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Enta Geweorc and the Work of Ents

2019; West Virginia University Press; Volume: 16; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1353/tks.2019.0004

1547-3163

Luke J. Chambers,

Folklore, Mythology, and Literature Studies

Enta Geweorc and the Work of Ents Luke J. Chambers (bio) Many critics and scholars over the years have remarked that J.R.R. Tolkien's Ents seem to be an especially imaginative and powerful creation, whereas much of the rest of his Middle-earth is largely derived from Germanic, Celtic, and other mythologies. In an early review, C. S. Lewis said: "Treebeard would have served any other author (if any other could have conceived him) for a whole book" (14). Edmund Wilson found little to his taste in The Lord of the Rings, but he still praised the Ents, however grudgingly: "There are streaks of imagination: the ancient tree-spirits [!], the Ents, with their deep eyes, twiggy beards, rumbly voices . . . But even these are rather clumsily handled" (40). In an interesting distinction, Thomas J. Gasque counts Hobbits and Ents as "creations" of Tolkien's as opposed to the "inventions" of the Elves, Dwarves, and Orcs (159). Tom Shippey says that Ents are "commonly admired for the originality of their conception," in contrast to, say, Orcs ("Creation from Philology" 294). Peter Gilliver, Jeremy Marshall, and Edmund Weiner call the emergence of the Ents from Old English (OE) ent "the most dramatic example of Tolkien's imaginative response to a single word," and "one of the key examples of Tolkien's linguistic imagination" (119). In fact, most of these critics and scholars are well aware of a connection between the OE word ent and Tolkien's Ents, that the latter are somehow mysteriously based on or grew out of the former, and still they praise the Ents' originality.1 Tolkien himself admitted such a connection in some often-cited passages from his published letters. He claimed in two letters (Letters 208, 231; examined below) that the Ents grew from their name and that they sprang into life in the first drafting of the chapter "Treebeard." Also, one of Tolkien's notes seems to show that the Ents were created in, or perhaps just a bit before, the first drafting of "Treebeard" (Treason 411). There is a difficulty, however, about this history of the creation of the Ents. Treebeard and Tree-men (the concept of what would eventually be named "Ents") appear much, much earlier in Tolkien's work than the first draft of "Treebeard." What is not yet explained is how Tolkien suddenly saw that "Ent" was the right name for the Tree-men and that Tree-men were the right things to be called "Ents." Here, I propose that the important spark of creation that finally allowed Tolkien to "know" this fact was an artful reinterpretation of some of the poetic uses of OE ent. [End Page 9] First, we will examine some of the previously mentioned letters in which Tolkien speaks of Ents in order to get a clearer view of how the name "Ent" became joined with the concept. In describing his writing process in 1956 he says: I have long ceased to invent ... I wait till I seem to know what really happened. Or till it writes itself. Thus, though I knew for years that Frodo would run into a tree-adventure somewhere far down the Great River, I have no recollection of inventing Ents. I came at last to the point, and wrote the 'Treebeard' chapter without any recollection of any previous thought: just as it now is. (Letters 231) As Christopher Tolkien says, this claim is largely borne out by the original text of the chapter, although there are some exceptions to this (Treason 411, 414). Yet in the very interesting note written before the first drafting of "Treebeard," Tolkien sketches some of his plans for the chapter. In it the Tree-men are already described as "very few," as "not having enough room," as great singers and walkers, and we see that Treebeard is "anxious for news . . . But he smells things in the air" and that he "is bothered by Saruman" but is "fondest of Gandalf," the only wizard who understands trees (Treason 411). The most important line from this note is: "Difference between trolls—stone inhabited by goblin-spirit, stone-giants, and the 'tree-folk'. [Added in ink: Ents.]" (Treason 411). Whether or...