"Old Tom Bombadil was a merry fellow,
bright blue his jacket was and his boot were yellow,
green were his girdle and his breeches all of leather;
he wore in his tall hat a swan-wing feather."
This character, Tom Bombadil, remains one of my favourites from Tolkien's writings. I'm happy that he wasn't a character in the recent films of The Lord of the Rings (hereafter LotR). The films are great, but I like having my own memories and associations. Bombadil has received a lot of fan attention, and a good bit of critical interest.
How the character developed, why he was retained when in many ways he is just a side-track of the main plot, and what is his significance in the larger world of Middle Earth, are problems thoroughly explored in Christopher Tolkien's The History of Middle Earth, Tom Shippey's The Road To Middle Earth and JRR Tolkien: Author of the Century, and in the biographies of Tolkien. All of these are worth reading, if one has an interest in these matters.
What I want to explore here is in two parts: the invention of a secondary world ("Tom's Country") within the bounds of a poem, and the special uses of language to perform that invention.
As mentioned in the previous post, the poem has a ballad-like form. The rhyme scheme and metre suggest a traditional structure and a traditional subject-matter, and Tolkien (who in fact was well-aware of his position as a communicator of tradition) emphasizes this with his diction (line numbers):
girdle (not belt) (3)
breeches (not pants or trousers) (3)
well (not spring) (6)
dingle (not valley) (6)
a-wallowing (13), a-swallowing (14), a-thinking (31), a-drinking(32), a-listening (43), etc.
dabchicks (18)
water-lady (22)
draggled (26)
like a rainy weather (34)
forest-eaves (43)...
many more examples could be given: the poem is 136 lines and hardly any of them are free of some quirk of diction.
A careful and detailed -- but not comprehensive -- examination of Tolkien's word-use is found in Gilliver, Marshall, and Weiner's The Ring of Words: Tolkien and the Oxford English Dictionary (Oxford UP, 2006). While most of the terms in ATB are not archaisms, some are, and some are "recoveries" or reconstructions ("barrow-wight" is probably the chief example here). Some of these terms also maybe usual in a certain context, but for a general readership (I am inclined to add "particularly in America" although that is a presumption on my part) they are peculiar.
The presence of these unusual words, in fact, their very peculiarity, helps to create a sense of remoteness. Shippey argues cogently for "mediation" in his works on Tolkien (especially in Author), and this tendency of Tolkien's to find common ground with his reader from which to bring her or him to his secondary world is balanced, particularly in his poetry, with an opposing tendency to "make it strange" as Chekhov recommended.
But the words here are not simply peculiar -- they are particular. They are, in many cases, old, and they are rural in context. In Tolkien's mind (and I agree in part), the very sound and "feel" of these words place them, and suggest their meanings. I have wondered, as I read about Tolkien's process, whether he was not synaesthetic, that is, experiencing words and the sound of words as shapes or colours. But that is a matter for another venue. Certainly, for an English reader, Tolkien seems to have believed that the word "dingle" would immediately suggest the basic lexical connotation: a small valley. Why this should be so is more difficult to say, but that Tolkien felt it was so seems clear.
Now, if we can for the moment accept Tolkien's basic assumption that words by their very nature suggest particular meanings, and that this is the more true the broader and deeper one's acquaintance with a language, we can say with some confidence that even the phrasing and diction of "The Adventures of Tom Bombadil" (hereafter ATB) point us, if not to the West Midlands, at least to rural England. Shippey, again, has indicated in some detail how Tolkien's novella Farmer Giles of Ham includes obvious hints at existing geography. Here, the situation is different. Placing ATB in the wider context of Tolkien's writing, the reader can gather than Tom's Country is on the edges of, and at least partially within The Old Forest, to the east of Buckland, itself an eastern "colony" of The Shire of the hobbits. All this is "pure fiction", whatever remote connection Tolkien forges to existing geography and history (see, for example, the introductory materials to the LotR).
It is possible, and profitable in its way, to place ATB in this larger context of Middle Earth. But if we were to encounter this poem on its own, without benefit of that context, we could still learn much about the construction of secondary worlds. And here Tolkien has the special problem of constructing a secondary world in (only!) 136 lines.
