Kathleen Cooper
Dr. Vander Zee
English 511
12 December 2021
Reflection
Going into my Research and Writing Portfolio project, I felt I had a much better grasp on how to create a more polished piece of writing than I had coming in to this program. Throughout the course, both in readings and feedback from previous assignments, I learned the importance of some of these rhetorical strategies for creating an effective, clear, and cohesive paper. I also learned a great deal about the research project itself, including creating a research idea, engaging with theory, and finding a variety of sources.
For the Working with Theory piece of the Research and Writing Portfolio I found the “Uneven U” concept from Hayot’s The Elements of Academic Style helpful in creating the overall structure of a paper and moving it to a clear conclusion. I kept this model in mind while I was writing to keep the flow of the paper moving and developing in a structured way. This paper was a good exercise in practicing my critical skills as well. I enjoyed the theory and criticism readings and found Bennett and Royle’s An Introduction to Literature, Criticism, and Theory and found it to be extremely informing on ecocritical theory, which is one of the approaches I took in my Research and Writing Portfolio. And I was able to use one of the sources suggested for further reading in the book as a source for this paper.
I leaned on this deeper understanding of literary criticism for the Summary and Response portion of the Research and Writing Portfolio also. I found the more I understood the critical angle of the article, the more easily I could summarize it and then engage with the article in the same theoretical lens but perhaps in a slightly different way. This was especially important since the article I chose took more of a myth-criticism stance on The Hobbit which was not something that was covered by Bennett and Royle. But one of the things I learned while reading An Introduction to Literature, Criticism, and Theory was that there is such an intersectionality with criticism and that often times they do overlap and are not as strictly confined. It was also interesting to see how many different lenses could be applied to one piece of writing and how they can all intersect. Additionally for this piece of the Research and Writing Portfolio, I also utilized what I learned about quote integration. I learned to choose my quotes carefully and only quoting that which I could engage with in a productive way and push the paper towards a more well-framed response.
Quote integration was also key for me in the Orchestrating Critical Conversations paper. Since there was so much source material to manage, it was important to keep an eye out how quotes were being introduced and situated against other quotes from other sources. And from Hayot’s Elements of Academic Style I learned the importance of summarizing or rephrasing after a quote that is more theoretical (a level 4 or 5, to borrow from Hayot). Additionally, I realized how one theoretical approach can take you in a lot of different directions. For the sources I used for this piece, I could see how for the most part they took a similar approach to criticism of The Hobbit but for completely different elements and often in different ways.
Taking a step back from the writing itself, I also learned a great deal about the process of creating a research question and developing it further as I conducted research. I was able to hone in my research question and narrow the scope of my exigence throughout the research process. I learned to be creative in making connections, like looking to works cited lists for articles that were more tangential to my project but not necessarily a source I needed itself. Additionally, I found the BEAM (or BEAT) method to be helpful. At first, admittedly, I had a hard time understanding the vocabulary but after discussing it in class, I found I was able to use that information and keep it in mind while researching to ensure a variety of source material while researching.
Overall, I learned a lot from this Research and Writing Portfolio project. While I was able to sharpen my writing skills and brush up on some of the more technical aspects of rhetoric and writing, I think the most important thing I learned, or was reminded of, was that writing and research is a process. As I sat down to do my revisions for this project, it reiterated the idea that writing is never complete and that the critical conversation is always changing and our writing is just a small contribution to that larger conversation. Ultimately, I think this helped broaden my views on writing in this discipline and I believe that this will serve me well moving forward.
Wilderness and the Other in Tolkien’s The Hobbit
When we think of wilderness, and all that it entails, we think of a space apart from ourselves. It is important to consider the role of nature, especially the concept of wilderness, in relation to literature. What is our relationship to nature or wilderness? As Andrew Bennett and Nicholas Royle point out in their work on ecocriticism, there has been a relatively recent emphasis on reading literature through this lens (162). But we see this idea repeated throughout history; the concept of wilderness has, for centuries, been used to describe a place separate to, or outside of, civilization.
