This was just a terrible pun at first but with the suggestion and encouragement of Lioje I somehow ended up actually writing off of it.
Tolkien, defender of trees, venerates the bucolic lifestyle throughout The Lord of the Rings. It is deeply engrained in the Shire: rural England mythologized with its low, simple buildings, extensive fields and woods, and of course the hobbits’ gardens. This is why, in addition, “The Scouring of the Shire” can really hit home. The devices of Sauron and Saruman such as explosives and battering rams, their “mind[s] of metal and wheels” are perhaps acceptable to us in war but are heartbreakingly destructive when turned on the innocent hobbits. So, his position on Machines and industrialism are clear. Does that mean we must forsake all plants and wilderness, living in a state of almost fear of nature? Of course not; for one thing Tolkien is more realistic than that. Moreover the Shire he loves is a farming community, and without nature we would end up in precisely the world of metal and rock we were trying to avoid. Still, I think that the way we may use nature bears examination. The matter of ents and entwives sums up the whole debate nicely. For the ents, the right course is to coexist and let plants live undisturbed, or if anything give them some gentle guidance for the plants’ own good. They “ate only such fruit as the trees let fall in their path” and wandered among the forests. The entwives, though, took delight in growing and ordering plants, creating a manicured garden and farm over a wilderness. For Tolkien the optimal situation is probably a balance where we only farm as much as necessary, nurture gardens so that we can appreciate trees for their beauty, and leave the rest wild. But farm we must, and therefore I will look at what he might say about utilizing plants.
The people who seem most noble and respectful in this, contrasting with Saruman and friends, are those who are immersed in nature. I will return to the title for an example. The hobbits love their pipeweed, and spend long hours cultivating both the plants and the art or culture of smoking it. But they also are fond of walking in the countryside and tending their flowers; they depend on the land and know its patterns. Tom Bombadil says of Farmer Maggot “’There’s earth under his old feet, and clay on his fingers; wisdom in his bones, and both his eyes are open.” We can presume that the hobbits managed the pipeweed and other crops quite well, before the influence of Saruman crept in, because it comes as such a shock when Frodo, Sam, Merry, and Pippin discover the shortage of food, drink, and smoke under Sharkey. Nor is it just the Enemy and his servants who do not truly appreciate nature. My meditations on pipeweed reminded me of the herb-master in the Houses of Healing. Here is a man who uses plants extensively in his daily work without knowing them. He is too wrapped up in lore and scholarship to recognize the virtues of kingsfoil recorded in old wives’ tales, and Aragorn suggests he would find no value in pipeweed either. His view of plants is as tools, within the city-fortress. It is Aragorn the ranger, who has survived in the wilds and experienced the landscapes of Middle-Earth, that is able to give these plants their due. In a way, Aragorn, Farmer Maggot, and probably many hobbits fall into the Green Man character. Not perhaps as a nature spirit of vengeance (like the Green Knight?) or rebirth (Tom Bombadil definitely) but a quasi-green man surrounded by nature – like leaves surround a green man’s face – and in tune with it.
Before I end this somewhat meandering post, I will bring up one more example of Aldarion and Erendis (related in The Unfinished Tales). The story has been puzzling me: it is basically the same as the ents and entwives, but with gender reversed. Erendis loves wild forests, while Aldarion values them for their ship-building material. Nonetheless he is the greatest forester of Numenor, planting tons of trees and cultivating forests in both Numenor and Middle Earth. I am still not sure whether either of them are supposed to be sympathetic characters, but if we are to dislike Aldarion perhaps it is because he fails to embrace the quasi-green man attitude. He does not take time to venture in the forests and understand them beyond the scientific understanding of forestry, nor even much the fields and other parts of the island, because he is too focused on their use in exploring the sea. Another conclusion, maybe, can be drawn from the fate of Erendis (vague spoilers!). She “dwindle[s]” and “falls down dim into her own twilight” of bitterness and loneliness. I have to wonder if this is the ultimate end of ents too – it does sound a lot like huorns and Old Man Willow now that I think about it. Will they too all end up as sad trees? The “Treegarth of Orthanc” gives me hope that they have found fresh purpose and energy. And yet, in doing so they have somewhat abandoned their stand. They have become like the entwives, growing a garden even with the appearance of a wild forest. Maybe this is the other side of the green man, then. You must understand nature to rightfully interact with it, but you must also interact with it to have purpose and to understand yourself.
