The Hobbit is what?

[Imladris]

Is it a myth, or does it merely have mythical elements?

According to C.S Lewis, this is what constitutes a myth (I suspect that Tolkien had the same idea since his LotR is very clearly mythical in this sense of the definition):

1. It is, in the sense I have already indicated, extra-literary. Those who have got at the same myth through Natail Comes, Lempriere, Kingsley, Hawthorne, Robert Graves, or Roger Green, have a mythical experience in common; and it is important, not merely an H.C.F. In contrast to this, those who have got the same story from Brook's Romeus and Shakespeare's Romeo share a mere H.C.F. in itself valueless.

What Lewis is saying is that you don't need to read the story to have it affect you. The synopsis is enough. Now, does the Hobbit do that? Do you feel the sense of excitement when you read how a young, stay at home, peace loving, chubby short person goes off with a pack of dwarves to rescue treasure deep within a mountain guarded by a riddling dragon? In a way it is like a normal adventure movie, yet...in a way, it is not.

2. The pleasure of myth depends hardly at all on such usual narrative attractions as suspense or surprise. Even at a first hearing it is felt to be inevitable. And the first hearing is chiefly valuable in introducing us to a permanent objection of contemplation -- more like a thing than a narration -- which works upon us by its peculiar flavour or quality, rather as a smell or a chord does.

In other words, we never tire of it. We go again and again to read and contemplate upon it. The Hobbit is not as intellectually deep as LotR is. However the most intrigueing, most deep part, is in Gollum's cave and the riddle game. The theme of the subtle allure of evil, for a decent hobbit would not have broken the rules.

3. Human sympathy is at a minimum. We do not project ourselves at all strongly into the characters. They are like shapes moving in another world. We feel indeed that the pattern of their movements has a prfound relevance to our own life, but we do not imaginatevely transport ourselves into theirs. The story of Orpheus makes us sad; but we are sorry for all men rather than vividly sympathetic with him, as we are, say, with Chaucer's Troilus.

We do know Bilbo and the dwarves better than Frodo and the Fellowship. We sympathize with him. That's about all that I can see in the Hobbit to go with this one.

4. Myth is always, in one sense of that word, 'fantastic'. It deals with impossibles and preter-naturals.

Gandalf's magic...dragons...talking thrushes...talking crows. Yup. Definitely has that. Shape changers.

5. The experience may be sad or joyful but it is always grave. Comic myth (in my sense of myth) is impossible.

The Hobbit is undoubtedly funny. However, it's grave too. Kili and Fili, the youngest dwarves, died. Thorin died. Thorin and Bilbo barely had a chance to make up because of the Arkenstone. An entire town was destroyed. And at the end, Bilbo comes back to people selling off his hole and he has to buy back all his possessions. So typical of life, isn't it?

6. The experience is not only grave, but awe-inspiring.

Sorry, but the Hobbit isn't exactly awe inspiring.

Another thing about myth is that it appeals to us. It appeals to our desires. Does the Hobbit do that?

I leave you with this final quote:

Successful myths rise to probe the ultimate mystereis of existence, simultaneously arousing the reaader's wonder and awakening in him a desire that these insights might be true."

-- Rolland Hein.

Based on the things I have outlined, I would have to conclude that the Hobbit is not a myth per se, but a fantastical story with mythical elements.

[Son of Númenor]

The way I see it, Tolkien's Legendarium is one big myth - the 'Arda myth' - of which The Hobbit is but a piece. It reminds me more of folkloric recount than a myth, but is nonetheless an integral (if somewhat distinct) piece of the Arda Myth. To draw a rather crude analogy, I would say that The Hobbit is akin to Barliman Butterbur's role in Middle-earth: one would not think of him as being related in any way to such grave, 'mythical' figures as Gandalf, Aragorn, or Frodo; yet he is, in his own way, an important part of the events of the War of the Ring in which those three partook.

It may be true that it does not fit Lewis's definition of myth (a definition which I happen to mostly agree with), and is arguably a far cry from it - but in it's own way, because of its mythical allusions and importance in the history of Arda, The Hobbit is transcendent of Lewis's definiton; it is a fantastical tale within a grander myth.

