Biblical and Theological Commentary on Tolkien's Other Essays
(avg. read time: 8–17 mins.)
Next month will see the beginning of a commentary series on The Silmarillion. I do not know that this one will turn into an actual published book like has been the case for my commentaries on The Hobbit and, soon, The Lord of the Rings (see here for now). But before we get to that, I want to write some commentary on Tolkien’s essays contained in the collection The Monster and the Critics and Other Essays.1 I have already covered the titular essay here, and I have addressed the theology of sub-creation in “On Fairy-Stories” here (an updated version will appear in my book on The Lord of the Rings). This entry will thus be dedicated to the other essays in the volume.
“On Translating Beowulf”
Tolkien wrote this as a preface to a new, revised edition (1940) by C. L. Wrenn of a translation of Beowulf previously done by John R. Clark Hall. There is not a lot of material that is of direct interest for our purposes. But certain remarks can be highlighted as summaries of what he had commented on elsewhere.
As someone who has taught Greek, I recommend this essay as a good reflection on the function of translation as an aid to study and how a translation can never properly replace engagement with the primary texts in the primary languages. One of the first issues he notes is something I have had to deal with in composing my own translations of biblical texts in that “It is not possible, for instance, in translation always to represent a recurring word in the original by one given modern word. Yet the recurrence may be important.”2 I have tried to translate words as consistently as I could, given the contexts in which they appear, but that is difficult to do in a translation that is going to be helpful for people reading the text in the receptor language. (For this reason I also tried to offer a variety of translations quite frequently in my advanced Greek reader to give translators options that are hopefully still consistent in sense when applicable.)
An example he notes from Beowulf is the use of the word eacen that is translated in various ways as “stalwart,” “broad,” “huge,” and “mighty.” But he observes that one who simply depends on the translations would lose the connotation that came with this word of “an addition of power, beyond the natural, whether it is applied to the superhuman thirtyfold strength possessed by Beowulf (in this Christian poem it is his special gift from God), or to the mysterious magical powers of the giant’s sword and the dragon’s hoard imposed by runes and curses.”3 This has been a consistent point of emphasis in his aforementioned essay, as well as in his commentary. Beowulf’s strength, as well as his courage and his other attributes, are all gifts of God.
And as Tolkien has done elsewhere, particularly in correspondence, his remarks about being too reliant on etymology serve as a needed corrective for popular claims making much ado about etymology for drawing out the meaning of a word. This is the etymological fallacy. It is something D. A. Carson addresses at some length in his book Exegetical Fallacies, and it is something Tolkien ran into from his colleagues. This also has an impact on translation, because the temptation when one thinks of an etymological link is to convey this in the translation, but as Tolkien notes, “etymological descent is of all guides to a fit choice of words the most untrustworthy: wann is not ‘wan’ but ‘dark’; mod is not ‘mood’ but ‘spirit’ or ‘pride’ [see here for more]; burg is not a ‘borough’ but a ‘strong place’; and ealdor is not an ‘alderman’ but a ‘prince’.”4 Tolkien’s further comments on etymology should also be noted by anyone who tries to hang much of significance on where a word came from:
It is a habit of many glossaries to Old English texts to record, in addition to a genuine translation, also that modern word which is (or is supposed to be) derived from the Old English word, and even to print this etymological intruder in special type so that it is impressed on the eye to the disadvantage of the correct rendering. The habit is pernicious. It may amuse the glossators, but it wastes space upon what is in the circumstances an irrelevance. It certainly does not assist the memory of students, who too often have to learn that the etymological gloss is worse than useless. Students should handle such glossaries with suspicion.5
Otherwise, there are two other points of interest. One is on the use of certain vocabulary in translation that is associated with chivalry. As he says, “The imagination of the author of Beowulf moved upon the threshold of Christian chivalry, if indeed it had not already passed within.”6 This fits what we have observed in other works of Tolkien’s translation, including Beowulf. Indeed, he noted in a letter to Bruce Mitchell, “I think we fail to grasp imaginatively the pagan ‘heroic’ temper, the almost animal pride and ferocity of ‘nobles’ and champions on the one hand; or on the other hand the immense relief and hope of Christian ethical teaching amidst a world with savage values.”7 This well describes the fusion of horizons—but not a true syncretism, as I say in the post on Tolkien’s famous Beowulf essay—between the northern paganism of the old era and the Christianity of the new era.
