The Right and Ancient Fellowship of Bards and Balladeers
Presenting The Hobbit
Whereas Tradition Riddles are Self-Contained, Neck Riddles...
- are a literary trope in which a seemingly unsolvable riddle must be solved to save one’s life or gain the hand of a princess. These are typically solved by out-riddling the riddler.
Personhood and Community
- What does it mean to be human? What does it mean to be a hobbit? Elf? Dwarf? Troll? Goblin?
- Species vs. Race
- Friendship
- The role of ‘adventure’
Beowulf
- Oldest surviving Old English poem
- By unknown author(s)
- Written more than a thousand years ago
- Plot
- A hero battles three monsters...then dies.
Beowulf's Dragon
- A direct inspiration for Smaug
- The two dragons share similar traits and a similar fate
- Gold hoarding
- Fire breathing
- Killed through weak points on their undersides
Dragons Around the World
- Icons of the dragon can be found all over the world.
- 龙 : Ancestors of Chinese kings
- Jörmungandr: Child of Loki, and the great serpent that binds the world.
- Quetzalcoatl: Feathered dragon god that created mankind.
- "Bard." The Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms. 4th ed. 2015. Oxford Reference. http://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780198715443.001.0001/acref-9780198715443-e-119. Accessed 10 Nov 2018.
- Beagle, Peter S. The Last Unicorn. ROC, 2008.
- Doughan, David. “Biography.” The Tolkien Society, 24 Mar. 2018, www.tolkiensociety.org/author/biography/.
- Honegger, Thomas. "My most Precious Riddle: Eggs and Rings Revisited." Tolkien Studies, vol. 10, no. 1, 2013, pp. 89-103, DOI :https://doi.org/10.1353/tks.2013.0017. Accessed 10 Nov. 2018.
- Jones, David E. An Instinct for Dragons. New York: Routledge, 2000.
- Lee, Stuart D., editor. A Companion to J.R.R. Tolkien. John Wiley & Sons, 2014.
- Lee, Stuart D. “Music.” A Companion to J. R. R. Tolkien, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, 2014, pp. I-568.
- McHargue Georges. Beasts of Never. Delacorte Books for Young Readers, 1987
- Nelson, Marie. "Time and J.R.R. Tolkien's 'Riddles in the Dark'." Mythlore, vol. 27, no. 1-2, 2008, p. 67+. Literature Resource Center, http://link.galegroup.com.ezproxy.library.ubc.ca/apps/doc/A188065413/LitRC?u=ubcolumbia&sid=LitRC&xid=d5e92985. Accessed 10 Nov. 2018.
- Nietzsche, Friedrich W, and Walter A. Kaufmann. Beyond Good and Evil: Prelude to a Philosophy of the Future. New York: Vintage Books, 1989
- Sebo, Erin. “'Sacred and of immense antiquity’: Tolkien’s use of medieval riddles in 'The Hobbit'.” Tolkien: The Forest and The City, edited by Helen Conrad-O'Briain and Gerard Hynes, Four Courts Press, 2013.
- Tolkien, J. R. R., and Christopher Tolkien. The Silmarillion: Edited by Christopher Tolkien. George Allen & Unwin, 1977.
- Tolkien, J. R. R. The Hobbit or There and Back Again. HarperCollins Childrens Books, 2012.
- Williamson, Craig. "Beowulf" and Other Old English Poems. University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011, muse-jhu-edu.ezproxy.library.ubc.ca/book/2253/?fbclid=IwAR1_ew_MuKnZD9fTuPYpXLFlOt9ID9qkqDLU-N2E_rvgDk6Xt6SA9knJDxs.
- What other intertextual connections can be made to the Hobbit?
- How do songs impact your emotions? For example when singing or listening to your favourite song what sort of headspace does it put you in?
- What impact does having a narrator who is part the world have on the Hobbit?
- What other monsters can be traced back to human fears?
- How does speciesism tie to racism?
Dragon Sickness
- A curse that makes people grow madly passionate with treasure and wealth.
- A representation of the ruinous nature of greed
- The dragon’s rage is described as “when rich folk that have more than they can enjoy suddenly lose something that they have long had but have never before used or wanted.”
- Thorin refusing to aid the people of Lake-town
- The town master fled with the gold only to die of starvation in the wild
- “The treasure is likely to be your death, though the dragon is no more!”
- “If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world.”
- Thorin becomes the new dragon
- “He who fights with monsters should be careful lest he thereby become a monster.” - Frederick Nietzsche
Beowulf: The Dragon
- Smaug draws heavily upon Beowulf’s dragon
- Similar portrayals
- Description
- Abilities
- Attributes
The Last Unicorn: Song
- Songs are key
- The Hobbit:
- Dwarves’ song
- Goblins’ song
- Inform/shape novel tone
- Impact characters
- The Last Unicorn:
- Captain Cully’s songs
- Present Captain Cully (his ideal)
- Allow Schmendrick to reveal power
Beowulf: Rings
- Rings in Beowulf have special significance
- Associated with kings (giver-of-rings)
- Causes Tolkien to choose a ring for the Object of Power (The One Ring)
The Last Unicorn: Wizards
- Gandalf & Schmendrick
- Somewhat aware of plot, guide protagonists
- Similar portrayals
- Unassuming figures, older than they appear
- Shabby appearance, belies true power
The Last Unicorn: Relation to The Hobbit
- Draws from The Hobbit, not the inspiration for it
Tolkien the Bard
- John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (1892-1973)
- Professor at University of Oxford of Anglo-Saxon Studies
- Language expertise (Old and Middle English)
- Influence of other authors, William Morris
A Pressing Question About Riddles in The Hobbit
- How does Bilbo “win” the riddle game?
