Смекни!
smekni.com

Корни персонажей Д.Р.Р.Толкиена (стр. 2 из 3)

Tolkien begins to create works with Quentya (language of the high-elves): "He had been working for some time at the language that was influenced by Finish, and by 1915 he had developed it to a degree of some complexity. He felt that it was 'a mad hobby', and he scarcely expected to find an audience for it. But he sometimes wrote poems n it, and the more he worked at it the more he felt that it needed a 'history' to support it. In other words, you cannot have a language without a race of people to speak it. He was perfecting the language; now he had to decide to whom it belonged." [Carpenter 75]

Tolkien creates Valinor [Land of the Gods in the Silmarillion] "This, he decided, was the language by the fairies or elves whom Earendel saw during his strange voyage. He began work on a 'Lay of Earendel' that described the mariner's journeying across the world before his ship became a star. The Lay was to be divided into several poems, and the first of these, 'The shores of Faery', tells of the mysterious land of Valinor, where Two Trees grow, one bearing golden sun-apples and the other silver moon-apples." [Carpenter 76]

1916 - Tolkien marries Edith, continues war, and gets to know soldiers [Tolkien is an officer]. All of Tolkien's friends die [except C.S. Lewis]

Tolkien after World War II

Continuing the last wishes of the T.B.C.S (the society he had founded with his friends at St. Edwards), Tolkien decides to create a whole society.

[Founding precepts of the LOTR] " 'I [Tolkien] had a mind to make a body of more or less connected legend, ranging from the large and cosmogonic to the level of romantic fairy-story - the larger founded on the lesser in contact with the earth, the lesser drawing splendor from the vast backcloths - which I could dedicate simply: to England; to my country. It could possess the tone and quality that I desired, somewhat cool and clear, be redolent of our 'air' (the clime and soil of the North West, meaning Britain and the hither parts of Europe; not Italy or the Aegean, still less the East), and, while possessing (if I could achieve it) the fair elusive beauty that some call Celtic (though it is rarely found in genuine ancient Celtic things), it should be 'high', purged of the gross, and fit for the more adult mind of a land long steeped in poetry, I would draw some of the great tales in fullness, and leave many only placed in the scheme, and sketched. The cycles should be linked to a majestic whole, and yet leave scope for other minds and hands, wielding paint and music and drama" [Carpenter 90] [Researching, not inventing] "When he wrote The Silmarillion Tolkien believed that in one sense he was writing the truth. He did not suppose that precisely such peoples as he described, 'elves', 'dwarves', and malevolent 'orcs', had walked the earth and done the deeds that he recorded. But he did feel, or hope, that his stories were in some sense an embodiment of a profound truth . . . Tolkien believed that he was doing more than inventing a story. He wrote of the tales that make up the book: 'They arose in my mind as 'given' things, and as they came, separately, so too the links grew . . . yet always I had the sense of recording what was already 'there', somewhere: not of 'inventing'." [Carpenter 91-2]

Influences from language: "As to the names of persons and places in 'The Fall of Gondolin' and the other stories in The Silmarillion, they were constructed from Tolkien's invented languages. Since the existence of these languages was a raison d'être for the whole mythology, it is not surprising that he devoted a good deal of attention to the business of making up names from them"

Tolkien creates Sindarin, precursor to Quentya

[Development of 'what is real?'] "As the years went by he came more and more to regard his own invented languages and stories as 'real' languages and historical chronicles that needed to be elucidated. In other words, when in this mood he did not say of an apparent contradiction in the narrative or an unsatisfactory name: 'This is not as I wish it to be; I must change it.' Instead he would approach the problem with the attitude: 'What does this mean? I must find about." [Carpenter 94]

On the 16 of November 1917 Tolkien gets a son and writes story of Luthien & Beren

1918 - Tolkien gets job in the OED (Oxford English Dictionary)

1920 - Tolkien gets a professorship at Leeds University

In October of 1920 Tolkien gets second son.

Tolkien writes poems: "Another, 'The Dragon's Visits', describes the ravages of a dragon who arrives at Bimble Bay and encounters 'Miss Biggins'. A third, 'Glip', tells of a strange slimy creature who lives beneath the floor of a cave and has pale luminous eyes" [Carpenter 106] : Dragon ~ Smaug, Miss Biggins ~ Bilbo Baggins, Glip ~ Gollum

1924 - Tolkien gets a third son Christopher.