Greg Garrard notes that one of the oldest surviving works of literature, The Epic of Gilgamesh, depicts wilderness as threatening space and that the Bible often describes it as a “place of exile” (61). Religious historian Jens Peter Schjødt examines the particular emphasis Old Norse mythology places on the idea of wilderness as separate to civilization. In his work, we see that, in the multitude of Old Norse mythology, wilderness is depicted as “Other” (185). But this mentality that wilderness is a space markedly apart from ourselves is called into question when we consider the idea of externality.
Bennett and Royle describe externality as “the idea that there is an environment elsewhere, outside of our immediate habitat available for exploitation” (164) but this idea becomes damaging when we consider that “everything is connected to everything else” (164). Where, then, do we draw the line? The idea of wilderness doesn’t come around until people started farming, according to Garrard (60). Commodification of the land, then, leads to this “othering” of nature and the designation of wilderness as a wild, uncontrolled space. We see this idea of profit echoed in Schjødt’s examination of Old Norse mythology; he notes that the wilderness not only functions as a place of danger, but also of potential (185, 198). It is within these liminal spaces that humans, by facing danger, may also gain something useful. In this case it is less about monetary or substantive gain but about gaining power or bravery (198, 201). Still, in both examples, the land is seen as commodity for human ends and exploitation.
Beyond just the exploitation of the land for human gain, even the way we speak about the land, nature, and wilderness, are tied up to the notion of “othering.” As Bennett and Royle describe, the anthropocentric, or human-centered, language we use works to exploit the non-human for human gain (168). The Hobbit author J.R.R. Tolkien, whose work is heavily influenced by Old Norse mythology, tries to make nature more intimately human through his portrayal of Mirkwood Forest and the dual nature of Beorn. The Hobbit’s personification of nature, specifically in relation to the idea of wilderness and the “other,” and it’s use of anthropocentric language tries to make nature more “human” but ultimately further isolates wilderness as the “other.”
The Hobbit tells the story of a hobbit named Bilbo and his adventures travelling across Middle-Earth with a company of dwarves and the wizard Gandalf to reclaim treasure that was stolen from the dwarves by the dragon Smaug. Their quest takes them out of the Shire, Bilbo’s home and by all means a representation of proper “civilized” living, and into the wilderness. The wilderness of Middle-Earth stretches far and wide, but there is one forest in particular, Mirkwood, that is a good example of wilderness as both “other” and “human.” Bilbo and company are repeatedly warned about the dangers of Mirkwood, a name similar to the Old Norse Myrkviðr which means something like “dark wood” according to The Dictionary of Northern Mythology (Simek 224). It is said to be “the most dangerous part of all the journey” (138).
Right before entering the forest, Bilbo describes it as very dark and having “a sort of watching and waiting feeling” (Tolkien 137). It is as if the forest itself is observing them and lying in wait. Mirkwood is given further agency when the company has to cross a stream. Bomber, one of the dwarves, falls in and is immediately put under an enchanted sleep (145). We see the power the forest has again when Bilbo and the dwarves leave the path and become hopelessly lost (152). The wild place of Mirkwood is personified, to a degree, through its agency to enchant and befuddle Bilbo and the dwarves. By entering this liminal wilderness space, Bilbo ends up gaining a great deal of respect from the dwarves, echoing Schjødt’s depiction of wilderness in Old Norse mythology. It becomes both a place of danger and of profit. But Tolkien’s anthropocentric language, while granting the forest agency, still works to make it “other” by pitting it against Bilbo and company.
Perhaps a more interesting example is that of Beorn, a man who can transform into a bear. Boern, whose name is possibly inspired by Bjorn which is the name of the bear that Odin can change into in Old Norse mythology (Simek 38), lets Bilbo, Gandalf, and the dwarves stay with him before they depart for Mirkwood. Gandalf describes him as a “a great strong black-haired man” who can change into a “huge black bear” (116). He is also described as living in a wooden house and having animal servants with whom he can speak (116). The dual nature of Beon as both human and animal clearly bridges the gap between human and nature—his character contains both elements in equal measure.
On one hand, this recalls Bennett and Royle’s sentiments that “everything is connected to everything else” (164). Animal and human are joined as one. On the other hand, though, by casting Beorn and both human and animal, Tolkien is really just creating a figure for the “other.” An argument can be made that perhaps Beorn is a more literal representation of the duality of all humans, that we are all inextricably tied up to nature to some degree. But by casting Beorn specifically as a “skin-changer” (116), Tolkien is carving out a category that is decidedly not-human, further “othering” him and separating him from the more human-presenting hobbits and dwarves.