Tolkien, defender of trees, venerates the bucolic lifestyle throughout The Lord of the Rings. It is deeply engrained in the Shire: rural England mythologized with its low, simple buildings, extensive fields and woods, and of course the hobbits’ gardens. This is why, in addition, “The Scouring of the Shire” can really hit home. The devices of Sauron and Saruman such as explosives and battering rams, their “mind[s] of metal and wheels” are perhaps acceptable to us in war but are heartbreakingly destructive when turned on the innocent hobbits. So, his position on Machines and industrialism are clear. Does that mean we must forsake all plants and wilderness, living in a state of almost fear of nature? Of course not; for one thing Tolkien is more realistic than that. Moreover the Shire he loves is a farming community, and without nature we would end up in precisely the world of metal and rock we were trying to avoid. Still, I think that the way we may use nature bears examination. The matter of ents and entwives sums up the whole debate nicely. For the ents, the right course is to coexist and let plants live undisturbed, or if anything give them some gentle guidance for the plants’ own good. They “ate only such fruit as the trees let fall in their path” and wandered among the forests. The entwives, though, took delight in growing and ordering plants, creating a manicured garden and farm over a wilderness. For Tolkien the optimal situation is probably a balance where we only farm as much as necessary, nurture gardens so that we can appreciate trees for their beauty, and leave the rest wild. But farm we must, and therefore I will look at what he might say about utilizing plants.
The people who seem most noble and respectful in this, contrasting with Saruman and friends, are those who are immersed in nature. I will return to the title for an example. The hobbits love their pipeweed, and spend long hours cultivating both the plants and the art or culture of smoking it. But they also are fond of walking in the countryside and tending their flowers; they depend on the land and know its patterns. Tom Bombadil says of Farmer Maggot “’There’s earth under his old feet, and clay on his fingers; wisdom in his bones, and both his eyes are open.” We can presume that the hobbits managed the pipeweed and other crops quite well, before the influence of Saruman crept in, because it comes as such a shock when Frodo, Sam, Merry, and Pippin discover the shortage of food, drink, and smoke under Sharkey. Nor is it just the Enemy and his servants who do not truly appreciate nature. My meditations on pipeweed reminded me of the herb-master in the Houses of Healing. Here is a man who uses plants extensively in his daily work without knowing them. He is too wrapped up in lore and scholarship to recognize the virtues of kingsfoil recorded in old wives’ tales, and Aragorn suggests he would find no value in pipeweed either. His view of plants is as tools, within the city-fortress. It is Aragorn the ranger, who has survived in the wilds and experienced the landscapes of Middle-Earth, that is able to give these plants their due. In a way, Aragorn, Farmer Maggot, and probably many hobbits fall into the Green Man character. Not perhaps as a nature spirit of vengeance (like the Green Knight?) or rebirth (Tom Bombadil definitely) but a quasi-green man surrounded by nature – like leaves surround a green man’s face – and in tune with it.
Before I end this somewhat meandering post, I will bring up one more example of Aldarion and Erendis (related in The Unfinished Tales). The story has been puzzling me: it is basically the same as the ents and entwives, but with gender reversed. Erendis loves wild forests, while Aldarion values them for their ship-building material. Nonetheless he is the greatest forester of Numenor, planting tons of trees and cultivating forests in both Numenor and Middle Earth. I am still not sure whether either of them are supposed to be sympathetic characters, but if we are to dislike Aldarion perhaps it is because he fails to embrace the quasi-green man attitude. He does not take time to venture in the forests and understand them beyond the scientific understanding of forestry, nor even much the fields and other parts of the island, because he is too focused on their use in exploring the sea. Another conclusion, maybe, can be drawn from the fate of Erendis (vague spoilers!). She “dwindle[s]” and “falls down dim into her own twilight” of bitterness and loneliness. I have to wonder if this is the ultimate end of ents too – it does sound a lot like huorns and Old Man Willow now that I think about it. Will they too all end up as sad trees? The “Treegarth of Orthanc” gives me hope that they have found fresh purpose and energy. And yet, in doing so they have somewhat abandoned their stand. They have become like the entwives, growing a garden even with the appearance of a wild forest. Maybe this is the other side of the green man, then. You must understand nature to rightfully interact with it, but you must also interact with it to have purpose and to understand yourself.
