By David Harvey.
Begun 10 Oct 2006; finished 16 Oct.
I usually don’t bother reading commentary on novels, since I prefer to think about them on my own, but this book I found in the library: The Song of Middle-earth: J.R.R. Tolkien’s Themes, Symbols and Myths by David Harvey. The title was intriguing, and the book was also small, so I borrowed and read it.
This book was good timing: it built on my reading of Tolkien’s essay On Fairy-Stories (mentioned here and discussed here), and delved into the ways Tolkien’s Arda mythos contains the structures and elements found in the mythologies of our world, though Harvey confines his discussion to the European mythologies. The subsequent chapters describe the tales, characters and objects that tie in to those mythological symbols: the Quest, the Ascendant and Tragic Heroes, the struggles of Good and Evil, the entwined symbolism of Nature and the Kings of Middle-earth, the “Saviour” figure as embodied in Eärendil, the role of Nature, and the parallels between nature and the rulers of Middle-earth, and the Everyman as represented by the Hobbits. Since Eärendil is my favourite literary character, I most enjoyed the discussion of his importance in the saga of Elves and Men on Middle-earth.
Not surprisingly, the list of symbols isn’t exhaustive, as Harvey specifically dealt with the symbols in Tolkien’s works that had direct parallels in real-world mythology. I also found that his discussion was quite perfunctory: it described what character/elements embodied the symbols, but did not go into details as to how they conveyed their meaning through the wider context of the novels, or interacted with the other symbols present in the stories. But I suppose that is the purpose of this book: to stimulate the reader’s curiosity, and point out stepping-stones which one can use to delve deeper into Arda’s rich symbolism. A deeper and more detailed exposition on Tolkien’s use of symbolism would be more appropriate for a larger book than Harvey’s small, light commentary.
The Song of Middle-earth was a timely book that extended my reading of On Fairy Stories to Tolkien’s own use of mythologic symbols in his own works. It could be a bit meatier, but as an introduction to the symbolism and mythology of Arda, it is just right.