Just a few random musings on various sources that may have played a part in
Tolkien’s composition of this chapter. Sourcing Tolkien is a mug’s game, of
course, but it’s so much fun to look at all the material in the course of
preparing an argument, we all do it anyway.
Classical
Pastoral – No. 2 from The Course of Empire by Cole
Getting back to those wonderful passages on the herbs and plants of Ithilien,
I’ve been looking around for confirmation of what I’ve always held in my head
when reading this chapter: the idea that Tolkien was consciously echoing the
classical pastoral tradition. Here
are some examples that I found.
A. Do you see any connection? Do you see any differences?
B. For Ithilien, and in general: given that Tolkien studied Latin and Greek for
years and majored in Classics at Oxford until he switched to English, what’s
your feeling about The Lord of the Rings: primarily ‘Northern’ – or
eclectically Northern and Classical? ‘Euromythlit’, so to speak?
Faramir
Illustrations of Robin Hood by Wyeth
Four tall Men stood there. Two had
spears in their hands with broad bright heads. Two had great bows, almost of
their own height, and great quivers of long green-feathered arrows. All had
swords at their sides, and were clad in green and brown of varied hues, as if
the better to walk unseen in the glades of Ithilien. Green gauntlets covered
their hands, and their faces were hooded and masked with green, except for
their eyes, which were very keen and bright. At once Frodo thought of Boromir,
for these Men were like him in stature and bearing, and in their manner of
speech.
This summer dna
suggested that Faramir and the Rangers of Ithilien were based on Robin Hood
and his Merry Men.
We do know this of Tolkien as a child: “He did not enjoy Treasure Island . . .
But he liked Red Indian stories and longed to shoot with a bow and arrow.” –
Tolkien: A Biography, by Humphrey Carpenter, p. 22.
Perhaps dna is on the right track
after all!
C. Do you see anything of the medieval legend of Robin Hood in Faramir and
his Rangers? Do you see anything of “Red Indian” stories (i.e., 18th and 19th
century stories of American Indians such as those told by Fenimore Cooper) in
this episode? Do you see anything of the woodcrafty Boers ambushing arrogant
British convoys under the hot southern sun, in the years of Tolkien’s
childhood?
Illustrations of Robin Hood by Pyle, and Cooper’s Deerslayer by
Wyeth
Shakespeare (why not?)
Here’s how Tolkien writes his “battle scene”: We see men cross ‘upstage’ from
left to right, then hear horns and fighting noises offstage. The hobbits’
guards, looking toward the battle, describe for us what is happening. We hear
the hero shouting in the distance. Then one soldier comes on stage and
collapses face-down, and Sam, speaking for the dead man, gives a quiet
soliloquy on the tragedy of war.
D. Was Tolkien copying Shakespeare here (OK, Sir Francis Bacon)? Why portray
this battle (or any battle) “off stage”?
Battle from Henry IV, Colorado Shakespeare Festival
1999
Text of this
chapter
Everyone is laughing for heart's ease, now that they're in Ithilien! Join me in the Reading Room this week for a squireific topic-oriented discussion of Chapter 4, Book IV of The Two Towers: "Of Herbs and Stewed Rabbit".
squire online:
Footerama: "Tolkien would have LOVED it!" (improved!)
The Valaquenta discussion
A Shortcut to Mushrooms discussion
