tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5746173806126403959.post1902150915802946629..comments2023-11-07T06:20:12.181-08:00Comments on Tolkien: Medieval and Modern: The Draw of Dragons"Tolkien: Medieval and Modern"http://www.blogger.com/profile/04348913969813157482noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5746173806126403959.post-76475298452563777542011-06-03T19:55:06.375-07:002011-06-03T19:55:06.375-07:00In The Hobbit, we also see a glimpse of Smaug’s c...In <i> The Hobbit</i>, we also see a glimpse of Smaug’s cunning use of his abilities:<br /><br />“Whenever Smaug’s roving eye, seeking for him [Bilbo] in the shadows, flashed across him, he trembled, and an unaccountable desire seized hold of him to rush out and reveal himself and tell all the truth to Smaug. In fact, he was in grievous danger of coming under the dragon-spell.” (Inside Information, pg. 224)<br /><br />Like Catrina, I too was reminded of Saruman after reading about the manipulative power of a dragon’s voice. Both Glauranng and Saruman are cunning and use their voices to dominate and manipulate other wills. If we are to claim that dragons are the embodiment of the human vice of greed, Saruman is not the only being in human earth who is characterized with dragon-like qualities. We often consider the elves as a richly moral and spiritual people, but the king of the Wood-elves in <i>The Hobbit</i> is described just as greedy and possessive as Smaug, if not more so: “If the elf-king had a weakness it was for treasure, especially for silver and white gems; and though his hoard was rich, he was ever eager for more” (Flies and Spiders, pg. 168). Other major characters of Tolkien’s legendarium, such as Morgoth, Sauron, Fëanor and his descendants, Thingol and Denethor are also characterized by greed, the desire to possess and/or to control. <br /><br />The major difference between these beings and dragons, however, is choice. The dragons of Middle Earth were bred by Morgoth to be powerful, dangerous and wicked. Like orcs, they had no moral choice. Beings, on the other hand, do have a moral choice between “good” and “evil”, and choosing to be dragon-like is choosing to be sinful.<br /><br />- BLS"Tolkien: Medieval and Modern"https://www.blogger.com/profile/04348913969813157482noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5746173806126403959.post-63643786766207717602011-06-02T23:20:39.940-07:002011-06-02T23:20:39.940-07:00While reading your post, particularly the section ...While reading your post, particularly the section in which you discussed the malicious device of the dragon's voice, I had a sudden thought of something that probably seems at first to be an odd comparison. Your description of Glaurung's voice made me think of the power of Saruman's voice, particularly as he addresses the crowd outside of Orthanc in The Two Towers. Their powers of deception and manipulation as linked to words and voice seem surprisingly similar.<br /><br />While I don't want to go quite so far as to claim the Saruman shares all of the qualities of a dragon, I do want to ask this: Why, if the two share this same manipulative mechanism, is there a very different reaction in the reader to each of them, even if we just consider the instance in which they are specifically using the power of their voices? Even though we see them doing nearly the same thing, I probably never would have thought of a connection before. By giving abilities like deception and manipulation to a dragon, a giant beast, it seems to have an entirely different tone than when it comes from someone who has a form more similar to ourselves.<br /><br />In class, we talked about one possible interpretation of monsters being that they reflect human vices. I think this is closest to being accurate. It seems that by expressing human vices, sins, or fears in the form of something more foreign to us, the sort of beast that instinctively plagues our nightmares from the time we are children worrying about "monsters under the bed," it has a greater impact and is more likely to evoke a sort of awe or horrified wonder than if we see the same sort of cruel action coming from someone who is, or is at least more similar to, a man.