Lewis Carroll's Influence on Tolkien

[Bêthberry]

Very fascinating observation, lmp and a wonderful example of how to use the Letters and other of Tolkien's writing for fruitful consideration which extends our understand of him.

As with Estelyn, I also have not read the Sylvie and Bruno stories, but will immediately add them to my list of definite reads over the holidays, so I have nothing substantive to add at this time to your hypothetical.

I would, however, caution against too thoroughly applying the name of children's literature to either Carroll's work or TH, although there are valid points which can be made under that rubric. I remember a very erudite Tolkien fan on another site once engaging in the activity of crossing out all the "children's lines' in TH to discover a more serious vein running through the story.

Also, the Victorians did not, as we do, have a hard and fast division between them and some Victorian (and Edwardian) writing for children likely strikes us these days as shocking--Christina Rossetti's Goblin Market being one example. Another is Beatrice Potter's tales, which incorporate logic puzzles and conundrums for adults--or so I've been told by a colleague who teaches children's literature. And then there is J.M. Barrie's Peter Pan.

Perhaps only under the relentless pressure of a culture and literature which prioritised logic and rationality and empiricism would writers turn to find the value of fantasy and fairie in children's psyches.