The other point of interest is the context he provides for the Christian presentation of Beowulf by noting the elements of language that convey the world in which the story is told, which is best encountered in the original language, not simplified translations:
He who in those days said and who heard flæschama ‘flesh-raiment’, ban-hus ‘bone-house’, hreðer-loca ‘heart-prison’, though of the soul shut in the body, as the frail body itself is trammelled in armour, or as a bird in a narrow cage, or steam pent in a cauldron. There it seethed and struggled in the wylmas, the boiling surges beloved of the old poets, until its passion was released and it fled away on ellor-sið, a journey to other places ‘which none can report with truth, not lords in their halls nor mighty men beneath the sky’ (50–52). The poet who spoke these words saw in his thought the brave men of old walking under the vault of heaven upon the island earth beleaguered by the Shoreless Seas and the outer darkness, enduring with stern courage the brief days of life, until the hour of fate when all things should perish, leoht and lif samod. But he did not say all this fully or explicitly. And therein lies the unrecapturable magic of ancient English verse for those who have ears to hear: profound feeling, and poignant vision, filled with the beauty and mortality of the world, are aroused by brief phrases, light touches, short words resounding like harp-strings sharply plucked.8
As Tolkien has argued in his aforementioned works on Beowulf, the poet had a complex relationship with this environment in which and about which he wrote.
“Sir Gawain and the Green Knight”
This is a lecture he gave for the W. P. Ker Memorial Lecture at the University of Glasgow on April 15, 1953. I have addressed Tolkien’s comments and Tolkien’s translation of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight elsewhere. But it should be observed that this lecture is not the same as Tolkien’s introduction in that volume. There is inevitably some overlap, since both this essay and the aforementioned introduction were written about the same subject, but I will try to avoid too much repetition in what I note for the purposes of this analysis.
Tolkien observes in how the poem is structured and composed that “The temptation was to this poet the raison d’être of his poem; all else was to him scenery, background, or else machinery: a device for getting Sir Gawain into the situation which he wished to study.”9 The moral purpose also shapes the story at the level of the deeper structures of thought, given, in Tolkien’s words, “There is indeed no better medium for moral teaching than the good fairy-story (by which I mean a real deep-rooted tale, told as a tale, and not a thinly disguised moral allegory).”10 This fits what we have observed not only in commentaries on Tolkien’s works, but also in what he said on several occasions about allegory and his story.
He thus also observes how the poet has avoided turning this story into a formalized allegory, as might have been hinted with the pentangle bears on his shield. For all the anachronistic framing of this story with accoutrements of Christendom, the fact remains that the temptation Gawain faces is a result of his own character, here described in terms of his Christian fidelity. Indeed, the territory in which Gawain will find himself tested is one designed to play on what is most naturally appealing to him, for, “It is in the very setting to which Gawain is used, and in which he has hitherto achieved the highest repute, that he is to be tested, within Christendom and so as a Christian. He himself and all that he stands for are to be assayed.”11 The anachronism of having all these explicit forms of Christianity within this story set in a time before Christianity was similarly pervasive in the British Isles is thus thoroughgoing, so that it shapes how he is tempted and even how his adversary speaks in reverence of the same Lord.