- ᛸᚻᚹ
4 comments:
Thanks for writing! I really enjoyed reading your response. You note that the characters Tolkien idolizes are often “immersed in nature,” but I wonder if it would be meaningful to speak a little more about whether any characters in Tolkien are too immersed in nature. Take Tom Bombadil, he clearly loves nature, serving both as a lore-master of it and also a shepherd of a particular part of the Old Forest. However, does this serve to his detriment? He is powerful (or desireless) enough to resist the wiles of The Ring, but also, he feels no need to join the Fellowship in fighting the Enemy. Take, also, Radagast the Brown, the most nature-inclined of the wizards, who also sits out the War of the Ring. These characters represent naturality to the extreme, yet, they do not, ultimately, come to nature’s defense the way the Fellowship does. I think this is a central facet to the way Tolkien conceives of the human relation to nature: to actually serve nature, one has to be meaningfully apart from it. However, this apartness cannot extend so far that you abandon it altogether.
One central question I’ve always had about Tolkien is what to make of the entwives. Are they personifications of what it means to become too interested in bending nature? They do, certainly, in their garden-making, bend it to beauty, similarly to how Saruman bends it to industry. I am not sure, and do not know if I ever will be, but it seems meaningful to question their relation to nature, whether they overstepped their role, and what Tolkien conveys with their absence.
You took quite a wander, much as Tolkien must have on his walks! I think it is a mistake to see the Entwives as somehow wrong in their desire for gardens—I would not put them at the other end of the pole from Saruman, with Ents in the Aristotelian middle. But I do think they raise the question of what is the appropriate level of cultivation for plants. Perhaps what dismays Tolkien most is the lack of *interest* in the lives of the plants? RLFB
Bringing up the Huorns and Old Man Willow is really helpful, for it dispels any over-blithe account of Tolkien as a romantic defender of all wild things and reminds us that nature can indeed be twisted and terrifying, left entirely to itself. In this regard, I think you're very right to point out that the Shire is not only peaceful and bucolic, it is *productive*. The virtue of the Hobbits consists, in part, of being *good* farmers. In this vein, Marco's mention of Radagast and Tom Bombadil is really helpful: to become too natural, to "go to seed," can reduce or cripple a character's capacity for noble deeds. It seems significant that Tolkien hints that the Entwives in Rhovanion drew the ire of Sauron; they must have represented some goodness if he considered them a threat.
Aldarion and Erendis are an interesting example of the overly-wild and the overly-tame in human beings, connected to the mystery of the sexes' incapacity to truly understand each other and harmonize. What would a healthy synthesis of Aldarion and Erendis' two different ways of relating to the forest have looked like?
~LJF
I'm beginning to realize that I tend to respond to these blog posts by relating them to things I've experienced before, but I still think this is worth mentioning.
In Brandon Sanderson's high fantasy series The Stormlight Archive, there is a primordial being called Cultivation that acts as the driving force behind all of nature in the world. In reference to Tolkien, she is the Ents and the Ent-wives (and probably the Elves, too) all wrapped in one: she is quite literally "Mother Nature". Just like Marco pointed out about Radagast and Tom Bombadil, Cultivation plays an extremely detached role in Sanderson's story, and only appears in a flashback of the one of the characters. Otherwise, she is completely absent. In the story, her task is to "cultivate" and help things grow. Unlike Bombadil and the Ents, her domain is the entire planet, but she still takes no "sides" in the story's conflict.
My point is this: Cultivation represents Nature, and as Nature she is set apart from from everything while also being a part of everything. She is perfectly content with staying out of the way, rarely ever giving a helping hand. Nature at its core is neutral and set apart from Men, but will rouse and rage if prodded.
But, I am still interested in what the end of these creatures would look like. While all these creatures are immortal, I still wonder if time really has no effect.
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