Tolkien's Middle-earth doesn't look like Medieval Europe: Middle-Earth Medieval?

» Rasvarca - Middle-Earth Medieval?

Re: 'Tolkien's Middle-earth doesn't look like Medieval Europe'
First, let me say I appreciate what you apparently mean to do with your essay: Take out of Middle-Earth the trivializing and boring Medievalist clichés that so dominate the fantasy / sword and sorcery genre. Medievalist clichés and shallownesses tend for me to ruin with a capital R any fantasy story they happen to pollute. However, the Medievalist clichés you mention in your essay are probably an inevitable part of the genre Tolkien himself revitalized; even if Tolkien's vision itself was far less cliché-ridden.

A recent example of these choking clichés was shat forth in the form of the celluloid obscenity known as 'Dungeons & Dragons'. That movie could help destroy the very genre Tolkien reinvigorated single-handedly. (It is in part for this reason that I was so amazed and entertained by 'Gladiator'. The battle scenes and the dress, the architecture and the attitudes seemed so removed from these clichés that I was instantly ready to overlook any shortcomings the film may otherwise have had!) The game of the same name, 'Dungeons & Dragons', that is, has helped solidify, I think, Medievalist clichés as the very substance of fantasy. It's almost as if these clichés have become the assumed building blocks of entire stories. Any variation, or elimination of the clichés seem to be treated as evidence of a failure to understand and appreciate the genre. This is a sad, sad state of affairs.

For me, The Epic of Gilgamesh, for example, is a far more interesting fantasy story than 'Dungeons & Dragons'. It is so much more interesting, as much for the visions it does not conjure as for the ones it does, that it is simply in another class entirely. Yet, somehow, when someone, in Hollywood or elsewhere, deems to conjure up a fantasy story it is the feel and substance of the latter that hops so, so readily to mind. This can be explained by laziness as much as anything else I think. Granted, some people are perhaps genuinely excited and inspired by the Medievalist vision. John Howe is apparently an example of this. Howe is a great artist and his Medievalist portrayals are beautiful. I agree, however, that John Howe is too much of Medievalist to be an interesting interpreter of Tolkien. I prefer a more ancient interpretation of Middle-Earth.

Still, I'm not so sure of your interpretation of Tolkien's vision. How we wish to envision Middle-Earth and how Tolkien did are two different things. Even considering the thousands of words Tolkien used, Middle-Earth is still under the influence of the interpretation and envisioning of the reader.

You state that Tolkien did not envision Middle-Earth in a Medievalist way. But where does Tolkien make this clear? Certainly much of his language is very Medievalist: "king", "squire", "knights", and other less obvious examples. But you seem to take a two-track, and perhaps contradictory, course. You seem to be saying that Middle-Earth is a more ancient place than Medieval Europe (I hope you're right; I certainly try to see it that way). However, when it comes to the Shire Hobbits you seem almost to want to say they are sort of post-Medieval; you use the word "modern." I'm not sure I understand your point here. Is it simply that Tolkien's vision is too complex to be simply Medievalist?

Another factor is some of Tolkien's own illustrations. In particular is the painting of Tumladen and the citadel of Gondolin. The citadel looks, as many might interpret it, very much like the sort of castle with its tall, spindly towers topped by conical roofs ubiquitous in Medieval Europe. Another is the picture he painted of Tol Sirion. The fortress there can also be said to be very Medievalist. There are also other examples. My point here isn't that Tolkien's vision is shallower for these things. His vision is grand in spite, perhaps, of these visualizations – visualizations which, of course, only occur to us as Medievalist clichés because of their years of trivialization and omnipresence -- familiarity breeds contempt, as they say. Frankly, in John Howe's defense, his paintings are certainly no more Medievalist than some of Tolkien's.

I think the only thing we can say for sure is that Tolkien's vision may not have been thoroughly medievalist in every sense but that it certainly had strong medievalist overtones. Moreover, Tolkien's vision is not simply a thing fixed and complete. Along the lines of what I stated above, all art takes a creator and an audience to make it what it is (to make it the many things it is and might be). And while the creator has a huge power over the vision, without an audience his work is completely in vain and unknown. Sorta like a tree falling in a forest when no one's around.

Thanks for your insights and passion,
Ron Leighton

-- posted by Rasvarca