Interestingly, our discussion of these last couple of chapters has concentrated on Galadriel and Celeborn, and the poetry in them has been neglected! I’d like to go back and touch on Frodo’s lament for Gandalf. Two aspects fascinate me: first, the poem tells us who Gandalf is, in Tolkien’s own words (the canonical aspect); secondly, it tells us something about Frodo, to whom it is ascribed, if we read between the lines (the speculative aspect). (The latter is always the most fun, isn’t it?!
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The poem begins in the Shire, with Gandalf coming in the grey evening – quite appropriate for the grey pilgrim! That seems to parallel the development of the LotR storyline, which also begins with the hobbits, Shire, and Gandalf. The second stanza has him traveling further, with all four directions included, and I think it is most closely connected to the plot of
The Hobbit, with its “dragon-lair and hidden door and darkling woods”. The third stanza shows how widespread his influence was, including all free peoples (known to Frodo up to that point – no Ents!) and even mentioning something we don’t actually see in the book – an ability to speak with birds and animals. Apparently that wasn’t limited to Radagast.
The fourth stanza is the most physical description – sword and hand, back and voice are included. In the fifth stanza we see his contrasting aspects, high and low – a “lord of wisdom” and an “old man in a battered hat”, and his contrasting character traits are mentioned – “swift in anger, quick to laugh”. The last stanza is the brief, touching account of his final, fatal fight.
Sam’s stanza doesn’t fit into that, does it?! It describes the fireworks, not the wizard, though I like his lines and find them beautiful.
What does the poem say about Frodo? We read:
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He was seldom moved to make song or rhyme; even in Rivendell he had listened and had not sung himself…
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So we can assume that it was a very important and emotional experience, to get him to do something he would not normally do. Was Frodo a perfectionist? Actually, I can sympathize with his feelings that the words he finally formed did not live up to what his mind imagined.
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…his thought took shape in a song that seemed fair to him; yet when he tried to repeat it to Sam only snatches remained, faded as a handful of withered leaves.
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I would guess that Tolkien, also a perfectionist, felt the same many times, though he did not share Frodo’s hesitation about putting thoughts into words.
Unlike Sam, who showed his ability to write poetry on Elven tales, Frodo is prompted to a poem by a person, one who is close to him. He is one of the “people who need people”, isn’t he?! We see him missing Bilbo, now Gandalf. I see him as having an eye for others, seeing them as they are – one of the spiritual aspects of his personality. I also see him looking to a father figure in both of those persons, not unexpectedly after losing his own father so early in life. The scene closes with his words on both of them:
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I can’t bear to think of bringing the news [of Gandalf’s death] to him [Bilbo].
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Finally, it also occurs to me that he is not reciting this poem in public, but to yet another person who is close to him – Sam.