The characterization of Boern as having dual nature works to “other” him and, by extension, the nature to which he is inevitably tied. Mirkwood, also, is granted a degree of personification through its agency but, by describing it in such a way, it works to cast wilderness as “other” by positioning it as a foe. Tolkien’s The Hobbit carries on the tradition of Old Norse mythology, as described by Schjødt, by further setting wilderness apart from that which is human or civilized. Bennett and Royle describe the notion of externality as a “dangerous myth” (164) as, really, there is nothing external; there is no “other.” But the language we use to describe what is wild or natural in the context of our human-centered experience works, at least seemingly in The Hobbit, to further separate us from nature, of which we are necessarily a part.
Magic and Nature: Reading Jane Chance’s “Tolkien’s Hybrid Mythology: The Hobbit as Old Norse ‘Fairy Story’”
In Jane Chance’s article “Tolkien’s Hybrid Mythology: The Hobbit as Old Norse ‘Fairy Story’,” she argues that J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit, which she feels has previously been dismissed by critics as nothing more than a children’s story, is Tolkien’s attempt to create a mythology for England (78). Tolkien, according to Chance, does this both by taking magical influences from Andrew Lang’s “The Story of Sigurd,” a reworking of an Old Norse fairy story, and also by creating a mythopoeic back story through his own “Silmarillion” (78). She says that Tolkien had always been heavily influenced by Old English and Old Norse literary works and, as Tolkien scholars are starting to investigate, Victorian-era fairy tales. The combined elements of the two leads to a “hybrid mythology” in The Hobbit (79). The Hobbit, she shows,blends elements of Nordic and Old English epic and the magical fairy story, combined with his own “Silmarillion,” to create a myth in its own right (92-93). Chance relies heavily on Tolkien’s lecture “On Fairy Stories” as evidence for her claims.
Chance cites Tolkien’s admiration of Andrew Lang’s recounting of “The Story of Sigurd,” which he mentions in a surviving manuscript of his seminal lecture “On Fairy Stories,” as evidence of both Nordic and romantic influence in The Hobbit. Tolkien, she says, refers to Andrew Lang’s “The Story of Sigurd,” a nineteenth-century recounting of an Old Norse saga, as his favorite fairy tale (80). But Tolkien’s love for Old Nordic literature went beyond just Lang’s “The Story of Sigurd.” Chance points to Tolkien’s own attempts to rework the well-known Old Norse Völsunga Saga as well as Tolkien’s work on the Anglo-Saxon epic Beowulf as possible sources of inspiration for The Hobbit (81).
Tolkien believes the importance of magic in fairy stories is absolutely necessary, according to Chance. She quotes a part of Tolkien’s lecture “On Fairy Stories” (with Chance emphasizing certain phrases): “[e]ven fairy-stories as a whole have three faces: the Mystical towards the Supernatural; the Magical towards Nature; and the Mirror of scorn and pity towards Man. The essential face of Faërie is the middle one, the Magical” (qtd. in Chance 81). Here, Chance underscores the importance of the magical in relation to nature as a necessary aspect of a fairy story. Chance argues that The Hobbit, as being influenced by “The Story of Sigurd” and examined through the lens of Tolkien’s “Silmarillion,” exemplifies all three of these faces.
For the most important face of fairy stories, the relationship between the magical and nature, Chance focuses on the shared themes of a magical ring and a dragon in both The Hobbit and “The Story of Sigurd” (83). Dragons, Chance says, represent the natural, both historically and in The Hobbit (87). In “The Story of Sigurd,” she recounts, the hero Sigurd must kill the dragon Fafnir using a sword forged from the pieces of his father’s broken sword, done for him by his tutor Regin who also happens to be a smith and a magician (83). Unfortunately for Sigurd, the gold, along with a specific ring, that the dragon had been guarding was cursed by the dwarf from whom the gold was stolen. This leads to Sigurd being cursed in turn by both the gold, and ring, after his defeat of Fafnir (83). Chance argues that this story bears resemblance, in part, to The Hobbit. In The Hobbit, Chance reminds us, the hero Bilbo comes across a magic ring, which he steals from Gollum (who, it turns out, had stolen it in the first place) and uses it to get past the dragon, Smaug, who is guarding his hoard of gold stolen from the dwarves (84). One key element in both stories, Chance shows, is the application of magic in regards to the hero.