He likewise argues that it is the elements of fairy-story in this poem that hold the elements of the moral tale together. As he explains,
The temptation is real and perilous in the extreme on the moral plane (for Gawain’s own view of the circumstances is all that matters on that plane); yet hanging in the background, for those able to receive the air of ‘faerie’ in a romance, is a terrible threat of disaster and destruction. The struggle becomes intense to a degree which a merely realistic story of how a pious knight resisted a temptation to adultery (when a guest) could hardly attain. It is one of the properties of Fairy Story thus to enlarge the scene and the actors; or rather it is one of the properties that are distilled by literary alchemy when old deep-rooted stories are rehandled by a real poet with an imagination of his own.12
Tolkien then breaks down the various temptation scenes before coming to the note of his confession in stanza 75. Tolkien observes, against a previous scholar who observed the significance of Gawain’s confession, that by all markings his confession was a good one. He concealed nothing, sought to confess all his sins great and small, and the result is that his absolution is presented as effective. For this reason, “Such comfort and strength as he has beyond his own natural courage is derived from religion.”13 And yet, he retains the girdle the lady gave him, and this highlights the conflict of his courtesy and the rules pertaining thereto with his commitment to moral virtue. As Tolkien notes later, “The author is chiefly interested in the competition between ‘courtesy’ and virtue (purity and loyalty); he shows us their increasing divergence, and shows us Gawain at the crisis of the temptation recognizing this, and choosing virtue rather than courtesy, yet preserving a graciousness of manner and a gentleness of speech belonging to the true spirit of courtesy.”14 While his code of honor pushed him to retain the girdle, his moral character warned him against engaging in this courtly game, for he was being tempted to adultery. The code of honor related to various games with various rules that go with those games, and as Tolkien observed,
The more they [the games] deal with or become involved with real affairs and duties, the more moral bearings they will have; the things ‘done’ or ‘not done’ will have two sides, the ritual or rules of the game, and the eternal rules; and therefore the more occasions there will be for a dilemma, a conflict of rules. And the more seriously you take your games, the severer and more painful the dilemma. Sir Gawain belonged (as he is depicted) by class, tradition, and training to the kind that take their games with great seriousness. His suffering was acute.15
This is not to say that the moral purpose was why the author set out to write this story. As with Tolkien’s work, the moral considerations organically emerge from the tale as inherent within it.16 But he clearly became aware of it by the time he composed the final version, as evidenced by the confession scene and his exposition on the pentangle.
Related to this, Tolkien explains that what Gawain is actually at fault for is breaking the word of his compact with the lord of the castle. They had agreed on a seemingly absurd basis that the lord would go out hunting while Gawain stayed with the lady, and anything the lord won in the hunt would be Gawain’s and anything he gained he would give in exchange (stanza 45). He broke this word when he neglected to give the girdle to the lord of the castle on that same day. What is more, he did this precisely because he promised to do as the lady wished so as not to tell her husband about that gift.17
As in the introduction we have gone over previously, Tolkien notes that Gawain does not judge himself fairly. But both the blemish on his aim of moral perfection and his reaction to his fault give him a distinctly understandable human character.18 Those who believe in the forgiveness of sins, even those who apply forgiveness to themselves, may still feel what Gawain felt in that “the sting of shame on morally less important or insignificant levels will bite still after long years as sharp as new!”19 As in Letters #246 and #250, he perceives wisdom in the glimpse the poem thus gives us, namely, “a glimpse of that twofold scale with which all reasonably charitable people measure: the stricter for oneself, the more lenient for others. [The more charitable, the wider often the divergence, as may be seen in the self-stern saints.]”20 And the higher one aims, the more painful the falling short appears and feels.
“English and Welsh”
This one and the next one do not have much that is of special interest for our purposes, but there are some interesting points to note. This essay was the opening lecture of the O’Donnell Lectures for 1955, which sought to promote analysis of British or Celtic elements in the English language. No other work better illustrates Tolkien’s appreciation of the aesthetic quality of the Welsh language.
In the process of noting the language’s history and how others have been made aware of it—since it never had the burden of becoming a lingua franca—he observes how the Welsh translation of the NT “played a considerable part in preserving to recent times, as a literary norm above the colloquial and the divergent dialects, the language of an earlier age.”21 Indeed, for many now dead languages, many older phases of existing languages, and for still other languages that have a dwindling number of speakers today, Bible translation (most often NT translation) has proven crucial for preserving language.
