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Beowulf as Fairy-story: Enchanting the Elegiac in The Two Towers

Beowulf as Fairy-story: Enchanting the Elegiac in The Two Towers RICHARD W. FEHRENBACHER hough scholars have long noted that the languages of J.R.R. Tolkien's Rohan and Anglo-Saxon England are pretty much identical, they have until recently hesitated to examine other parallels between the fictional and historical cultures--or for that matter, between The Lord of the Rings and Anglo-Saxon literature.1 I suspect this reluctance stems at least partly from Tolkien's own claim that his use of the Anglo-Saxon language in The Two Towers did "not imply that the Rohirrim closely resembled the ancient English otherwise, in culture or art, in weapons or modes of warfare, except in a general way"2 (RK, VI, Appendix F, 414), and it is true that even a less-than-rigorous reading of the The Lord of the Rings will reveal any number of anachronisms and inconsistencies that defeat easy allegorical translations of Third Age Rohan into, say, eighthcentury Mercia. However, as Tom Shippey has noted in his J.R.R. Tolkien: Author of the Century, upon more careful examination Tolkien's "merely" linguistic appropriation of Anglo-Saxon England in The Lord of the Rings appears to "[run] very deep" (91). Shippey argues that the Rohirrim present a specific "image of Englishness--Old English, of course" (91) and that this "Old Englishness" http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Tolkien Studies West Virginia University Press

Beowulf as Fairy-story: Enchanting the Elegiac in The Two Towers

Fehrenbacher, Richard W.
Tolkien Studies , Volume 3 (1) – May 9, 2006
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Publisher
West Virginia University Press
Copyright
Copyright © 2006 West Virginia University Press.
ISSN
1547-3163
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Abstract

RICHARD W. FEHRENBACHER hough scholars have long noted that the languages of J.R.R. Tolkien's Rohan and Anglo-Saxon England are pretty much identical, they have until recently hesitated to examine other parallels between the fictional and historical cultures--or for that matter, between The Lord of the Rings and Anglo-Saxon literature.1 I suspect this reluctance stems at least partly from Tolkien's own claim that his use of the Anglo-Saxon language in The Two Towers did "not imply that the Rohirrim closely resembled the ancient English otherwise, in culture or art, in weapons or modes of warfare, except in a general way"2 (RK, VI, Appendix F, 414), and it is true that even a less-than-rigorous reading of the The Lord of the Rings will reveal any number of anachronisms and inconsistencies that defeat easy allegorical translations of Third Age Rohan into, say, eighthcentury Mercia. However, as Tom Shippey has noted in his J.R.R. Tolkien: Author of the Century, upon more careful examination Tolkien's "merely" linguistic appropriation of Anglo-Saxon England in The Lord of the Rings appears to "[run] very deep" (91). Shippey argues that the Rohirrim present a specific "image of Englishness--Old English, of course" (91) and that this "Old Englishness"

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Tolkien Studies – West Virginia University Press

Published: May 9, 2006

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