Tolkien as a British Character

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by Lalwendë

Well you could just say "madness is akin to genius" ("...and other cliches...") and have done but that's dismissing him as a British eccentric. That's correct. Because he was eccentric.

Tolkien is small-fry in the mad stakes in comparison, though in and of himself he was somewhat odd being a Catholic in a very CofE city and University. I've heard it said many a time that Oxford is a bit like a magnet for eccentrics.

Well, yes, about the genius/madness bit. I can't help but consider Tolkien and Blake together. Both created vast mythologies, new deities, poetry, and visual arts. Blake apparently used to sit naked under trees and converse with angels, but I've never heard of Tolkien doing this. Sitting under trees, yes, but not starkers. And I can't recall anything in the bio or the letters about Tollers conversing with Ulmo, Manwe, Varda, Melkor.

So this is the point I was rather interested in: is Tolkien "small-fry in the mad stakes"? Was he more eccentric than his compatriots and fellow countrymen?

Frankly, I wonder about his political acumen when I read about a girdle holding a country together. Granted the meaning of girdle as corset or restraining undergarment didn't come into vogue until c. 1925, I still have strange images of a female leader walking around with ungirded loins while her country survives a tight squeeze.

And could he not twig to how the name Asfaloth sounds? Think of the sport actors would have crying out to their fellow thespians as they walk on stage, Bregalad. Isn't there a bit of fun in Aragorn becoming King E-lesser? And if a farmer can be named Maggot, can readers have fun with dropping the 'heitch' of North Farthing--"Is wasn't me that dropped one, Maw, it was the cat." Or seeing a similarity of sound and rhythm between Undomiel and Ungoliant? Going and doing they lay waste their powers?

Frankly, I think this kind of word play is the opposite of what Lal calls a desire to avoid boastfulness: it's the very kind of arrogance that hides its silliness in a seeming display of learnedness. We tend to take Tolkien's languages as something serious, sacred, even sacrosanct, but I think The Good Professor was too eccentric to be so sombre. Tollers was a Python before their time.