1925 - Tolkien becomes a professor of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford

1929 - Tolkien gets a daughter

Tolkien now

[Tolkien's Workplace] "The shelves are crammed with dictionaries, works on etymology and philology, and editions of texts in many languages, predominant among which are Old and Middle English and Old Norse; but there is also a section devoted to translations of The Lord of the Rings into Polish, Dutch, Danish, Swedish, and Japanese; and the map of his invented 'Middle-Earth' is pinned to the window - ledge." (Carpenter 4) [Tolkien's view of The Lord of the Rings] "He explains it all in great detail, talking about his book not as a work of fiction but as a chronicle of actual events; he seems to see himself not as an author who has made a slight error that must now be corrected or explained away, but as a historian who must cast light on an obscurity in an historical document." [Tolkien's Voice] "He has a strange voice, deep but without resonance, entirely English but with some quality in it I cannot define, as if he had come from another age or civilization" (Carpenter 5)

The roots of some Tolkien characters

Gandalf

While reading “The Hobbit” and “The Lord Of The Rings” you will meat such character as Gandalf. He is a magician (or Istary in the “The Silmarillion”). And like all magicians he wears a long, thick, grey (or white) beard, a big cone-shaped hat with wide fields and a wide grey raincoat. This character owes with his existence to Tolkien’s trip to Switzerland, where in the shop among the mountans he bought a postcard. It was a reproduction of a picture of a german painter Madlenner, which was called “Der Berggeist” (it could be translated as “The spirit of the mountans”). There was an old man with white long beard and cone-shaped hat with wide fields, who was seating under the tree. Many years later Tolkien wrote on the other side of this postcard the following: “The prototype of Gandalf”

Sam Gamgee

Sam Gamgee is a hobbit (It tells us many things). He is the best friend of Frodo and besides that, he is Frodo’s gardener. He is very brave, bonhomous, kind, but careless and light-hearted, and, as all hobbits, he likes to eat very much. It is very interesting, that the word “gamgee” can be translated from one of the English dialects as cotton wool and besides that, it was a surname of a doctor, who had invented 'gamgee-tissue', a surgical dressing made from cotton wool. But the real character of Sam was copied from the character of the mere english soldier of the war of 1914. You already now from the biographical sketch that Tolkien took part in that war. He battled on the front line in France. And he knows, what the war is. Later in one of his letters he wrote: “My Sam Gamgee is indeed a reflection of the English soldier, of the privates and batmen I knew in the 1914 war, and recognized as so far superior to myself”.

Hobbits

Hobbits is a people of Halflings. They live in holes. They are very short, practical, strait-laced and they like tasty food most of all things in the world. These creatures were created by J.R.R.Tolkien. He was the first, who used them in his books. There are two versions about the origin of the word “hobbit”. V.A. Muravjov keeps one of them. He wrote in his entrance to “The Lord Of The Rings”, that the world “hobbit” is a mixture of latin word “homo”, which means “human” and english word “rabbit”. But Humphrey Carpenter explained the origin of this word in a different way. In his “The biography of J.R.R.Tolkien” he wrote, that in his youth Tolkien read the book “Babbit” by Sincler Luis and it influensed him very much. Carpenter shows us the resemblance of the personality of Babbit and Bilbo Baggins, the main character of Tolkien’s book “The hobbit or there and back again”. Tolkien himself told in one of his interview, that his hobbits have no even a hint on rabbits. That is why I can say, that the second version about the origin of the word “hobbit” is more correct.

The Shire

The Shire is a country of hobbits. But it also has its roots. From the biographical sketch we know, that four best years of his childhood Tolkien spent in the village of Sarehole. And wile reading Tolkien’s description of the Shire I realized, that it is very close to the Carpenter’s description of Sarehole. The same water-mill, the same pretty flower-beds, the roads paved with stones of different colors. We can see the festive tree, which was decorated by hobbits every holiday. And we know, that in Sarehole there was a tree, that Tolkien remembered all his life. The first his wise tree. In hobbits-halflings we can see the same efficient, plain and stiff english peasants so much loved by Tolkien.

Trees and ents

All his life Tolkien loved trees. In his childhood he dreamed, they could have mind, speak to each other and even move. And his dream came true as we can see it in his works (mostly in “The Silmarillion” and “The Lord Of The Rings”). When professor created reasonable trees, he desided to creat someone, who will look after them. That is how ents appeared. Ents look like trees, but they more reasonable, more movable and of course they are immortal. They are not fidgety, but very wise. Their speech is very slow and calm. Its manner (Hrum, Hoom”) was copied with the deep bass of Luis, the best friend of J.R.R.Tolkien.