But the dealings with magic rings and dragons are not the only common trait shared by both Bilbo and Sigurd. According to Chance, both heroes have some kind of noble ancestry with Sigurd being descended from nobility on his mother’s side (who also happens to possess a magic ring), and with Bilbo being descended from some very remarkable hobbits on his mother’s side (including the renowned Bandobras “Bullroarer” Took) (87). Chance also shows that both Bilbo and Sigurd both have flaws that are mirrored in their opponents (87) and work to their detriment. But while Sigurd’s outcome is bound to fate, free will and luck work in Bilbo’s favor (88). For Chance, this combination of being noble while also being flawed represent the third face of fairy stories, the “mirror of sorrow and pity towards man” (qtd. in Chance 81).
Chance believes that the first face of fairy stories, “the mystical towards the supernatural” (qtd. in Chance 81), is seen in the character of Gandalf, the wizard who represents the concept of divine intervention in The Hobbit (88). Chance uses Tolkien’s mythopoeic text, “Silmarillion,” to highlight the importance of myth in The Hobbit. Gandalf belongs to the order of wizards, which is one part of the hierarchical system outlined in “Silmarillion.” She uses “Silmarillion” to illustrate parallels in the Christian faith, especially in regards to the wizards representing angel-like figures, the figure of the one creator, and the elves as representing Children of God through their free will (89-90). This, she argues, shows the function of magic within The Hobbit, where magic is a force that is part of the natural world but is derived from God or, in the case of The Hobbit and “Silmarillion,” a god-like creator (90).
Of all the faces of fairy stories, Tolkien believes that “the magical towards nature” (qtd. in Chance 81) is the most crucial. Chance, who examines The Hobbit alongside “The Story of Sigurd,” uses the magic ring and the dragon to illustrate her point but also notes, briefly, that there are many natural elements in The Hobbit including the shape-changer Beorn (83). Beorn, a man who lives on the edge of Mirkwood Forest, can shape-shift into a bear. He helps Bilbo and company by allowing them to lodge in his home and also giving them advise on how to best travel through Mirkwood. Both the character of Beorn and Mirkwood Forest itself are representative of Tolkien’s most important face of “the magical towards nature” (qtd. in Chance 81).
Beorn has clear ties to both magic and nature. We learn from Gandalf that Beorn “changes his skin” (Tolkien 116) and that “sometimes he is a huge black bear, sometimes he is a great strong black-haired man” (116). Besides being part animal, he is connected to nature through his lifestyle as well. When the company is approaching his home, Gandalf tells them that Beorn lives in a large wooden hall and has animal servants that he can speak to, that he keeps a hive of large bees, and that he does not hunt or eat animals when he is a man (Tolkien 116). His magical ability to shift between animal and man and his strong connection to nature through both his lifestyle and his dual nature of man and beast, helps to underscore the relationship between magic and nature in The Hobbit. We see this relationship again in Mirkwood Forest itself.
Bilbo and company must travel through Mirkwood in order to reach their destination of the lonely mountain. Before they leave his house, Beorn warns the company of the dangers of Mirkwood. From Beorn’s descriptions, we can see how the land itself is imbibed with magic. He warns them that in Mirkwood “the wild things are dark, queer, and savage” (Tolkien 132) and there is a stream that carries “an enchantment and a great drowsiness and forgetfulness” (132). Both Beorn and Gandalf warn the company to stay on the path through Mirkwood and to not leave it, no matter what (Tolkien 132, 137). When they arrive at the forest’s edge Bilbo describes it as being dark and having “a sort of watching and waiting feeling” (Tolkien 137). Tolkien paints Mirkwood as a darkly magical space that has enough agency to lead the party astray.