There is little here of the artificial. Tom has clothing (as noted above) and a house (which, however, is named a "house" only in line 126, quite late in the poem) with a door which can be locked (73), and the door further has not only a lock but a turning handle (78) and a door-step (135). The house, furthermore, has windows (75) with shutters (73) and sills (116), and is lit by a lamp (74) and a candle (77), has stairs (78), a yard surrounded by a wall (92), a table (114) on which is set cream, bread, and butter (115), all of which are foods requiring processing (a fourth food, honeycomb, is mentioned, but obviously that does not require processing), and white bedding (125). A fiddle is mentioned (123). The "old mound" which is a barrow (81) and the "ring of stones" (82) are also artificial, however ancient and well-incorporated into the landscape.
But overall it is this very sense of integration into the landscape which characterized Tom and his fellow characters -- mostly antagonists -- in the poem. Tom is a "nature spirit" and so are the other characters (except perhaps the Barrow-wight). The natural landscape is centrally important here. But it is a tamed landscape, one that has been shaped for many years, perhaps many millenia, but some pruning hand.
... to be continued...
Sunday, May 3, 2009
Wednesday, April 2, 2008
The Adventures of Tom Bombadil
This long poem (134 lines), the lead and eponymous poem of J.R.R. Tolkien's best-known collection of poetry, now available chiefly in the collection entitled The Tolkien Reader (New York: Ballantine, 1966), offers a number of points of interest to the student of poetry.
To my mind, chief among these is the overall structure of the piece. The poem is episodic, featuring an introduction of the main character, Tom Bombadil (lines 1-10), and then a series of encounters with increasingly dangerous adversaries: Goldberry (11-24a), Willow Man (27-41a), Badger-brock (51-68), and Barrow-wight (77-92). This is followed by a reversal of action, in which Tom successfully "woos" (some may read "rapes" -- at any rate marries) Goldberry (106-122) and a denouement or finale in which all the major characters of the poem are referenced again (123-137).
In each of the encounters, a strict formula is followed. Although the poem is not precisely a ballad, it has a strong ballad-like quality in the strong structuring of the episodes. In each, Bombadil is first confronted by some natural spirit: a spirit of water (Goldberry), a spirit of wood (Willow Man), a spirit of earth (Badger-brock), and a spirit of death (Barrow-wight). This, at any rate, is I think a plausible reading. Each of the first three spirits captures, and the fourth threatens to capture, Bombadil. Each spirit taunts Bombadil with an address beginning invariably with an aspirated vowel (hey, ha, ho, hoo, respectively): Tolkien certainly was aware of the mechanics of these vowels: each is "deeper" in the throat, and this relates to Bombadil's increasing danger. But Bombadil is more than equal to each of the threats; his voice alone is sufficient to effect his release and either the sleep or flight of his adversaries.
Before delving into the content in more detail, a few comments about the general structure of the poem are useful. As often, Tolkien builds on Anglo-Saxon tradition, but without slavish adherence either to A-S metrics or phonic structures. Here, he employs rhymed couplets (not a device of traditional Anglo-Saxon verse), but with what is essentially the Anglo-Saxon split line, often indicating the break with punctuation, as in line 5: "He lived up under Hill, where the Withywindle", or line 25 "swam young Goldberry. But Tom, he would not follow;" and not infrequently alliteration is present and apportioned in classic A-S style, as in line 2: "bright blue his jacket was and his boots were yellow."
Again, none of this is slavish or forced. The metre is free overall, but there are close parallels (not always exact equivalences) between the metres of the couplet lines, for example lines 1-6:
x x x - - x - x - x -
x x - x - - x - x - x -
x - - x - - - x - - - x -
x x - - x - - x - x -
x x - x - x x - x - x -
xx - x - xx- x- x-
To be continued...
To my mind, chief among these is the overall structure of the piece. The poem is episodic, featuring an introduction of the main character, Tom Bombadil (lines 1-10), and then a series of encounters with increasingly dangerous adversaries: Goldberry (11-24a), Willow Man (27-41a), Badger-brock (51-68), and Barrow-wight (77-92). This is followed by a reversal of action, in which Tom successfully "woos" (some may read "rapes" -- at any rate marries) Goldberry (106-122) and a denouement or finale in which all the major characters of the poem are referenced again (123-137).