The elves

The elves in their appearance, whom we can see in the books of Tolkien were also mostly created by him. The roots of these characters are very ramified. Professor read a lot of information about all kinds of elves and finding something general tried to create something new. Finally he got immortal creatures, who can be killed only with a sword or they can pine away to death. They are tall, have perfect eyesight, bright hair and brave harts. They are wise, because of the memory they keep in their immortal mind. But elves themselves estimate their immortality as end-around infinity of analogical events, which exhaust and oppress them. But they have a dream to return to Valinor, country, where their immortality wont be so hard and difficult.

Lutien

Lutien Tinuviel (“Tinuviel” could be translated from Quenya as “nightingale”) is the most beautiful elven virgo in the whole Arda (The Earth). One day she was singing the hymn to Varda in the forest:

Ir Ithil ammen Eruchin (When the Moon is for us, the children of Eru,

Menel-vir sila diriel Like sky precious stone shines and saves,

Si loth a galadh lasto din! Let the flower and the tree listen in silence!

A hir Annun gilthoniel Oh, queen of the West, which light the stars,

Le linnon im Tinuviel! I sing to you, it’s me, Tinuviel.)

Beren, the bravest warrior herd this sounds and loved Lutirn in a moment. But he was mortal and she was an elf. That is why they could not be together. But their love was so strong, that Lutien managed to ask the goddess Varda to help them. And Varda helped them, so Lutien became mortal and shared the destiny of her sweetheart.
Lutien is a copy of Edith Bratt, the wife of Tolkien. Like Lutien Edith had hair of the color of raven’s wing, satin skin, shining eyes. She danced and sang very well. And like the elven virgo, she danced for him in the forest. And there is a inscription on her tomb: “Edith Mary Tolkien (Lutien)”

Shelob

Shelob is a brainchild of Ungoliant, a jumbo spider with a beak, pincers and bottomless stomach. Ungoliant is the evil and concentrated darkness. She terminated the Two Great Trees Telperion and Laurelin and deprived the world frome the light that give life.

Shelob is smaller then her mother, but she is even more cruel and always hungry. This creature lives in a lair on the border of Mordor (the Dark Land). She has a poison in her stinger, using which she kills and devours her victims.

In his early childhood, being in South Africa, Tolkien stumbled on a tarantula. It bit him, and he ran in terror across the garden until the nurse snatched him up and sucked out the poison. Since that time he began to afraid spiders. Maybe this made him to create such a creature.

“She”+”lob” is a quite wide-spread model of forming words, like female animals. For example “she-goat” or “she-wolf”. In this case words should be written with hyphen. Tolkien took hyphen away and used the received word as the name of his creature. It looks rather horribly, isn’t it?


Tolkiens view on some events from

The Bible and archaic history

The crash of the Lamps

In the beginning of ages in “The spring of Arda” (“Arda” means “The Earth”) there was no light at all. The Earth was bare: no trees, no plants, no animals. The Valar saw, that there was a need of the light. And then “Aule at the prayer of Yavanna wrought two mighty lamps for the lighting of the Middle-earth which he had built amid the encircling seas. Then Varda filled the lamps and Manwe hallowed them, and the Valar set them upon high pillars, more lofty far than are any mountains of the later days. One lamp they raised near to the north of Middle-earth, and it was named Illuin; and the other was raised in the south, and it was named Ormal; and the light of the Lamps of the Valar flowed out over the Earth, so that all was lit as it were in a changeless day.” And then plants and trees began to grow. And Arda filled with different animals and creatures. But when Morgoth (the lord of darkness and evil) saw the fragrance of Arda in his anger he decided to destroy this all. He built an unshakable citadel in Utumno and concentrated all his dark forces there. His power grew and he started the war. He made his stroke when the Valar where not prepared. “He assailed the lights of Illuin and Ormal, and cast down their pillars and broke their lamps. In the overthrow of the mighty pillars lands were broken and seas arose in tumult; and when the lamps were spilled destroying flame was poured out over the Earth. And the shape of Arda and the symmetry of its waters and its lands was marred in that time, so that the first designs of the Valar were never after restored.”