The High Elves have always been some of the most memorable characters in The Lord of the Rings for me. The scenes they are in have a particular feeling to them—one of wonder and enchantment, but also the melancholy that the days of the elves are already passed. As Sam says, “there’s Elves and Elves…they’re not all all the same”—the High Elves are distinct even from the other elves we meet. In the past, though, I’ve often struggled to define exactly why the elves make such a strong impression upon me (and presumably other readers as well). Thus, I wanted to look more into both how exactly Tolkien was characterizing the experience of meeting the elves, but also how that explains my own impressions of them. In doing so, I found connections to a number of the themes we discussed this week in class. Though they are less explicitly stated than in The Notion Club Papers, Tolkien’s ideas of dreams, time, and language can all help explain why the High Elves “feel” like they do.
The first thing to note about two of the major scenes involving High Elves (when the hobbits meet Gildor’s company and when the Fellowship enters Lothlorien) is how multiple characters describe their experience as dreamlike. Sam walks alongside Gildor “as if in a dream”, and both he and Pippin don’t retain many memories of that night beyond strong sensations and impressions (Book I, Chapter 3). The elves even appear to shimmer as they walk, though they don’t carry lights. Similar sensations are noted in Lothlorien, where the Fellowship again don’t have a good grasp on passing time, and it feels like early spring despite it being winter (Book II, Chapter 7).
Invoking the sensations of dreams makes the High Elves and their lands seem otherworldly and beyond the understanding of the hobbits. From that alone we learn how enchanting and alien the High Elves are to the other creatures of Middle Earth. But, if we consider Tolkien’s theories about dreams from The Notion Club Papers and other works, we can add another layer of depth to how the elves are understood.
Multiple Tolkien works connect dreams and time in some way. For instance, Ramer argues in The Notion Club Papers that a dreaming mind has the ability to move through time and space, and even see things it has not perceived in real life (175). That thread appears in other Tolkien works as well—in the opening chapters of The Lost Road, Alboin speaks in a dream with Elendil, “the father of many fathers before you.” Thus, Alboin has in a certain way traveled back in time, or at least made contact with a figure from the past. Dreaming is very clearly connected with experiencing other times, and extending that to The Lord of the Rings actually sharpens my understanding of how the elves come across. The High Elves are all tremendously old and from a different time; Frodo feels that Lothlorien “did not fade or change,” and that there he could hear seas and sea-birds that no longer existed (Book II, Chapter 6). The dreamlike description therefore also emphasizes how the High Elves are living relics of the past, and Lothlorien is a window into an earlier era. For me, at least, it adds a note of melancholy to the High Elves—engaging with them offers a glimpse into a reality that is already gone.
To turn to another theme this week, Tolkien considered language to be an integral part of his stories. In Letter 163 he describes how The Lord of the Rings was conceived—one of the earliest inspirations was his study of languages. More specifically, he recalls feeling “intoxicated” after discovering Finnish, which then influenced the language he himself had created. To him, languages have a “flavor”; he states in Letter 180 that this flavor or character strongly influences the legends of a culture. Clearly, Tolkien sees language as key to creating and understanding any culture or people. This of course explains why there is so much attention paid to languages within The Lord of the Rings, but I think it also explains the reactions of some characters when meeting the elves.
When Gildor invites the hobbits to travel with them, Frodo’s response (Elen sila lumenn’ omentielvo) is in high-elven speech. As a result of his knowledge of the elven tongue, Frodo ends up talking with the elves far more than the other hobbits and has a long conversation with Gildor about his journey (Book I, Chapter 3). Thus, Frodo’s use of the elvish language seemingly connects him to the world of the elves, enabling him to understand them better than his friends. A similar situation occurs in reverse in Lothlorien, where Galadriel’s use of the dwarvish language makes Gimli rethink his prejudice against the elves (Book II, Chapter 7). Especially in relation to the elves, it seems understanding a language makes characters more understanding of the broader culture, which seems a natural extension of Tolkien’s ideas that languages have such a strong influence on both real myths and cultures and those he created.
As for myself, I think Tolkien’s commentary on languages having “flavors” is actually quite useful in explaining why the elves are so distinct. I’m no linguist, but the elvish languages do give me very strong impressions about what the High Elves are like. For one, Tolkien clearly takes inspiration from many of the old European languages we listened to, making the languages (and thus the elves) seem as if they have a very long history. Furthermore, when compared to a language like Dwarvish, which sounds very guttural and earthy, elvish seems more … sophisticated? I struggle to come up with the proper words to describe it, but the concept of “flavor” seems very apt for explaining how the elvish languages so strongly characterize my impressions of them.
To return to Sam’s thoughts, he describes being in Lothlorien as “feel[ing] as if I was inside a song.” Given that many of the songs Tolkien presents in the books are historical epics and tales, this is a very fitting description. Like those types of songs, the High Elves seem to be a window into another time, and their language also characterizes both my and the hobbits’ impressions of them. Perhaps that is ultimately why the High Elves are so memorable to me—they are so deeply connected to the past in a series known for having an incredibly detailed history.
-AS
1 comment:
Much as with the Elves, I am left with a strong flavor in your description of their appeal, but something else I am not yet able to name. They shimmer, their language has a different taste... why would taste or flavor give us a sense of time? Maybe that is the key? There are layers to flavors, but there is also memory—and yet, we think of dreams mainly as images, not tastes. There are threads here, but still a mystery. Perhaps there is something in "Smith of Wootton Major," with the correspondence between dreaming and cakes? RLFB
Post a Comment