In each of the encounters, a strict formula is followed. Although the poem is not precisely a ballad, it has a strong ballad-like quality in the strong structuring of the episodes. In each, Bombadil is first confronted by some natural spirit: a spirit of water (Goldberry), a spirit of wood (Willow Man), a spirit of earth (Badger-brock), and a spirit of death (Barrow-wight). This, at any rate, is I think a plausible reading. Each of the first three spirits captures, and the fourth threatens to capture, Bombadil. Each spirit taunts Bombadil with an address beginning invariably with an aspirated vowel (hey, ha, ho, hoo, respectively): Tolkien certainly was aware of the mechanics of these vowels: each is "deeper" in the throat, and this relates to Bombadil's increasing danger. But Bombadil is more than equal to each of the threats; his voice alone is sufficient to effect his release and either the sleep or flight of his adversaries.
Before delving into the content in more detail, a few comments about the general structure of the poem are useful. As often, Tolkien builds on Anglo-Saxon tradition, but without slavish adherence either to A-S metrics or phonic structures. Here, he employs rhymed couplets (not a device of traditional Anglo-Saxon verse), but with what is essentially the Anglo-Saxon split line, often indicating the break with punctuation, as in line 5: "He lived up under Hill, where the Withywindle", or line 25 "swam young Goldberry. But Tom, he would not follow;" and not infrequently alliteration is present and apportioned in classic A-S style, as in line 2: "bright blue his jacket was and his boots were yellow."
Again, none of this is slavish or forced. The metre is free overall, but there are close parallels (not always exact equivalences) between the metres of the couplet lines, for example lines 1-6:
x x x - - x - x - x -
x x - x - - x - x - x -
x - - x - - - x - - - x -
x x - - x - - x - x -
x x - x - x x - x - x -
xx - x - xx- x- x-
To be continued...
Friday, February 29, 2008
Burial
The woman's shield is edged in black
its center coloured by the glow
the dance she weaves moves in and out
of pillars of smoke and flame
she sings to no-one and to all
she dances to the rattle's pitch
her arms outstretched, she calls the earth
and sky to be her witnesses
the dim-lit shapes beyond the fire
of bear, of fox, of toad, of crow
in pine-like chorus moan reply:
her spirits watch her sorrowing
the dead man's corpse lies still and cold
upon the scaffold hardening
no spell recalls her lover's eyes
his smile is only memory
coyote, vulture, now will bear
his body to the quiet place
her spirits also now depart
and she alone is dancing there
her shield now too is cold and hard
the frost is beaded on its rim
she slings it on her back and goes:
the burial is finished.
-- 16.xi.90
Commentary: A test of the principle of linguistic purity
A literalist may argue that what is happening here is not strictly a "burial", since the corpse has been placed on a scaffold. "Funeral" could of course be used, and might indeed be more correct, for that refers to the ceremony attending the dead prior to inhumation or cremation, for example. But I have often striven to use Germanic roots rather than Romance. Here I suppose I fail mightily, so the objection to "funeral" (a word derived from Latin) is weakened:
center, coloured, dance, moves, pillar, flame,
chorus, reply, spirit,
corpse, scaffold, memory,
coyote, vulture, quite, place, depart,
finished:
All of these words come from sources other than the Germanic languages, although today they are common enough. The most outlandish, I suppose, is "coyote", which comes from the Meso-American language Nahuatl. I did wonder about that as I wrote the piece. A more "pure" version might be:
The woman's shield is edged in black
its middle by the glow is hued
the step she weaves goes in and out
of clouds of smoke and fire
she sings to no-one and to all
she steps out to the rattle's pitch
her arms outstretched, she calls the earth
and sky to be her witnesses
the dim-lit shapes beyond the fire
of bear, of fox, of toad, of crow
in pine-like ringing moan reply:
her soul-mates watch her sorrowing
the dead man's body still and cold
upon high gallows hardening:
no spell recalls her lover's eyes
his smile now only in her mind
the wolves and ravens now will bear
his body to the sighing ground
her soul-mates also now go forth
and she alone is standing there
her shield now too is cold and hard
the frost is beaded on its rim
she slings it on her back and goes:
the burial is over.
