now produces a singular effect.  For it is now to us itself ancient; and yet its maker was telling of things already old and weighted with regret, and he expended his art in making keen that touch upon the heart which sorrows have that are both poignant and remote. If the funeral of Beowulf moved once like the echo of an ancient dirge, far-off and hopeless, it is to us as a memory brought over the hills, an echo of an echo.  There is not much poetry in the world like this; and though Beowulf may not be among the very greatest poems of our western world and its tradition, it has its own individual character, and peculiar solemnity; it would still have power had it been written in some time or place unknown and without posterity, if it contained no name that could now be recognized or identified by research.  Yet it is in fact written in a language that after many centuries has still essential kinship with our own, it was made in this land, and moves in our northern world beneath our northern sky, and for those who are native to that tongue and land, it must ever call with a profound appeal – until the dragon comes.

Thanks to the Marquette Corsairs as always for their notes and advice.  If you want to find out more about Michael Drout’s work, you can check his web page, linked below. (You have to admire a professor who says “Woot!” when his book gets a good review in a staid scholarly journal.)