The Hobbit - Chapter 12 - Inside Information

[Aiwendil]

Bethberry wrote:

There is one final passage I find particularly intriguing. It begins the description of Bilbo's coming under the spell of the treasure hoard.

One interesting note on the bit you quoted - Douglas Anderson (editor of The Annotated Hobbit) speculates that this passage might relate to Owen Barfield's notion of "ancient semantic unity", with which Tolkien was quite impressed. To put it briefly, Barfield's idea is that over the course of history and linguistic evolution, there has been a fragmentation of concepts in human thought. He claims that, for example, the word spiritus in Latin was not a single word with various meanings (breath, air, spirit), but rather that the various meanings that we now distinguish were not then distinguished - so to the Romans "breath" and "spirit" were the same concept. So certain uses of words that we now see as metaphorical were not originally so; language, he claims had a pre-metaphorical stage.

Tolkien's statement that:

To say that Bilbo's breath was taken away is no description at all. There are no words left to express his staggerment, since Men changed the language that they learned of elves in the days when all the world was wonderful.

. . . could then mean that his breath was literally taken away, but that this is something that cannot be said anymore, since the statement "his breath was taken away" is now (post-fragmentation) automatically assumed to be metaphorical.

[Formendacil]

Esty, you must be a saint, keeping up this task week after week, with so little public response...

As one of the tardy, I can only seek forgivenes.

And post.

Which I shall do now.

Anyway, this chapter, with the dialogue of Bilbo and Smaug, is the true high point of the story- for me. Dragons in general fascinate me, and dragons as Tolkien painted them in particular. Glaurung is probably one of my favourite characters in the Silmarillion, and I really have to thank and commend Aiwendil for his comparisons between Glaurung and Smaug.

Alas, but I still itch for more... what was the tale of Scatha? What of the other dragons, who drove Thrór and his kin out of the North? What, indeed, of Ancalagon the Black?

Ah well... at least there's Chrysophylax in Farmer Giles of Ham...

The dialogue, of course, is what makes the chapter. Smaug is probably the most entertaining character in the entire Hobbit. I would love to see him in conversation with other characters, like Thorin, Gandalf, Elrond, or someone from elsewhere in the Legendarium. Saruman would be particularly interesting, I think. Imagine the seductive power of his voice pitched against that of Smaug.