"Scaffold" non est "gallows", but I thought of "upon the high ground hardening" and rejected that. The basic notion of the poem is, in fact, not particularly "Germanic": I can't recall reading of any German group that exposed the dead, rather than practicing immediate inhumation or cremation. Still, I think the piece works well enough as it stands. The altered version alters too much of the meaning as a sacrifice to language. I have no plans to change the title to "Funeral", nor to propose as definitive the "pure English" version given just above.
its center coloured by the glow
the dance she weaves moves in and out
of pillars of smoke and flame
she sings to no-one and to all
she dances to the rattle's pitch
her arms outstretched, she calls the earth
and sky to be her witnesses
the dim-lit shapes beyond the fire
of bear, of fox, of toad, of crow
in pine-like chorus moan reply:
her spirits watch her sorrowing
the dead man's corpse lies still and cold
upon the scaffold hardening
no spell recalls her lover's eyes
his smile is only memory
coyote, vulture, now will bear
his body to the quiet place
her spirits also now depart
and she alone is dancing there
her shield now too is cold and hard
the frost is beaded on its rim
she slings it on her back and goes:
the burial is finished.
-- 16.xi.90
Commentary: A test of the principle of linguistic purity
A literalist may argue that what is happening here is not strictly a "burial", since the corpse has been placed on a scaffold. "Funeral" could of course be used, and might indeed be more correct, for that refers to the ceremony attending the dead prior to inhumation or cremation, for example. But I have often striven to use Germanic roots rather than Romance. Here I suppose I fail mightily, so the objection to "funeral" (a word derived from Latin) is weakened:
center, coloured, dance, moves, pillar, flame,
chorus, reply, spirit,
corpse, scaffold, memory,
coyote, vulture, quite, place, depart,
finished:
All of these words come from sources other than the Germanic languages, although today they are common enough. The most outlandish, I suppose, is "coyote", which comes from the Meso-American language Nahuatl. I did wonder about that as I wrote the piece. A more "pure" version might be:
The woman's shield is edged in black
its middle by the glow is hued
the step she weaves goes in and out
of clouds of smoke and fire
she sings to no-one and to all
she steps out to the rattle's pitch
her arms outstretched, she calls the earth
and sky to be her witnesses
the dim-lit shapes beyond the fire
of bear, of fox, of toad, of crow
in pine-like ringing moan reply:
her soul-mates watch her sorrowing
the dead man's body still and cold
upon high gallows hardening:
no spell recalls her lover's eyes
his smile now only in her mind
the wolves and ravens now will bear
his body to the sighing ground
her soul-mates also now go forth
and she alone is standing there
her shield now too is cold and hard
the frost is beaded on its rim
she slings it on her back and goes:
the burial is over.
"Scaffold" non est "gallows", but I thought of "upon the high ground hardening" and rejected that. The basic notion of the poem is, in fact, not particularly "Germanic": I can't recall reading of any German group that exposed the dead, rather than practicing immediate inhumation or cremation. Still, I think the piece works well enough as it stands. The altered version alters too much of the meaning as a sacrifice to language. I have no plans to change the title to "Funeral", nor to propose as definitive the "pure English" version given just above.
As The King Has Fallen
Fire crowns the holly birth
thunder lingers long on the edges of the sky
where oak has fallen overnight
before her returning lightning
as the king has fallen
so may we all
so may the iron-lords speedily
may the water, sun, and earth arise
and may vain towers crumble
the holly king, the harvest king,
the new king to rule in the dawning age
where fools have soiled the hallowed lands
before her returning lightning
as the king has risen
so may we all
so may the tree-lords speedily
may the water, sun and wind arise
and may vain towers crumble.
