It was intriguing to discover all of the inner mind-work that Tolkien had gone through to come as close to perfection as possible with “The Hobbit”. Since I’ve never read “The Hobbit” it made the chapter a little more difficult to read since I didn’t know characters or settings of that particular novel. However, there was enough information where Shippey helped explain what the Hobbits were meant to express and embody; especially how Hobbits are meant to follow particular social codes. I also thought that it was extremely funny how Shippey had brought up the point that many people considered Hobbits to be related to rabbits in some shape or form. Then Shippey points out the fact that Tolkien had often made rabbit references throughout the Hobbit. For example, when other races first came upon particular Hobbits, such as Bilbo, and would either insult Hobbits with rabbit references or inquisitively ask the Hobbit(s) if they were any relation to rabbits. Tolkien had even come out to say in real life that Hobbits were in no way related to rabbits, and the only thing that Hobbits had in common with rabbits was the fur on their feet.
While Tolkien introduces such things as tobacco and railways into Middle Earth, he still strictly states that Middle Earth occurred many ages ago. Since Tolkien mixes time periods of the present world with time periods of Middle Earth, he becomes somewhat of a Hypocrite. This is due to the fact that Tolkien stated how he wanted to create a common link between English history and that of Middle Earth and Hobbiton. At the same time, Tolkien constantly denies the instigations that World War I has absolutely nothing to do with Middle Earth; when in fact WWI had to have been one of the biggest, if not the biggest, event in English history. However, Tolkien had made revisions to his work of the Hobbit in later publications and had taken out information, or changed particular names, to eliminate any association with a particular timeline in the real world.
Even though Tolkien is a huge hypocrite when it comes to his own work, his honesty and faithfulness to true Norse Folklore is astounding. The one section of the chapter that mentioned the list of Dwarves’ names out of a Norse poem showed his true intellect. He managed to dissect one name from another and challenged the names that didn’t appear to fit; such as Gandalf’s original name of Gandalfr. Tolkien automatically knew that it was more of an Elfen name, which is why his character, Gandalf, soon transformed into a Wizard from a Dwarf. The scrutiny of his etymology grabs my attention the most because Tolkien discovers words and divulges the true meaning of these words by studying other sources of literature. Since I am a writer as well, I think in the exact opposite way of Tolkien. Instead of searching for pre-existing words with pre-existing content, I usually make up my own words or names without any influence, and come up with their own meanings without influence as well.
Lauren Brych? October 14, 2008, at 08:16 PM Lauren Brych? October 17, 2008, at 05:59 PM