Another item is more of a case of fascinating trivia. I credit Holly Ordway’s biography of Tolkien for drawing my attention to it. Tolkien mentions how his surname is German and “my other names are Hebrew, Norse, Greek, and French.”22 Tolkien mentioned the Germanic character of his last name in his correspondence (Letters #29, #30, #165, #272, #294, #349). His first name John is correlated to French (Jean) as its form is derived from French, while the roots of the name go back to Hebrew. The Norse name is Ronald. And the name he correlates with Hebrew is Reuel (“friend of God”), which he passed on to his descendants. Where, then, is the Greek? It is to be found in his confirmation name, Philip, which signified a connection with a saint of the name—particularly, Philip of Neri—as his first name also linked him to his patron saint John the Evangelist.
The final item of interest is a brief declaration he makes to express his love of learning languages like Welsh, as he says, “O felix peccatum Babel!”23 Th central phrase—or the more typical felix culpa—has been applied to the Fall (as in, e.g., Paradise Lost) as a reflection on the incomprehensible good that God brought to bear—and will yet bring to bear—out of that sin that otherwise brought ruin to everything. It was described as a “fortunate” sin because of how it was linked by the many complex weavings of God’s work in history to the Incarnation.
Whatever one may think about that perspective on the Fall, it is perhaps less potentially problematic to apply such a label as Tolkien did here to the Tower of Babel. After all, the story of the sundering of humans through the sundering of languages shows that this radical language variation was a punishment from God, but the larger story of which that is a part shows how it has been redeemed and will yet be consummately redeemed. While there are biblical promises about reversing the curses of the Fall and the coming of a new creation superior to the fallen one, there is no promise that all languages will be made one. Rather, the vision presented most vividly in Revelation is that of people from every nation, every people group, every tribe, and every language/tongue worshiping God (Rev 5:9–10; 7:9; 14:6–7). What initially caused division becomes, in the long arc of God’s providence, the constitution of a harmonized chorus where the diversity of humanity unites in one voice worshiping the one God. So yes, I think Tolkien was onto something here.
“A Secret Vice”
Again, there is not much of peculiar interest here. What is interesting about it is that it concerns his passion, what he calls a “secret vice,” for invented and inventing languages. Some comments point to what he has articulated in more detail elsewhere in Mythopoeia and “On Fairy-Stories.” This particularly apparent in this suggestion:
As one suggestion, I might fling out the view that for perfect construction of an art-language it is found necessary to construct at least in outline a mythology concomitant. Not solely because some pieces of verse will inevitably be part of the (more or less) completed structure, but because the making of language and mythology are related functions; to give your language an individual flavour, it must have woven into it the threads of an individual mythology, individual while working within the scheme of natural human mythopoeia, as your word-form may be individual while working within the hackneyed limits of human, even European, phonetics. The converse indeed is true, your language construction will breed a mythology.24
I have addressed such matters in more detail in my aforementioned links, as well as my commentaries on The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.
J. R. R. Tolkien, The Monsters and the Critics and Other Essays, ed. Christopher Tolkien (London: HarperCollins, 2006).
Tolkien, “On Translating Beowulf,” in The Monsters and the Critics and Other Essays, 50.
Ibid. (emphasis original).
Ibid., 56.
Ibid.
Ibid., 57.
Bruce Mitchell, On Old English: Selected Papers (Oxford: Blackwell, 1988), 53–54.
Tolkien, “Translating,” 60.
Tolkien, “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight,” in The Monsters and the Critics and Other Essays, 74.
Ibid., 73.
Ibid., 78.
Ibid., 83.
Ibid., 103.
Ibid., 95.
Ibid., 89.
Ibid., 91.
Ibid., 94–95.
For example, Tolkien observes, “He is not unnaturally at first in an emotional state of mind, greatly disturbed, after having not only his whole ‘code’ pulled to pieces, but receiving sore wounds to his pride. His first outcry against himself is hardly more likely to be just than his bitter generalization against women.” Ibid., 96.
Ibid., 98.
Ibid., 97, 108 n. 24.
Tolkien, “English and Welsh,” in The Monsters and the Critics and Other Essays, 165.
Ibid., 170.
Ibid., 194.
Tolkien, “A Secret Vice,” in The Monsters and the Critics and Other Essays, 210–11 (emphasis original).