Tolkien, as Chance points out, capitalizes on the relationship between the magical and nature. Chance highlights this through her examination of the use of a magic ring against dragons, both in The Hobbit and in “The Story of Sigurd.” But we can see this demonstrated further in examining Tolkien’s portrayal of nature itself. In both the example of Beorn and Mirkwood, nature is given magical aspects. By granting nature magical agency, Tolkien is able to draw on the tradition of Old Norse epic, in the case of Beorn, and fairy story, in relation to both Beorn and Mirkwood, to elevate The Hobbit as a part of his own mythopoeic work.
Nature and Myth in Tolkien’s The Hobbit
The world that English author J. R. R. Tolkien creates in his 1937 children’s book The Hobbit is heavily shaped by Norse mythology, specifically in relation to nature. The Hobbit is set in the fictional world of Middle-earth and tells the story of a Hobbit named Bilbo Baggins. He accompanies thirteen dwarves across Middle-earth in order to reclaim the treasure stolen from the dwarves by the dragon Smaug. Along the way, we see influences of Norse mythology in Tolkien’s writing, which is well noted by many contemporary scholars. The scenes involving the character of Beorn and Mirkwood Forest, as some critics point out, show this influence especially. And when we examine the role of nature in The Hobbit,which is essential to the novel, we can see Nordic influence quite clearly. By tapping into this larger tradition, The Hobbit begins to take on an elevated status and it is through the Nordic influence on nature that Tolkien is able to begin to carve out a myth all his own.
Jane Chance, especially, speaks at length of Tolkien’s myth-making abilities. In her work on the author, she notes that it is through The Hobbit, as well as some of his other works, that Tolkien is able to blend mythological and romantic fairy-tale influence to create his own type of myth. Chance points to Tolkien’s love for Andrew Lang’s retelling of the Old Norse saga “The Story of Sigurd” as evidence for the influence of Nordic mythology in Tolkien’s own work (80). She also points out that Tolkien, when speaking about the different facets of “fairy stories” in his seminal lecture “On Fairy Stories,” believes that one of the three essential aspects of fairy-stories is “The magical towards nature” (qtd. in Chance 81). When exploring this important aspect, Chance focus on the magic ring that Bilbo finds and how he uses it against the dragon, Smaug.
She relates this to the scene in The Hobbit to “The Story of Sigurd” where the hero, Sigurd, also has a magical ring in connection to a dragon (83). It is through Chance’s comparison of these two stories, though, that we also see the importance of Norse mythology being underscored, especially in regards to nature being that “magical creatures appear in [them] naturally—that is, in Nature” (83). This underscores Tolkien’s emphasis on the importance of the relationship between magic and nature.
Marco R.S. Post, in his examination of the role of Mirkwood Forest in The Hobbit, echoes Chance’s observations. He highlights that Tolkien was heavily inspired by various medieval Germanic and Celtic sources (68). Post shows this influence as he explores the role of Mirkwood Forest in the narrative. Mirkwood is the forest that Bilbo and the Dwarves must cross in order to reach their destination and it is referred to as “the most dangerous part of all their journey” (Tolkien, 138). Post, who explains how Mirkwood “fits within the literary topos of the enchanted forests in the fairy-tale tradition” (68), argues that Mirkwood is a “calque from Old Norse, but it is strictly speaking neither genuinely Old Norse nor Modern English” (73). This means that Tolkien borrowed bits and pieces from broader Norse mythology and re-worked them into a form that is entirely unique to Middle-earth. One such example of the way Tolkien does this is through his naming of Mirkwood. The name Mirkwood, Post says, is likely derived from an Old Norse name (68). This echoes Chance’s observations on the similar elements in both The Hobbit and Old Norse mythology. As Post also shows, by borrowing from Old Norse mythology, Tolkien is able to create an echo of that enormity in his own work.
