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| Tolkien's illustration of "the Lonely mountain" |
Here's my thesis put simply. I'll back up my claims below. The Hobbit represents an important moment in the history of the novel because it combines two types of narrative: (1) the realistic mode and (2) the epic mode. Let me explain what I mean by this.
We started the class with Defoe's Robinson Crusoe. This novel is often cited as "the first novel," and it represents a new kind of narrative for a variety of reasons. To make my case I need to list some of its characteristics.
Main Characteristics of the "Realist Novel"
(1) The characters featured aren't aristocrats (lords, ladies, knights, warlocks, etc.); rather, they are middle class men of business.
(2) The narrator spends time describing the micro-details of the fictional world. Lots of time in Robinson Crusoe is spent on details like what Robinson eats, how he gets his food, what kind of shelter he builds, what he wears, etc.. We take it for granted now that this level of detail is treated by novels.
(3) The narrator spends time on "psychological introspection." Robinson often reflects on his life, where he has been, what kind of person he is, and how he should change. Also, he undergoes some changes.
(4) There are no mythical elements. No dragons. No wizards. No ghosts.
Let's compare these elements to the other kind of narrative I think The Hobbit incorporates.
General Characteristics of the "Epic or Romance"
(As an example, let's think of, say, Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur)
(1) Characters are aristocrats and royalty.
(2) The narrator does not spend time on micro-details of life and dwells, rather, on "globally significant things" like political alliances, personality conflicts, love affairs, and hatreds.
(3) The characters are not psychologically introspective and therefore appear psychologically flat. They do not undergo any apparent changes. Crisis rises from the interaction between static personality traits.
(4) There are indeed mythical elements: magical knights, fairies, wizards, giants, magical items.
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The innovation of The Hobbit is that it combines these elements together. It strikes both an "epic" and "realist" tone. Let me highlight a few ways that it does this.
(1) Bilbo isn't an aristocrat. He's a middle-class fella, a kind of gentleman akin to Robinson; and yet, he interacts with epic characters like Elrond, Beorn, the Goblin King, the King of the Eagles, the King of the Elves, Bard Bowman. Bilbo is a normal fella. And yet he rubs shoulders with the "shakers and movers" of the world who usually populate epic narratives.
(2) The narrator spends time on micro-details, like how Bag End is built; indeed, pages and pages will be given over to meditations on what, say, the Elvish King's hall looks like; and yet--in spite of this slow narrative pace, entire battles can be glossed in a paragraph; epic battles with dragons can be related in a few sentences. We have both narrative registers: the focus on the surface-texture of the world characteristic of novels. And, we have epic narrative pacing--Esgaroth is destroyed in a paragraph; the battle of five armies is related in a few pages. And so forth.
(3) There are characters who undergo changes in this novel and there are characters who stay the same. Beorn, the Elf-King, Bard Bowman, the Master of Laketown, the Goblin King--these guys don't change. They are who they are. Bilbo and Thorin, the dwarves and Gandalf--they are psychologically complex in a way only modern "novelistic" characters can be: inconsistent, self-questioning, surprising, evolving.
(4) In The Hobbit you get meditations on both the quotidian and the epic. There are long descriptions of how many coat pegs Bilbo has; there are passages relating what he eats and his genealogy. AND! And there are passages portraying fights with giant spiders, goblin armies, encounters with strange unknown monsters (i.e. Gollum), dragons, wizards, wargs!
In sum, we have in J.R.R. Tolkien's novel an important moment in the history of the novel because he brings together two separate narrative modes: the realist and the epic.
I think this is a very interesting take on the novel, and I also think that a similar kind of mixture between the realistic & the epic is central, structurally, to Tolkien's other great work, the Lord of the Rings: except in that work, it's not a mixture, but a collision between the two, almost. You have, simultaneously, a heroic epic (Aragorn's tale; the War of the Rings; drinking delight in battle, heroism, although even here Merry and Pippin provide a baseline of realism) and on the other hand something realistic and even ironic and bitter in Frodo's quest: the deep irony, the lack of heroism or agency, and the fundamental change in Frodo, the wounds that stay with him forever.
ReplyDeleteThis relation between realism and the epic seems to me central to a lot of Tolkien's work, so I guess what I'm trying to say is "right on"
Yeah! That's intriguing. I'm thinking of the "scene" of Frodo and Sam's quest versus the "scene" of Aragorn's. In Frodo and Sam's quest, the wilderness is a problem; they struggle with the terrain, food, the weather, the wildlife. Compared this to Aragorn's "scene," which is, in large part, "urban"--Rohan, Gondor, Isengard. And so, of course he is dealing with political intrigues, with organizing the Rohan and trying to influence the war strategy of King Theoden. Hmm... thanks for the comment! It's a lot to think about!
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