Tolkien and women

Cafe Society
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201

If you still think that, then I suggest you read the review that @Wendell_Wagner linked to above:

Perilous and Fair: Women in the Works and Life of J.R.R. Tolkien

Those are serious, scholarly essays. They are almost all by women, and they hardly have a single negative word to say about Tolkien. In fact, they have a lot of positive things to say about Tolkien and women, both in his life and in his works.

This excellent collection of essays is long overdue, for in spite of the breadth and depth of scholarship dealing with female characters or feminist themes in Tolkien’s work, there has not been, to my knowledge, an entire volume devoted to this topic.

Furthermore, as Croft and Donovan note in their introduction there remains “a continuing and alarming tendency among some current Tolkien scholars to remain unfamiliar with or to disregard outright the more positive readings of Tolkien’s female characters and gender politics found easily in both classic and recent research”

202

He got a lot of his names from there:

Longish text

10. Þar var Móðsognir mæztr of orðinn

dverga allra, en Durinn annarr;

þeir mannlíkun mörg of gerðu

dvergar í jörðu, sem Durinn sagði.

11. Nýi, Niði, Norðri, Suðri,

Austri, Vestri, Alþjófr, Dvalinn,

Nár ok Náinn Nípingr, Dáinn

Bívurr, Bávurr, Bömburr, Nóri,

Ánn ok Ánarr, Óinn, Mjöðvitnir.

12. Veggr ok Gandalfr, Vindalfr, Þorinn,

Þrár ok Þráinn, Þekkr, Litr ok Vitr,

Nýr ok Nýráðr, nú hefi ek dverga,

Reginn ok Ráðsviðr, rétt of talða.

13. Fíli, Kíli, Fundinn, Náli,

Hefti, Víli, Hannar, Svíurr,

Billingr, Brúni, Bíldr ok Buri,

Frár, Hornbori, Frægr ok Lóni,

Aurvangr, Jari, Eikinskjaldi.

14. Mál er dverga í Dvalins liði

ljóna kindum til Lofars telja,

þeir er sóttu frá salar steini

Aurvanga sjöt til Jöruvalla.

15. Þar var Draupnir ok Dolgþrasir,

Hár, Haugspori, Hlévangr, Glóinn,

Dóri, Óri Dúfr, Andvari

Skirfir, Virfir, Skáfiðr, Ái.

– Völuspá

Eikinskjaldi means “oakenshield.”

203

I’d be more impressed by a collection that did have an occasional negative word. I didn’t read all of those, though I might come back to them later; but they appeared to have been selected specifically for only discussing positive readings.

204

Or then there’s Pratchett, who took his Dwarvish names from equal parts Tolkien and Snow White. So you can get names like Gloin Bashfulson.

205

Well, yes and no. I’ve used up a lot of vacation time at conferences, listening to talks about Tolkien and the other Inklings and also about other works of fantasy and mythology. I enjoy hanging out with people at conferences who are interested in fantasy and science fiction and going to monthly meetings of local clubs for those interested in such things. It appears to me that you’ve done a better job of reading all the works Tolkien wrote, many of which were only published after his death.

I’m a little closer to being an expert on C. S. Lewis. I have written a paper on one little piece of his writings. (It’s about the people referred to under the pseudonyms of Gaius, Titius, and Orbilius early in The Abolition of Man.) It hasn’t been published yet, but I’ve circulated it among some Lewis scholars. There is a footnote in a recent book on The Abolition of Man that cites my paper. Still, I’m an amateur who hasn’t read enough to be called a scholar in Tolkien, Lewis, the Inklings in general, or fantasy in general.

206

Exactly

Its easy to cherry pick scholarly literature - especially articles about literature - which are often deconstructionist in nature. It would be really disappointing if a JSTOR search did not bring up articles critical of Tolkien’s treatment of gender and race - because that would mean he’d gotten a pass.

Heck, I read over a scholarly article last year critical of Zora Neale Hurston’s treatment of gender and race, and she was a black woman writing truly breakthrough narrative ABOUT her gender and race. Tolkien isn’t getting a pass by literary scholars if Hurston isn’t.

207

Thorne Smith was born in 1892. He wrote fantasy books with women in them. In Did She Fall?, a mystery. With women.

Tolkien was more his upbringing and his preferred world view than when he was born.