The opening chapters The Lost Road, Tolkien centers Alboin, at first a young boy curious about language and the past. He asks his father about his name: is it real? Alboin wants to know if his name means something, if it is meant to be name, and who has had it before. This echoes a few themes common to Tolkien’s work. First, Alboin seems to inherently connect his name, of course a piece of language, to his heritage. Tolkien seems to firmly believe that language has an inextricable link to culture. In the opening chapters, Alboin says just that to his father, making an assertion about ‘language atmosphere,’ and attributing language changes to ‘substratum.’ This, of course, sounds like Tolkien speaking.
Alboin seems to be a parallel to Tolkien, carrying many of his beliefs and interests, as well as later pursuing an academic career at Oxford. Alboin also represents another one of Tolkien’s sentiments: a sense of separation from heritage. Alboin expresses this frustration with his name, and it is one his main motivating factors in his studies. Like Tolkien, he is particularly interested in the seemingly lost culture and language of the British Isles and the ‘north.’ His father mentions how the “old days of north are gone beyond recall, except insofar as they have been worked into the shape of things as we know it, into Christendom” (38). This reminded me of Tolkien’s work on Beowulf as well as Tom Shippey’s recent book on the subject. Shippey writes about how the tale may represent the death of a culture through invasion, with Beowulf’s trials representing an intense period of violence and upheaval. The epic, however, was never interpreted this way until recently, and was rather seen as motivated and catalyzed by Christian interests. This tracks with what Alboin’s father says: we only seem to understand the pre-historic north through the lense of Christianity, which produces an incomplete view. A massive amount of history, language, and culture have seemingly been lost, a mystery that consumes Alboin. Tolkien of course translated Beowulf and had particular affection for the text, and it seems reasonable to say that he was attracted by exactly this mystery.
Indeed, Tolkien’s purpose in writing was largely to ‘fill in the gaps,’ and create a mythology for England. Unsurprisingly, Alboin has similar goals, and says that he wants “myths, not only bones and stones” (40). Alboin feels a strong pull to a culture that he feels is lost. He seems unsatisfied with Latin and Greek and instead feels a strong compulsion to speak northern languages. This reminds me of certain similar sentiments I’ve heard from Irish people learning Gaelic in recent years. These people often claim that they feel as if Gaelic is the language that they are meant to speak in and are overwhelmed with a feeling of deep cultural connection. This of course supports Tolkien’s idea that language is ingrained within groups of people and is parallel of Alboin’s frustration. He wonders “if there is any Latin in [him],” answering his own question: “not much” (38). He likes western shores, and the real sea, which is nothing like the mediterranean. Just as with Tolkien, this sense of cultural disconnection motivates Alboin to seek out language and mythology that feels more familiar. In Alboin’s case, however, this involves finding out the real history of middle earth, as the rest of Tolkien’s legendarium acts as the history and heritage that has been lost. For Tolkien, of course, his solution is sub-creation, as he is unable to locate a mythology for England.
This distinction brings up interesting questions about the nature of myth. What is the difference between the ‘real’ myth in Alboin’s world and the imagined in Tolkien. Isn’t myth not supposed to be ‘real’ in the first place? An interesting answer, and perhaps what Tolkien would say, is that a myth is not more or less real based on its historic accuracy, but rather other factors. To make his myths ‘real,’ Tolkien tirelessly researches language in attempt to make his myths sound right. He crafts his narrative around surviving epics like Beowulf and writes prose in the style of a religious text or fable. But can such a myth achieve true authenticity? I don’t think that even Tolkien would think so. Consider language: Tolkien maintains that languages are foundational to societies, and each one is deeply connected with its ancestral speakers. When Tolkien, through an act of sub-creation, invents a new language, no such connection is possible. While Tolkien may borrow Norse and Old English in order to make such a language ‘look more real,’ it will only be attached to an imaginary people. It seems that the same would apply for myth… if Greek myths are only ‘real’ in the sense that they are intrinsically connected to Greek people through ancient Greek culture, then Tolkien’s myths certainly aren’t. England, however, does have an individualized circumstance: it seemingly does not have a national myth to begin with. In this case, does it make sense for Tolkien to create one? Could LOTR and Tolkien’s legendarium really fill that place for England? How long could it take? It seems for language and myth to be ‘real,’ or in other words legitimately connected to a group of people, it could take generations. There seems to be a requirement that both must be adequately ancient… is this necessary?
At this point, I am somewhat confused as to Tolkien’s goals… does he really believe he is creating England’s national myth? He seems to know better than anyone how such myths are not only tied to ancient, common language, but also to long periods of shared history. In this way, it seems impossible for Tolkien to just create a ‘myth’ by himself. But then what is his purpose? Does he hope his work will last long enough to be ancient? Is he encouraging us to become sub-creators ourselves?
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