<br /><br />-Catrina D."Tolkien: Medieval and Modern"https://www.blogger.com/profile/04348913969813157482noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5746173806126403959.post-78706295102934472242011-05-23T14:02:41.287-07:002011-05-23T14:02:41.287-07:00It strikes me as entirely appropriate to put our e...It strikes me as entirely appropriate to put our experience of reading Tolkien into relation with out whole literary experience. You point out some interesting recurring features of dragons: their cunning, hoarding, the hypnotic quality of the gaze, the threat to the land. In the Middle Ages, St. Margaret bursts out of the dragon that consumed her; dragons or monstrous beasts like them (e.g., great serpentine sea creatures) appear among the exiguous remains of Romanesque painting (an example at the Cloisters Museum in New York); it’s easy to see the whale who swallows Jonah as a similar beast, and this was a fascination of early Christian art. In medieval exegesis, Jonah is a type for Christ (actually this is stated in the New Testament directly), and medieval paintings sometimes depict Christ marching out of a monstrous beast who stands for hell, and must be a relative of the dragon. The most famous dragon would be the beast of Apocalypse, which is sometimes translated as ‘dragon. ‘ This dragon is directly equated with Satan, and will face the woman of the Apocalypse who will bear a son, etc.<br /><br />Your post made me wonder if Tolkien held some idea of archetypes – which certainly wouldn’t have been unfashionable in his day. Have you ever read ‘From Ritual to Romance’ by Jessie Weston? It’s a bizarre little book, perhaps more of interest now as a curiosity in the history of scholarship, in which the author posits that many romance themes of the Middle Ages, particularly of the grail stories, descended historically from secret ritual, mainly agrarian, cults that endured in the mountains and countryside of medieval Europe outside of Christian norms. Her historical arguments probably say more now about her historical moment than they do about the Middle Ages. She was writing in the light of the landmark influence of James Frazer’s ‘Golden Bough’. In any case, she was hugely influential on the literary world after 1910. Dragons come up in her book once or twice, as the source of the blight of the land, such a blight as perhaps Glaurung promises. Weston held, I think, to a view that saw myth as the narrative elaboration (and deviation/falsification) of an original ritual. She thought that unlocking the ritual at the root uncovered the reality of the story. But, even if we accept her historical claims, stories can change the meaning of their ‘sources.’ How do Tolkien’s stories change the meaning of the dragon by inserting it into a specific context? Moreover, do dragons comment on specific concerns contemporary with his life?<br />JCT"Tolkien: Medieval and Modern"https://www.blogger.com/profile/04348913969813157482noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5746173806126403959.post-74799796981620467162011-05-15T09:43:49.316-07:002011-05-15T09:43:49.316-07:00A very good question: why are dragons the quintess...A very good question: why are dragons the quintessential monsters? The question that I would put to you as an historian is, can we be sure that they have always had this power over our imagination? I mentioned in class that the dragons in medieval bestiaries are actually much more like large snakes, not Glaurungs at all, but just the natural enemies of elephants. There are other dragons in medieval tradition, e.g. the dragon of St. George, but only Beowulf's dragon and Fafnir come anywhere close to our contemporary image of dragons. Is it that we have been particularly selective? Or do dragons tell us more about our modern imagination as such?<br /><br />RLFB"Tolkien: Medieval and Modern"https://www.blogger.com/profile/04348913969813157482noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5746173806126403959.post-1782771290787184192011-05-12T06:26:33.014-07:002011-05-12T06:26:33.014-07:00A very good question: why are dragons the quintess...A very good question: why <i>are</i> dragons the quintessential monsters? The question that I would put to you as an historian is, can we be sure that they have always had this power over our imagination? I mentioned in class that the dragons in medieval bestiaries are actually much more like <a href="http://bestiary.ca/beasts/beast262.htm" rel="nofollow">large snakes</a>, not Glaurungs at all, but just the natural enemies of elephants. There are other dragons in medieval tradition, e.g. the dragon of St. George, but only Beowulf's dragon and Fafnir come anywhere close to our contemporary image of dragons. Is it that we have been particularly selective? Or do dragons tell us more about our modern imagination as such? <br /><br />RLFB"Tolkien: Medieval and Modern"https://www.blogger.com/profile/04348913969813157482noreply@blogger.com