Morris, the T.C.B.S., Georgian poetry, classical poetry, and exotic forms.
Jason Fisher in ‘Parody? Pigwiggery? Sourcing the Early Verse of J.R.R. Tolkien’, Beyond Bree, October and November 2009, discusses Tolkien’s early ‘fairy’ poems such as Goblin Feet and his later comments on diminutive fairies in On Fairy-Stories.
Michael D.C. Drout comments in his introduction (‘Reading Tolkien’s Poetry’) to Tolkien’s Poetry, ed. Eilmann and Turner (2013), that the popularity and vast sales of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings mean that ‘we can safely conclude that Tolkien’s poetry is among the most widely disseminated in the past century’ (p. 1). Though many readers admit to skipping them, the verses ‘are essential to the aesthetic and thematic effects’ of Tolkien’s fiction. ‘There are nearly 100 poems in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings’ in numerous forms, metres, and styles, some of which ‘contain certain information that is unavailable elsewhere in the text. Others reveal the characters of their speakers, demonstrate cultural differences and traditions or present otherwise-lost history …. The verses, therefore, cannot be dismissed as filler, incidental ornamentation or self-indulgent excrescence: on multiple levels they are woven throughout the work’ (pp. 3–4).
Julian Tim Morton Eilmann, in ‘I Am the Song: Music, Poetry, and the Transcendent in J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle-earth’, in Light beyond All Shadow: Religious Experience in Tolkien’s Work, ed. Paul E. Kerry and Sandra Miesel (2011), also considers the songs and poems in The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit to be ‘an integral element in the narrative’ (p. 101) which serve ‘the purpose of social and cultural communication’. The poetry
imparts historical knowledge and is the genre for prophecies …. Furthermore, one has to consider the simple, playful joy of singing and reciting poetry, its aesthetic pleasure. But this is not the crucial point of art reception in Middle-earth. Repeatedly the text of The Lord of the Rings implies that certain forms of poetry are able to evoke vivid images and ideas in the recipient’s mind, causing an effect that is repeatedly called ‘enchantment’. [p. 103]
He cites several examples, including Frodo in the Hall of Fire, and discusses the power of song in *The Silmarillion (see *Music).
Studies of Tolkien’s alliterative verse include Carl Phelpstead, ‘Auden and the Inklings: An Alliterative Revival’, Journal of English and Germanic Philology, October 2004; Mark F. Hall, ‘The Theory and Practice of Alliterative Verse in the Works of J.R.R. Tolkien’, Mythlore 25, nos. 1/2, whole nos. 95/96 (Fall/Winter 2006); Tom Shippey, ‘Alliterative Verse by Tolkien’, J.R.R. Tolkien Encyclopedia, ed. Michael D.C. Drout (2006); and Shippey, ‘Tolkien’s Development as a Writer of Alliterative Poetry in Modern English’, Lembas Extra 2009: Tolkien in Poetry and Song (2009).
On Tolkien’s poetry not in English, see further, Tom Shippey, ‘Poems by Tolkien in Other Languages’, in J.R.R. Tolkien Encyclopedia, ed. Michael D.C. Drout (2006); and Maria Artamanova, ‘Tolkien’s Writings in Old Germanic Languages’, in The Ring Goes Ever On: Proceedings of the Tolkien 2005 Conference: 50 Years of The Lord of the Rings, ed. Sarah Wells (2008).
Political thought. Tolkien’s political views on the whole were conservative, in that he supported the Conservative Party rather than the Labour Party, but also in that he wanted to conserve what was good, and not to assume that new ideas or inventions were good merely because they were new. He understood that *power could corrupt, and mistrusted those who sought it. He applauded the medieval ideal of nolo episcopari: that only the man who does not want to be a bishop is fit to be a bishop – by extension, that those who seek power are unfit to wield it. Letters he wrote to his son *Christopher during the Second World War are enlightening on all of these issues.
His feelings were undoubtedly sharpened by the situation around him (*War) – the use of machines (*Environment) leading to destruction and loss of life, incompetency and corruption, controls and restrictions – and he found some relief in writing about them. On 29 November 1943 he wrote to Christopher, with deliberate overemphasis to make his point:
My political opinions lean more and more to Anarchy (philosophically understood, meaning abolition of control not whiskered men with bombs) – or to ‘unconstitutional’ Monarchy. I would arrest anybody who uses the word State (in any sense other than the inanimate realm of England and its inhabitants, a thing that has neither power, rights nor mind); and after a chance of recantation, execute them if they remained obstinate! If we could get back to personal names, it would do a lot of good. Government is an abstract noun meaning the art and process of governing and it should be an offence to write it with a capital G or so as to refer to people. If people were in the habit of referring to ‘King George’s council, Winston [Churchill] and his gang’, it would go a long way to clearing thought, and reducing the frightful landslide into Theyocracy. Anyway the proper study of Man is anything but Man; and the most improper job of any man, even saints (who at any rate were at least unwilling to take it on), is bossing other men. Not one in a million is fit for it, and least of all those who seek the opportunity. [Letters, pp. 63–4]
In a draft letter to Michael Straight at the end of 1955 he explained: ‘I am not a “socialist” in any sense – being averse to “planning” … most of all because the “planners”, when they acquire power, become so bad …’ (Letters, p. 235). In another draft letter, to Joanna de Bortadano in April 1956, Tolkien explained his doubts about ‘democracy’ as necessarily an ideal method of government: ‘I am not a “democrat” only because “humility” and equality are spiritual principles corrupted by the attempt to mechanize and formalize them, with the result that we get not universal smallness and humility, but universal greatness and pride, till some Orc gets hold of a ring of power – and then we get and are getting slavery’ (Letters, p. 246). In other words, he could see that the ideals of democracy are all too rarely achieved. Those elected may abuse the power they gain in the interests of themselves or their friends, or for various reasons may not represent the population as a whole but only a part of it – great landowners, or those with inherited wealth or political connections.
Tolkien loved *England and applauded true patriotism, but was against any form of imperialism or colonialism, whether political or cultural. In a letter to *Christopher Wiseman on 16 November 1914, not long after the beginning of the First World War, he discussed matters that he felt to be of supreme importance, including ‘the duty of patriotism and a fierce belief in nationalism’. He concluded: ‘I am not of course a militarist. I no longer defend the Boer War! I am a more & more convinced Home Ruler …. I don’t defend “Deutschland über alles” but certainly do the Norwegian “alt for Norge” which translates itself (if I have it right?)’ (Tolkien Papers, Bodleian Library, Oxford). On 9 December 1943 he wrote to his son Christopher: ‘I love England (not Great Britain and certainly not the British Commonwealth (grr!)), and if I was of military age, I should, I fancy, be grousing away in a fighting service, and willing to go on to the bitter end …’ (Letters, p. 65). On 29 May 1945, after the end of the war in Europe but while it continued in the Far East, he wrote to Christopher: ‘As I know nothing about British or American imperialism in the Far East that does not fill me with regret and disgust, I am afraid I am not even supported by a glimmer of patriotism in this remaining war. I would not subscribe a penny to it, let alone a son, were I a free man. It can only benefit America or Russia: prob[ably] the latter’ (Letters, p. 115).
He was patriotic but not blindly so – patriotic to his country but not necessarily to its government’s policies or propaganda. He expressed this in historical terms in another letter to Christopher, on 31 July 1944:
I should have hated the Roman Empire in its day (as I do), and remained a patriotic Roman citizen, while preferring a free Gaul and seeing good in Carthaginians. Delenda est Carthago [Plutarch, ‘Carthage must be destroyed’].
