Dialogic War: From the Battle of Maldon to the War of the Ring
2011; Mythopoeic Society; Volume: 29; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
0146-9339
Autores Tópico(s)Russian Literature and Bakhtin Studies
ResumoIN AN EARLY REVIEW OF THE LORD OP THE RINGS, C.S. Lewis offers brief analysis of J.R.R. Tolkien's heroic romance: On the one hand, the whole world is going to the war; the story rings with galloping hoofs, trumpets, steel on steel. On the other, very far away, miserable figures creep (like mice on slag heap) through the twilight of Mordor. And all the time we know the fate of the world depends far more on the small movement than on the great. This is of the highest order: it adds immensely to the pathos, irony, and grandeur of the tale. (88) Lewis's sketch remains perceptive summation of Tolkien's achievement, highlighting the disparity--between the epic battles waged in Books III and V and the anguished plodding of two Hobbits in Book IV and the early portion of Book VI--at the heart of the final two volumes of Lord of the Rings. Yet neither Lewis nor later scholars of Tolkien's work have paid much heed to the dialogic nature (1) of this great structural invention or acknowledged its heavy debt to Tolkien's reading and criticism of the Old English poetic fragment, Battle of Maldon. key to recognizing the polyphonic aspects of Lord of the Rings as well as its inheritance from the medieval poem lies in an intermediate step: Tolkien's The of first published in 1953 volume of Essays and Studies. implicit dialogue between the epic and the unglamorous in the last four books of Lord of the Rings echoes the debate waged between the two speakers in The Homecoming. Although this overarching link has gone largely overlooked, some compelling recent scholarship has begun to address thematic connections between and Lord of the Rings. Janet Brennan Croft, in War and the Works of J.R.R. Tolkien, contrasts the deeds of Beorhtnoth (2) at with those of several characters in Tolkien's fiction, including Gandalf and the Hobbits. In Maldon and Moria: On Byrhtnoth, Gandalf, and Heroism in Lord of the Alexander M. Bruce elaborates on Croft's references to Beorhtnoth, focusing on the Gandalf connection. Specifically, he explores Tolkien's adaptation and correction of critical scene in Maldon--Beorhtnoth conceding the strategically crucial causeway to his enemies--through striking analogue in Lord of the Rings--Gandalf unyielding to the Balrog on the bridge in Moria. (3) This crucial scene with Gandalf is again taken up and used as the starting point for Mary R. Bowman's recent article Refining the Gold: Tolkien, Battle of Maldon, and the Northern Theory of Courage. Bowman's piece examines Tolkien's efforts to extract or salvage from an acceptable heroic spirit to be used in Lord of the Rings, placing particular emphasis on the character of Sam Gamgee and his engagement with various aspects of the retainers. In the process, she also articulates an important corrective to Tom Shippey's well-known reading of The as symbolic parricide of heroic literature (Shippey, and 'The of Beorhtnoth' 337). Bowman argues convincingly that Tolkien sought a way to reshape, not reject, Germanic (97). While Bowman offers compelling look at Tolkien's efforts to transmute the heroic code in Lord of the Rings, she does not take into account the ways in which Tolkien undercuts this refined vision of heroism in other aspects of his narrative, and thus her article falls short of encompassing the importance of Tolkien's criticism on the construction of his great work of fiction. Its full significance depends upon closer examination of the quasi-critical Homecoming of Beorhtnoth. The is actually three-part work, though it takes its title from the dramatic verse dialogue at its center, fictional work which acts as sequel to the fragment. (4) verse drama is bracketed by two short critical essays, Beorhtnoth's Death and Ofermod. …
Referência(s)