Английская Википедия:Anachronism in Middle-earth
Шаблон:Short description Шаблон:Use British English Шаблон:Use dmy dates
Anachronism, chronological inconsistency, is seen in J. R. R. Tolkien's fantasy world of Middle-earth in the juxtaposition of cultures of evidently different periods, such as the classically-inspired Gondor and the medieval-style Rohan, and in the far more modern Hobbits of the Shire, a setting which resembles the English countryside of Tolkien's childhood. The more familiar lifestyle and manner of the Hobbits, introduced for a children's story not planned to be set in Middle-earth, allows them to mediate between the reader and the far older cultures of Middle-earth.
Tolkien's books, too, like The Lord of the Rings, are at once medieval in style and modern in many ways, such as appealing to a diverse modern readership. The One Ring, too, embodies a wholly modern concept, that power corrupts.
Cultures of different periods
Scholars have commented that the cultures of Middle-earth, such as the classically-inspired Gondor and the medieval-style Rohan, are evidently of different eras, creating a built-in element of anachronism in the narrative. Those heroic cultures are, in turn, clearly quite unlike that of the home-loving Hobbits of the Shire. Gondor is rooted in ancient Rome, while Rohan echoes many aspects of the culture of the Anglo-Saxons.[1] Sandra Ballif Straubhaar writes that "the most striking similarities" for Gondor are with ancient Rome: Aeneas, from Troy, and Elendil, from Númenor, both survive the destruction of their home countries; the brothers Romulus and Remus found Rome, while the brothers Isildur and Anárion found the Númenórean kingdoms in Middle-earth; and both Gondor and Rome experienced centuries of "decadence and decline".Шаблон:Sfn
Bilbo Baggins's comfortable home in The Hobbit, on the other hand, is in Tom Shippey's wordsШаблон:Sfn
| Culture | Period | Dates | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Gondor | Classical antiquity | 800 BC–500 AD | Parallels with Ancient Rome include origin-figures who survive wreck of their home countries; twin brother founders; and centuries of decline and decadence.Шаблон:Sfn |
| Gondor | Middle Ages | 500–1500 AD | Parallels with Byzantine Empire (until 1453) include an older state, a weaker sister kingdom, enemies to East and South, and final siege from the East.[3] |
| Rohan | Middle Ages | 500–1500 AD | Tolkien stated that the equipment shown in the Bayeux Tapestry, for the 1066 Battle of Hastings, would suit the Rohirrim "well enough".[T 1] |
| The Shire | Late Victorian era | 1837–1901 | Tolkien gave the date of the Diamond Jubilee, 1897[1] |
Modern Hobbits in an older world
Tolkien scholars including Shippey and Dimitra Fimi have stated that the Hobbits are misfits in Middle-earth's heroic world.[1] Tolkien placed the Shire not somewhere heroic, but in a society he had personally experienced, "more or less a Warwickshire village of about the period of the Diamond Jubilee [of Queen Victoria, in 1897]".[1][T 2] Shippey described the Hobbits' culture, complete with tobacco and potatoes,Шаблон:Sfn as a "creative anachronism" on Tolkien's part.Шаблон:Sfn In his view, anachronism is the "essential function" of Hobbits, enabling Tolkien to "bridge the gap" by mediating between readers' lives in the modern world and the dangerous ancient world of Middle-earth.Шаблон:Sfn Robert Tally notes that Bilbo is the anachronism in The Hobbit as he enters the otherwise consistently "distant, legendary, or mythic past", meeting the wizard Gandalf, the Dwarf Thorin, Elves, and the dragon.[4] This bridging function had, back in 1957, been said to be essential by Douglass Parker in his review of The Lord of the Rings, Hwaet We Holbytla....[5]
Fimi comments that this applies both to the style of language used by the Hobbits, and to their material culture of "umbrellas, camping kettles, matches, clocks, pocket handkerchiefs and fireworks", all of which are plainly modern, as are the fish and chips that Sam Gamgee thinks of on his journey to Mordor.[1][T 3] Most striking, in her view, however, is Tolkien's description of the enormous dragon firework at Bilbo's party which rushed overhead "like an express train".[1] Tolkien's drawing of the hall of Bilbo's home, Bag End, shows both a clock and a barometer (mentioned in an early draft), and he had another clock on his mantelpiece.Шаблон:Sfn[T 4][T 5] To arrange a party, the Hobbits rely on a daily postal service.Шаблон:Sfn The effect, the scholars agree, is to bring the reader comfortably into the ancient heroic world.Шаблон:Sfn[1]
