In
thinking about the various points raised during our class discussion on
Wednesday, I find that I’m drawn
more and more to the idea of translation as a means of understanding many of
these questions about both the style employed by Tolkien in the creation of The
Lord of the Rings. I would also say the style is linked quite closely the
nature of Tolkien’s writings as a primary historical narrative rather than a
novel.
The open conceit of the LotR is that Tolkien, having found an
extant manuscript of the Red Book of
Westmarch*, translated it into English, and through him these works were
published as at least The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, perhaps
as well as The Silmarillion, and The Adventures of Tom Bombadil
depending on what material theoretically existed in the Red Book. As anyone who
has had the pleasure of working with an ancient language such as Latin (as in
my experience), Greek, or Sanskrit would know, translation is not a science but
rather an art or a craft. While there may be direct translations of words –
something not always guaranteed – this alone does not serve to convey accurately
the feeling or character of the text, and in rendering those sentiments
properly in a new language, the translator shows his skill.
An old Latin teacher of mine used
to call the language which our first efforts at translating Ovid or Cicero took
‘translationese’, and she would tell us that proper translation is a two-step
process. The first step anyone can do, but the second requires a master.
Aragorn himself struggles with this process in translating a piece of the Lay
of Leithian for the Hobbits (Bk. 1; chpt 11). Particularly interesting about
this moment is that Tolkien himself also translated much, if not all, of the
Lay of Leithian himself – provided one extends Tolkien’s conceit to its
furthest extent. A comparison between the two reveals that they are different in terms of length (though
Aragorn says his is only a fragment), meter, and rhyme scheme; however, importantly,
they share all the basic touchstones of the story. For me, this creates the
aura or illusion of vast expanses of time and the growth of culture rather than
any sort of internal inconsistency – inconsistency is a part of history. So
too, in Tolkien’s mythic history, these little details enhance the sense that
these works are not simply fictitious stories to be enjoyed and thrown away.
They are too compelling to do so.
How does this tangent apply? First
and foremost, it means that we as readers, students, and analysts of Tolkien’s
works should not consider them to be novels but rather as historical
narratives written either by or
from the accounts of first hand witnesses. This is not to say that it is a
literal history since, as Ursula LeGuin notes in her essay, history only partly
requires style whereas fantasy – which is the true categorization of Tolkien’s
works – is nothing but a ‘recipe’ or plot synopsis without style (LeGuin, pg.
90). Rather, I would argue that the style mimics that of a historical narrative
which is why it reads like ‘plain, clear English’ though its register has wide
flexibility in order to cope with the subject matter in which it deals (LeGuin,
pg. 89). While some critics may bemoan the wide shifts in style or tone, to me
it seems like a very reasonable choice to make in translation when you have one
passage where some Hobbits are joking around while bathing versus another where
the representatives of the free folks gather at a high council to discuss the
doom of their world.
This mix of the sermo sublimis and sermo humilis further reflects the actual shifts in the register of
communication that would naturally occur were the events Tolkien describes to
have in fact taken place just as we can see modulations in our own daily
speech. Therefore, such mixing would logically carry over into the work of the
chronicler whether it be Bilbo, Frodo, or the later copyists, and Tolkien
himself carries on the chain by employing both the high and low mimetic styles
that grate certain critics so.
In saying all of this, I want to
reiterate that I don’t believe the Lord of the Rings to be anything
other than fantasy, an exploration of faerie, but his archaizing style can be
best understood to serve a very distinct purpose which gives it strength. As
LeGuin says, archaizing is the first great pit-fall of beginning writers of
fantasy because they archaize blindly (85); whereas Tolkien, he archaized only
to serve the needs of his translation such as preserving the language of the
Rohirrim as Old English or expressing the incredible age of Elrond in his
specific, idiosyncratic grammatical structures.
At
the very end of class, I feel as though I remember a short point being made
about the intrusion of faerie into the real world – though this may be simply
my own fevered imaginings. However, it now seems to me that the end result of
the careful style is the seamless creation of faerie to the point where the
question, “do you think that Tolkien really took this stories seriously?” is a
legitimate question to ask. Moreover, the fact that the question, “is it perhaps possible
this was all translated from some dusty, old manuscript?” comes to me at all is very significant. In short, the conceit of translation seems to be deeply integral both to the style in which Tolkien wrote, but also to how he understood his works and how we should understand his works.
* Though more properly, Tolkien actually ‘found’ a later
expanded copy called The Thain’s Book
which was remarkable among the copies of the Red Book in that contained the whole body of Bilbo’s Translations from the Elvish.
3 comments:
While I agree that the translation conceit does affect the style of The Lord of the Rings, I feel it has more to do with Tolkien’s desire to make his world fit into the history of our world. In his letters, he talks a lot about a certain Northern European air that influenced his languages and the world they inhabit, and about his desire to create an English mythology, but saying that he has merely translated the works of Frodo and Bilbo is the most direct way of saying that his world was real.
For me at least, this frame works as well as Ramer’s time-machine in the Notion Club Papers; it distracts from the content of the story itself. For if Middle Earth is to considered Faery, then Tolkien is claiming we live there, which seems to conflict with what he says about the separation between the worlds. If the idea from the beginning is that LotR is just a translation of a historical text, then Tolkien is claiming to have discovered a lost part of our history that should then be buried beneath our feet. In either case, I feel the conceit of translation hurts the believability of Tolkien’s work, even if it explains the style.
Dear LDD,
Thanks for your focused approach toward the significance of Tolkien as a ‘translator’ of the Red Book and the reading of LoTR as ‘primary historical narrative rather than a novel.’
About the latter, I am quite intrigued about this question: What would it mean to read these as ‘histories’ rather than as a ‘novel?’ You argue that the style mimics that of ‘historical narratives’ but this raises questions for me.What kind of historical narrative? A first hand narrative, like a memoir or travel account? Or do you mean a later, compiled, scholarly account?
I think you are quite right to raise the point of the ‘two-step’ process of translation. I think much more could be said on this. Here though, you might read the Prologue and Ap. F differently than I. In the framing device, is simply translating straight out the the Red Book OR is he compiling, re-constructing from the various pieces within the Red Book, and translating names? I take the latter view (which would put heavier emphasis on the second step of translation), but since more than one blogger seems to think the former, I could definitely be wrong. Which do you think?
I would love to read more on this.
~Robert
LDD,
I found your points about translation all very interesting. But one thing that I thought was a stimulating tangent in your post was that you highlighted the shifts in tone and style in Tolkien’s narrative. I think this recalls another very prominent word in this course—fragmentary. Aside from Tolkien’s method, his narrative is also very fragmented in a way, often appearing as if written by completely different people. But in thinking about this, it makes a good deal of sense, since Tolkien’s aim was not only to spin a narrative thread, but also to weave a history and a mythos. This is a very compelling point you capture in your post when you say, “For me, this creates the aura or illusion of vast expanses of time and the growth of culture rather than any sort of internal inconsistency – inconsistency is a part of history.” It also calls to mind another influential series of woven stories that compose a history—the bible. The bible is also a chorus of voices contributing to a massive, orchestral whole. Packaged in with this is the whole idea of oral history. I doubt that this point was very far from Tolkien’s mind when he was consigning Middle-Earth to paper.
Steven Vincent
Post a Comment