-- 1987
thunder lingers long on the edges of the sky
where oak has fallen overnight
before her returning lightning
as the king has fallen
so may we all
so may the iron-lords speedily
may the water, sun, and earth arise
and may vain towers crumble
the holly king, the harvest king,
the new king to rule in the dawning age
where fools have soiled the hallowed lands
before her returning lightning
as the king has risen
so may we all
so may the tree-lords speedily
may the water, sun and wind arise
and may vain towers crumble.
-- 1987
She stands (by the white wall of wave)
She stands by the white wall of wave
a dune never swallowed
she stands and is the sea which does not stand
she moves through the dark cloud of night
unbroken light in darkness
she moves and is the dark which does not move
she cries in the burnt heart of earth
a tear never withered
she cries and is the earth which does not cry
standing, moving, crying ever
wave and light and earth respond
she hears in the blue caves of ice
a song without an ending
she hears and is the ice which does not hear
she feels the glistening air of dawn
a finger never calloused
she feels and is the air which does not feel
she turns in the grey face of rock
a dance never mastered
she turns and is the rock which does not turn
hearing, feeing, turning ever
ice and air and rock respond.
-- ? 2000
Commentary:
Why suppose for a moment that God should be symbolized only with the grammatical masculine?
a dune never swallowed
she stands and is the sea which does not stand
she moves through the dark cloud of night
unbroken light in darkness
she moves and is the dark which does not move
she cries in the burnt heart of earth
a tear never withered
she cries and is the earth which does not cry
standing, moving, crying ever
wave and light and earth respond
she hears in the blue caves of ice
a song without an ending
she hears and is the ice which does not hear
she feels the glistening air of dawn
a finger never calloused
she feels and is the air which does not feel
she turns in the grey face of rock
a dance never mastered
she turns and is the rock which does not turn
hearing, feeing, turning ever
ice and air and rock respond.
-- ? 2000
Commentary:
Why suppose for a moment that God should be symbolized only with the grammatical masculine?
Flocks
On the great water the flocks are gathered
white wings, brown wings, black wings mingle
on the ice an on the islands
the flocks sit crying through the night.
Follow each stream-mouth, follow each brooklet
smaller flocks have come to feed
in the meadows, in the thickets
red wings, yellow wings, green wings slide.
Over the fields the dense flocks flutter
shining wings, dull wings, whirring wings bend
trees turn white beneath their weight
the close flocks twitter through the night.
The great river and the smaller streams
ice-blue now and reed-beds golden:
in the shallows, standing, watching
blue wings, grey wings, folded wings wait.
-- ? 1990
white wings, brown wings, black wings mingle
on the ice an on the islands
the flocks sit crying through the night.
Follow each stream-mouth, follow each brooklet
smaller flocks have come to feed
in the meadows, in the thickets
red wings, yellow wings, green wings slide.
Over the fields the dense flocks flutter
shining wings, dull wings, whirring wings bend
trees turn white beneath their weight
the close flocks twitter through the night.
The great river and the smaller streams
ice-blue now and reed-beds golden:
in the shallows, standing, watching
blue wings, grey wings, folded wings wait.
-- ? 1990
If I Were
If I were the grain in the ear
you would be the mill and grind me down
or a pebble in the sea
you would be the wave and wash me down
or the stone of the grave
you would be the moss and melt me down:
you are the mill and the wave
you are the moss and the sun
and I am ground and worn and broken
and melted.
If I were the sweat of the brow
you would be the hand and fling me away
or the troublesome lace
you would be the finger and pull me away
or the challenge to the sameness
you would be the thought and put me away
or the cause of it all
you would be the mind and laugh me away:
you are the hand and the finger
you are the thought and the mind
and I am flung and put and pulled
and laughed.
-- ? 1991
you would be the mill and grind me down
or a pebble in the sea
you would be the wave and wash me down
or the stone of the grave
you would be the moss and melt me down:
you are the mill and the wave
you are the moss and the sun
and I am ground and worn and broken
and melted.
If I were the sweat of the brow
you would be the hand and fling me away
or the troublesome lace
you would be the finger and pull me away
or the challenge to the sameness
you would be the thought and put me away
or the cause of it all
you would be the mind and laugh me away:
you are the hand and the finger
you are the thought and the mind
and I am flung and put and pulled
and laughed.
-- ? 1991
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)