Why Dragons?
- Primate Evolution
- Humans evolved from a common primate ancestor
- 3 major predators for primates
- Carnivorous mammals (big cats)
- Snakes
- Raptors
The Last Unicorn: A Classic Adventure Story
- Hero forced out of comfort zone but succeeds
- Protagonists leave home behind
- Constantly wish to return home
- Over course of story, gain confidence and power
- Initial weakness
- Bilbo and Unicorn are weak, rely upon wizard figure to survive
- Protagonist captured & saved by wizard
- Bilbo: Trolls and Gandalf
- Unicorn: Mommy Fortuna and Schmendrick
The Hobbit and Intertextual Relationships
- The Hobbit is historically important, but also product of history
- Two texts:
- Beowulf, 11th century Anglo-Saxon epic poem
- The Last Unicorn
The Last Unicorn: Quests
- Common style of quest
- Search for specific treasure
- Bilbo: Dwarves’ treasure
- Unicorn: Haggard’s treasure (Missing unicorns)
- Treasures guarded by powerful creature (also gathers treasure)
- Smaug
- Red Bull
- Villain lives in solitary, legendary castle
Beowulf: Trials
- Three trials each
- Beowulf: More simplistic trials
- Grendel
- Grendel’s Mother
- Dragon
- Bilbo: More complex/multifaceted trials
- Misty Mountains
- Mirkwood
- Smaug
- Trial Circumstances
- Protagonists travel far to help strangers
- Use early trials to prove themselves
Beowulf: The Dragon (storyline)
- Circumstances:
- Dragons stole their hoard from single person, didn’t collect it themselves
- Rousal:
- Woken by theft of a golden cup by unexpected character
- Reaction:
- Attack/burn nearby towns in revenge
- Death:
- Slain from below: weak underbelly
- Last-ditch weapon: knife, last arrow
The Last Unicorn: Confronting the Villain
- Protagonists face to face with source of evil
- Do not fight, simply converse
Thomas Honegger Contradistinguishes Questions and Riddles
- By saying that a riddle’s answer can be found using “an application of wit, intelligence, and knowledge of the world, to the hints and clues provided by the riddle itself,” while an answer to a question depends entirely on prior knowledge.
AINULINDALË: The creation of Middle Earth
- “ And it seemed at last that there were two musics progressing at one time before the seat of Ilúvatar, and they were utterly at variance. The one was deep and wide and beautiful, but slow and blended with an immeasurable sorrow, from which its beauty chiefly came. The other had now achieved a unity of its own; but it was loud, and vain, and endlessly repeated; and it had little harmony, but rather a clamorous unison as of many trumpets braying upon a few notes. And it essayed to drown the other music by the violence of its voice, but it seemed that its most triumphant notes were taken by the other and woven into its own solemn pattern.”
- “A self-coherent narrrative of wonder and impossibility in which the world’s technology is organic, and it’s shaping mystery is unexplained.”
Voice
- Oral narrative (Lee 127-8)
- Audience: children and adults (128)
- Juxtaposition of styles (392)
Songs (cont.)
- The first song: The dwarves’ song in Bilbo’s kitchen:
- “As they sang the hobbit felt the love of beautiful things made by hands and by cunning and by magic moving through them, a fierce and a jealous love, the desire of the hearts of dwarves.”
- The second song: The goblin song in the caves:
- “It sounded truly terrifying. The walls echoed to the clap, snap! and the crush, smash! and to the ugly laugther of their ho, ho! my lad! The general meaning of the song was only too plain…”
- The third song: The elf-song at the foot of the mountain:
- “Then Bilbo longed to escape from the dark fortress and to go down and join in the mirth and the feasting by the fires. Some of the younger dwarves were moved in their heart, too, and they muttered that they wished things had fallen out otherwise and that they might welcome such folk as friends; but Thorin scowled.”
Songs
“It seemed rather as if words took the place of music for him, and that he enjoyed listening to them, reading them, and reciting them, almost regardless of what they meant”
- Humphrey Carpenter
- “In a way, the creature that we call ‘dragon’ projects through cultural and individual artistic lenses as a primary feature of human evolution” (Jones,37).
- “[The dragon] the oldest, the first, the most basic monster” (McHargue, 27).
The Right Ancient Fellowship of Bards and Balladeers
Bard:
- poet, storyteller, visionary (Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms)
- sustain and diffuse culture and history
Balladeer:
Musqueam Acknowledgement
We are gathered today on the traditional, ancestral, and unceded territory of the Musqueam people.
Critical Reception
- Largely positive (Lee 16)
- Canonical work in fantasy
- Status as a children’s book (391-2)
On Tolkien, Riddles, and Darkness, Erin Sebo
- Notes “Physical surroundings are important to Tolkien: both the Greek αἴνιγα and its Latin cognate enigma mean ‘riddle’ but also carry a secondary implication of darkness, and I suspect Tolkien had this pun in mind when he set his riddle contests literally in the dark.”