The Song of Middle-earth: J. R. R. Tolkien’s Themes, Symbols and Myths
Available for the first time in paperback, this is the pre-eminent critical study, and exploration, of how myth and legend played such a significant role in the works of J.R.R. Tolkien.The Song of Middle-earth takes a fresh look at The Lord of the Rings, digging deep into the foundations of Tolkien’s world to reveal the complex tapestry of history and mythology that lies behind his stories.The charge that Tolkien's work was merely derivative – that he extracted elements from other mythologies and incorporated them into his own fiction – is dismissed in favour of a fascinating examination of the rich historical background to Middle-earth.From the mythic tradition of the Tales told in The Book of Lost Tales: I to the significance of oral storytelling throughout the history of Middle-earth, this book examines the common themes of mythology found within Tolkien’s work.In doing so, The Song of Middle-earth demonstrates how Tolkien’s desire to create a new mythology for England is not only apparent in his writing, but also realised.
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THE SONG OF
MIDDLE-EARTH
J.R.R. Tolkien’s Themes, Symbolsand Myths
DAVID HARVEY
Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
First published in Great Britain by George Allen & Unwin 1985
Copyright © David Harvey 1985
‘Tolkien’>® is a registered trade mark of The Tolkien Estate Limited
Cover illustration © J.R.R. Tolkien
Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2016
David Harvey asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library
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Source ISBN: 9780008184810
Ebook Edition © July 2016 ISBN: 9780008184827
Version: 2016-06-17
CONTENTS
3 The Music of Ilúvatar: Tolkien and the Major Mythic Themes
4 Wheels within Wheels: The Submyth and Reality
5 The Eternal Conflict: Good and Evil in Middle-earth
8 The Importance of Being Eärendil
9 Tree and Leaf: The Idiom of Nature
When I was approached about re-releasing “The Song of Middle-earth” I wondered if it would present an opportunity if not to rewrite the text, to revise it in light of the extraordinary amount of material that has been published since 1985 under the collective title of “The History of Middle-earth”.
“The Song” was written in 1985 and shortly after the manuscript was finished “The Book of Lost Tales I” was published. I referred to it in the Foreword to the 1985 printing. I observed that the themes that I discussed in “The Song” were present and what was different was the tale-telling. As further volumes in “The History of Middle-earth” were published the enormous scope of Tolkien’s creation became apparent. What those volumes presented was the way in which the various tales and deep background that Tolkien developed and that formed Tolkien’s sub-creation was published in “The Hobbit”, “The Lord of the Rings” and, posthumously “The Silmarillion” came to be and continued to be developed.
Had I decided to recast “The Song” it would have turned out to be substantively the same book but with a vast array of cross references to the various volumes in “The History” which would interrupt and distract from the narrative of the various arguments that I had developed. Certainly, such an approach would appeal to a completist – and I confess that I am such – but it would produce an book of unwieldy size and unnecessary complexity. Those analytical studies have been produced in the many compendia that have been published about Tolkien’s work and I single out for mention the excellent and extraordinary work of Wayne Hammond and Christina Scull – The J.R.R. Tolkien Companion and Guide in two volumes – the Chronology and The Readers Guide.
In addition there has been an extraordinary amount of other scholarship that has been published since 1985, and a proper recasting of “The Song” would necessarily require a consideration of these subsequent works. The result would be a completely different work from that which is before you.
My conclusion was to let the text stand as it was originally written. Its approach was a thematic one and Tolkien’s texts – The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, The Silmarillion formed a “canon”. Unfinished Tales shed a little extra light on the nature of the creation and some different tale-telling. External published sources such as Tolkien’s Letters and Humphrey Carpenter’s Biography provided some added assistance. But I thought that the best approach was to use the published canon – a discrete set of material that provided a defined compass for an examination not so much of tale-telling – to which I will return – but of the way in which the various themes within a mythos were developed and realised.
I have noted above that The History provides us with an insight into the creative process. It is also an example of the way in which story-telling develops. Many mythological structures derive from oral tale telling. What survives as Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey was originally an oral tale with frequent use of mnemonic structures to assist the tale teller. Inevitably there are shifts in the tale as the story is taken up and recounted by other tale tellers. The fundamental tale may remain the same in terms of major plot development and the themes that underlie it. But the telling of the tale itself may shift either subtly or significantly. In some respects
