I know this is an obscure question, but there are several Tolkien threads on the boards now, and as I have been delving deeper into Children of Hurin I find yet again charactors talking about what Age has come, or is passing or what age they are currently in.
Does anyone know why Tolkien gives his charactors such a keen sense of the passing of time in terms of what Age has come or passed?
Gandalf saying, “…we now enter the age of men…” or Frodo mentioning to Gandalf why this had to happen to him in this age, why couldn’t it have happened in this age or that…
It’s as if Tolkien wants his charactors to be cognizant of the story being told. To alert the reader in such a way as to make them aware that the charactors in the books know the passage of time by naming different ages.
Anyone want to take a guess as to why he does this?
I’d say it is because Tolkien himself was acutely aware of his own life being lived on the threshold of an age, or rather at the bridge between two ages. Afterall, he got to compare the heyday of Empire in colonial South Africa with the aftermath of World War II, and lived through the horrors of the First World War. Tolkien’s characters are aware of the changing of times because the Professor himself was – that’s what the outer reason seems to be. In story logic, Gandalf would know because as a Maiar, he has a bit more insight into things and can really figure that with the Elves gone, Men will have to step up.
That’s a good hypothesis. It’s interesting, Tolkien was a voracious hater of allegory, and yet, his life and writings are so intertwined with the events of that era…
They know the Ages because they themselves set the Ages. It’s not like there’s some secret Age-clock ticking behind Middle Earth, and the characters look out through the fourth wall and see it. The characters know that the times, they are a-changing, just from living in the world and seeing it. And when the times change, they account it a new Age.
Also, several of the major characters have lived through ages already. Many of the elves, especially those of the Noldor, have seen the ages change. Galadriel, for example, was born in Valinor during the time of the trees. She could have been around ten thousand years old by the dawn of the First Age(with the rising of the sun and moon). She saw that age end with the fall of Beleriand. Then she saw the second age come with the founding of the elf kingdoms in the west of middle-earth and go with the downfall of Sauron at the hands of the Last Alliance. Then she sees the third age begin with the split of the kingdoms of Gondor and Arnor and end with the destruction of the One Ring. By this time she’s between 7,000 and 17,000 years old(they didn’t track time during the time of the trees, but it’s estimated to have lasted around 10k years). She’s learned to recognize what constitutes the definition of an age.
I had to go Googling as I could not find it in Letters, but this might help a bit.
It is gleaned from: Carpenter, Humphrey and Tolkien, Christopher (eds.) (1981). The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, #211 pg 283 footnote. ISBN 0-395-31555-7. (via Wikipedia)
Later Ages
Tolkien said that he thought the time between the end of the Third Age and the 20th century AD was about 6000 years, and that in AD 1958 it should have been around the end of the Fifth Age if the Fourth and Fifth Ages were about the same length as the Second and Third Ages. He said, however, in a letter written in 1958 that he believed the Ages had quickened and that it was about the end of the Sixth Age/beginning of the Seventh.
Speculation concerning Later Ages
While Tolkien originally described Middle-earth as a fictional early history of the real Earth he later adjusted this slightly to describe it as a mythical time within the history of Earth. This ‘mythical’ distinction served to remove the stories of Middle-earth from any specific time period where they might contradict known details of actual history.
Determining the epoch of a Fifth Age is important for those who apply the Tolkien calendar to present dates. For example, issue 42 of Mallorn, the journal of the Tolkien Society (August 2004), carried a lengthy article analyzing all the available data and concluding that the Years of the Sun began on March 25, 10160 BC, the Second Age on December 26, 9564 BC, the Third Age on December 24, 6123 BC, and the Fourth Age on March 18, 3102 BC. Following this separation of ages, one arrives at approximately the year 1789 AD, the year of the French Revolution, as the beginning of the Sixth Age.
Nah, mtgman and What Exit have already done most of the heavy lifting on the topic.
Tho I will add that one of the most important things about the coming of the Fourth Age is that it meant the waning of the Firstborn (elves) in Middle-Earth and the waning of the powers of prescience among the Valar. The world was now entering a time after the vision of the Music of the Ainur had been taken away, and the Valar were no longer so certain about what was going to happen next…
I would think that the references carry some weight or foretelling, but also perhaps that is just the way ME folk refer to things. We do something similar when we say “very 1950s overtones, but with a 70s spin”.
Now, ages are NOT decades, not even close. But by using a time frame to describe a current event, it helps delineate precise meaning.
Or maybe Tolkien wanted the reader to have the awareness that the elves had.
Dividing the world into ages is an exercise in history, to be applied retroactively for convenient study. Speaking of the passing of an age in the present tense is more a recognition of the titanic nature of events. Gandalf et al, knew that the war of the ring would be, for good or ill, a world-changing event. That the way things had been was ended and was different than the way they would be. In an over-used phrase, it would be a paradigm shift on a global scale.
Such a view is not new. Many veterans of the American Civil War talked about how the world after the war was different than the one before. They expressed a feeling that a new age had begun. More applicable is the similar feeling expressed by soldiers of the Great War. Tolkien was one of those soldiers. So it’s perfectly reasonable that he would understand what it is to live through a Passing of an Age. To be a small player in great events.