Marjorie Burns, in her examination of the complexities of the character Beorn, adds another example of this sort of borrowing from Old Norse tradition that goes along with Chance’s and Post’s observations. While Post shows the influence of Norse mythology on Mirkwood, Burns focuses on the character of Beorn, who lives just on the border of Mirkwood, and can shape-shift between a man and a bear. He is described by Tolkien as “a skin changer” and that “sometimes he is a huge black bear [and] sometimes he is a great strong black-haired man” (116). As Burns points out, he “belongs unquestionably to a Norse […] world” and that his name, appearance, capability of violence, and even his home all link him to “the Scandinavian or Teutonic North” (132). Beorn, she argues, is characterized by his duality. Burns links this to the broader history of England and the Anglo-Saxon and Scandinavian invasions of the fifth and eight centuries which have, she says, resulted in a blending of cultures (132). Perhaps the most obvious example of Beorn’s dual nature is that of his ability to shift between man and bear. Burns shows that this kind of skin-changing is between human and animal (especially that of a bear) has a long history in Norse mythology (137). Here again Tolkien is calling upon Norse mythology to elevate his own writing, specifically in regards to nature as Beorn is “two-specied” (132), as Burns describes it. He is inextricably linked to nature.
Chance, Post, and Burns all note how Tolkien calls upon Nordic mythology and “calques” it, as Post describes (73), in order to create a new mythos of his own. Chance especially underscores the significant impact that the Old Norse cannon had on Tolkien as she reads The Hobbit alongside “The Story of Sigurd.” She argues that Tolkien is working to create his own mythology and, partly, uses Nordic influence to get there. We see again how both Post and Burns, through their examination of Mirkwood and Beorn respectively, underscore the influence that Nordic myth had on Tolkien. By tying this mythology to nature, specifically, though, Tolkien’s impact is, in a way, more lasting.
As Chance points out, Tolkien believes that the “magical towards nature” is the most important fundamental aspect of fairy-story, which he considers The Hobbit to be (qtd. in Chance 81). The very essence of nature in The Hobbitchanges under Nordic influence. Mirkwood is, of course, a forest, but it becomes somewhat elevated due to its ominous, magical qualities, which Bilbo hints at when he describes it as having “a sort of watching and waiting feeling” (137). With Beorn too we can see how the natural world becomes altered through the influence of Nordic myth. A human man can also, somehow, change himself into a bear. Gandalf, when speaking to Bilbo and the dwarves about Beorn, notes that he is “under no enchantment but his own” (116), which suggests that his very nature is fundamentally different. Tolkien, then alters the natural world in The Hobbit by tying it up in Nordic mythology. By invoking his Nordic muse in this way, Tolkien’s The Hobbit, then, becomes elevated to a mythical status in its own right.
Bibliography
Bennett, Andrew, and Nicholas Royle. An Introduction to Literature, Criticism, and Theory. 5th
ed., Routledge, 2016.
Burns, Marjorie. “Skin-Changing in More than One Sense: The Complexity of Beorn.” Bloom’s Modern Critical Views: J.R.R. Tolkien, New Edition. Edited with an introduction by Harold Bloom, Bloom’s Literary Criticism an imprint of Infobase Publishing, 2008. pp. 129-140.
Chance, Jane. “Tolkien’s Hybrid Mythology: The Hobbit as Old Norse ‘Fairy-Story’.” Hobbit and Tolkien’s Mythology: Essays on Revisions and Influences, Edited by Lee Eden, McFarland & Company, Incorporated Publishers, 2014, pp. 78-96. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/cofc/detail.action?docID=1791754.
Garrard, Greg. Ecocriticism. Routledge, 2004.
Post, Marco R. S. “Perilous Wanderings through the Enchanted Forest: The Influence of the Fairy-Tale Tradition on Mirkwood in Tolkien’s The Hobbit.” Mythlore: A Journal of J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature, vol. 33, no. 125, fall/winter 2014, pp. 67–84. EBSCOhost, search-ebscohost-com.nuncio.cofc.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=mzh&AN=2016422083&site=ehost-live&scope=site.
Schjødt, Jens Peter. “Wilderness, Liminality, and the Other in Old Norse Myth and Cosmology.” Wilderness in Mythology and Religion: Approaching Religious Spatialities, Cosmologies, and Ideas of Wild Nature, edited by Laura Feldt, et al., De Gruyter, Inc., 2012. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/cofc/detail.action?docID=893999.
Simek, Rudolf. Dictionary of Northern Mythology. Translated by Angela Hall, Alfred Kröner Verlag, 1984. D.S. Brewer, 1993.
Tolkien, J.R.R. The Hobbit or There and Back Again. 1965. Revised ed., New York, Ballentine Books, 1982.
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