The medievalist Lynn Forest-Hill writes that the plants mentioned are similarly anachronistic, whether the "nasturtians" growing over Bag End, the "taters" in its garden, or the "pipeweed" that the Hobbits liked to smoke, each plant indicating a homely activity – gardening, cooking, smoking. In her view, the nasturtians "signal the specific relationship of [the] anachronistic [Hobbits] to the present".[6] Characters, too, can be anachronistic, out of their time, as with the Hobbit-become-monster Gollum, who after his five centuries hidden under the Misty Mountains is in the time of the War of the Ring, the end of the Third Age, but who is from an era of the distant past when Hobbits still lived by the River Anduin.[6]
| Object | First existed | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Tobacco | After 1492 | Columbian exchange brought it to Europe[7] |
| Potato | After 1492 | As for tobacco[7] |
| Nasturtium | 18th century | Familiar but modern[6] |
| Umbrella | 18th century | Folding umbrellas, Paris[8] |
| Camping kettle | After 1880s | Camping trips on River Thames;[9] Kelly Kettle from end of 19th century[10] |
| Safety match | 1850s | Lundström brothers, Sweden[11] |
| Clock | 13th century | First clocks in church towers[12] |
| Pocket handkerchief | 19th century | In pocket of two-piece suit[13] |
| Fireworks | 10th century | Made in Europe by 14th century[14] |
| Express train | 19th century | "certainly unimaginable in Middle-earth"[1] |
| Fish and chips | 1860s | First fish and chip shops in England[15] |
| Postal service | 1840 | Uniform Penny Post[16] |
Medieval but modern
Scholars agree that while Middle-earth has a strongly Medieval feeling and setting, books like The Lord of the Rings are certainly modern.Шаблон:Sfn Tolkien, a philologist, was a professional medievalist; but his Middle-earth writings have attracted readers, in the words of Jane Chance and Alfred Siewers "globally across a wide political and cultural spectrum, from the postmodern counterculture to Christian traditionalists."Шаблон:Sfn The scholar of humanities Brian Rosebury comments that Tolkien's writing shares several qualities with modernism, as well as having a modern novelistic "realism".Шаблон:Sfn Anna Vaninskaya states that Tolkien was certainly "a modern writer"; he did not engage with modernism, but his work was "supremely intertextual", interweaving and juxtaposing styles, modes, and genres.Шаблон:Sfn
Shippey writes that a central aspect of The Lord of the Rings is strikingly non-medieval: the One Ring. Tolkien depicts it as relentlessly evil, eating away at its possessor's mind. Shippey comments that "The most evident fact to note about the Ring is that it is in conception strikingly anachronistic, totally modern".Шаблон:Sfn In his view, it embodies the modern maxim "Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely", where in medieval thought, power just revealed how a person already was. The whole idea that power is corrosive and addictive is thus a modern one.Шаблон:Sfn
The illustrator Ted Nasmith describes his own Tolkien artwork as embodying "appropriate anachronism", presenting the apparently medieval in the idiom of modern fantasy.Шаблон:Sfn
A literary process
Tolkien started writing The Hobbit purely as a children's story, nothing to do with his legendarium. By the time he had completed it, it alluded to Sauron (as the Necromancer) and mentioned Elrond, Esgaroth, and Gondolin: it was being drawn into Middle-earth. All the same, in 1937 when The Hobbit was published, Tolkien expected that that would be as far as the interconnections would go. However, a month later, his publisher, Stanley Unwin, let him know that the public would want "more from you about Hobbits!" Tolkien started work on a sequel, which became The Lord of the Rings, and it necessarily contained both heroic elements and Hobbits. The story grew in the telling, and became a feigned history rather than a Silmarillion-like mythology, a fantasy complete with a sub-created secondary world, suitable for adults as well as children. Tolkien laboured to resolve the inconsistencies that the merger of The Hobbit and the mythology created, often successfully;Шаблон:Sfn but the anachronism of the Hobbits in a more ancient world turned out to be both inherent and necessary.[1]
References
Primary
Secondary
Sources
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Шаблон:Hobbit Шаблон:Middle-earth Шаблон:Lord of the Rings
- ↑ 1,00 1,01 1,02 1,03 1,04 1,05 1,06 1,07 1,08 1,09 1,10 1,11 Шаблон:Harvnb
- ↑ Шаблон:Harvnb
- ↑ Шаблон:Cite book
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- ↑ Шаблон:Cite journal
- ↑ 6,0 6,1 6,2 6,3 Шаблон:Cite journal
- ↑ 7,0 7,1 Шаблон:Cite web
- ↑ Шаблон:Cite book
- ↑ Шаблон:Cite journal Шаблон:Open access
- ↑ Шаблон:Cite web
- ↑ Шаблон:Cite journal
- ↑ Шаблон:Cite book
- ↑ Шаблон:Cite web
- ↑ Шаблон:Ullmann
- ↑ Шаблон:Cite news
- ↑ Шаблон:Cite web
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