Tolkien in the New Century: Essays in Honor of Tom
Shippey (2014), edited by John Wm. Houghton, Janet Brennan Croft, Nancy
Martsch, John D. Rateliff, and Robin Anne Reid
“Widely considered one of the leading experts on the
works of J.R.R. Tolkien, Thomas Alan Shippey has informed and enlightened a
generation of Tolkien scholars and fans. In this collection, friends and
colleagues honor Shippey with 15 essays that reflect their mentor's research
interests, methods of literary criticism and attention to Tolkien's shorter
works. In a wide-ranging consideration of Tolkien's oeuvre, the contributors
explore the influence of 19th and 20th century book illustrations on Tolkien's work;
utopia and fantasy in Tolkien's Middle-earth; the Silmarils, the Arkenstone,
and the One Ring as thematic vehicles; the pattern of decline in Middle-earth
as reflected in the diminishing power of language; Tolkien's interest in
medieval genres; the heroism of secondary characters; and numerous other
topics. Also included are brief memoirs by Shippey's colleagues and friends in
academia and fandom and a bibliography of Shippey's work.” – Amazon.
I got this book in the mail
early yesterday morning but decided to hold off a bit before really starting
it. After all, I was still partway into Chesterton’s life of Chaucer and was expecting
The Ankh-Morpork Archives Volume II before 3 PM. When the Discworld book
arrived a little after 12 PM, I tore into that and despite a list of
intervening chores, easily finished it by 8 PM. Then, being able to resist no
more, I began Tolkien in the New Century before hitting the hay. The
book itself seemed to have got a little bent in shipping, but a decade or two
pressed on the shelves should fix that.
It is now 8:30 AM the next
day and I am halfway through. Still, I think I can already say certain things
about it.
These essays by the Scippigraed
(formed from Old English = ‘those counseled by Shippey’) are the descendants of
his seminal work The Road to Middle-earth and go far to remind us how
much of the inspiration for The Lord of the Rings had deep roots in philosophy
and philology. As in many collections of essays from different authors, one’s
interest may be hit or miss; personally, I love the works describing the
history of various words and how Tolkien uses them.
Reading this book is
entangled now with a rather vexed question for me: the Amazon production of The
Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. That they fired Shippey as a
consultant in 2020 was a bad omen, and the revelation of their nomenclature of
original characters does not inspire confidence. As the website TV Tropes puts
it, “The names for several new characters [has] met with a tepid response, with
many feeling they're either just uninspired or poor remixes of actual Tolkien names
that are in some cases outright inconsistent, which is a particular sore spot
considering how the study of names and languages was literally Tolkien's
professional career and a primary part and major motivator of his
world-building.” They go on to list these lingual monstrosities: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/YMMV/TheLordOfTheRingsTheRingsOfPower
In short,
where Tolkien’s inspiration was philological, philosophical, and mythical, this
Amazon ‘adaptation’ sounds increasingly political, both in the inspiration for
their story (adapted from scanty references in the Appendices, lore save us)
and in the behind the scenes decisions for the production. While The Lord of
the Rings has a universal appeal and tells timeless truths, executive
producer Lindsay Weber said, “It felt only natural to us that an adaptation of
Tolkien’s work would reflect what the world actually looks like,” that is, the
primary world and not the fantasy world Tolkien described. I increasingly fear
that this adaptation will be, in more ways than one, only skin deep.
The series will premiere on
September 2 of this year, the anniversary of the death of Tolkien. Make of THAT
what you will. [Death of the Author is a concept from mid-20th
Century literary criticism; it holds that an author's intentions and
biographical facts (the author's politics, religion, etc) should hold no
special weight in determining an interpretation of their writing. -TV Tropes]
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