[Eomer of the Rohirrim]

I'm not sure that Lewis' assertion that myths must be awe-inspiring is true. Awe is such a strong term and can surely mean different things to different people. The Lord of the Rings causes ridicule, not awe, among some people, yet I would argue that it is still myth.

Vice versa, there are stories which I hold in awe which are clearly not myth.

[mark12_30]

Thoroughly influenced by Loremaster LittleManPoet:

I think I see The Hobbit as more of a Faerie-Tale-- or at least it started out that way, and then took a serious turn shortly before the Battle of the Five Armies.

See It Feels Different Near The Shire for further elaboration on that.

I'll not deny it has many different mythical elements, and I suppose it could be called a myth; although-- personally-- my test for "Mythicity" (groan!!!) is simpler--

"What truth shines through from The Truth?"

(Another can of worms.)

In Lord of the Rings, the truths shining through from the Truth are stark and clear. But in The Hobbit? Hmmmm. Next time I read it, I'll keep this issue in mind, and see what I decide...

[Gurthang]

I have always thought of The Hobbit as slightly different from LOTR. It almost seems....simpler. It is a vital part of the tale of the Ring, but is told in a way that it does not come across as overly deep. It is the perfect hook for LOTR. It is basic enough that a beginner to Tolkien would not suddenly be scared away, as they might if they tried to start with The Silmarillion. Yet it holds all the key elements of JRRT's style that keep us so fascinated every time we read it.

I agree that it is a 'kind of' myth. It is, as Son of Numenor pointed out, a small part of a greater myth. Such as a piece in a puzzle. Without that one piece, you can still see what the puzzle looks like, but the puzzle is still not complete without that one piece.

All in all, it is not a myth in itself, but does belong to a myth, and the myth would not be as great without it.

[davem]

The Hobbit is a non mythic story set in a mythic world. Its as if anyone of us were suddenly to stray into the world of myth, & have a series of adventures - we would not be creating another myth, but rather interacting with them. So, its a fairy story, which is not a poor man's myth, but a thing in itself. In that sense it could be argued that LotR is not a myth, it is also a fairy story. The early part of the Legendarium, the Ainulindale, Valaquenta, the creation of Arda, the early battles with Melkor, are the myths, the tales of the first age are Legends, & the events of the Hobbit & LotR are fairy stories.

Having said that, I think all Imladris's points apply to fairy stories as much as to myths, & Helen's point is valid - the Hobbit opened up a whole new, 'real' world to me, & that feeling of 'reality' comes from somewhere, not originating in art, but communicated through art - the art is the medium of comunication, because if its true that

Successful myths rise to probe the ultimate mystereis of existence, simultaneously arousing the reaader's wonder and awakening in him a desire that these insights might be true."

then that implies that there are such things as the 'ultimate mysteries of existence' which can be 'probed', & the 'sense that these things might be true' must come from somewhere. We're back to 'desire' - what is it that we 'desire'? And why is it only myths, legends & fairy stories that both whet & feed that specific desire?

Whether its a myth a legend or a fairy story is in the end irrelevant, the important question, for me, is why & how, it affects us in the way it does - the effect is more important than the label.

Let me throw something in here.

In the catalogue for the 1992 Tolkien Centenary exhibition at the Bodleian Library in Oxford, there's a page of Tolkien's calligraphic doodles, written on the back of a torn sheet of minutes from an English Faculty Board Meeting of 27th Oct 1939. Mostly nonsense, but a couple of sentences read:

Gandalf caused a curious stir in Alfaromdor by having his whiskers curled.
Can you imagine anything more inept.

Genuine Tolkien - there's a reproduction of the page in the catalogue.

Now just reading that I could almost begin to imagine a fairy story, certainly more along the lines of the Hobbit than LotR (in fact another 'doodle' on the page reads 'In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit, curious & egregious little person as any of his friends would have told you').

So, I was almost back in the fairy story world of the Hobbit, just by reading that one sentence. Its like that world exists & there are 'doorways' into it in even the most unlikely places - even on a page of 'doodles'.

Originally Posted by Imladris

What Lewis is saying is that you don't need to read the story to have it affect you. The synopsis is enough. Now, does the Hobbit do that?

I'd say yes - because the 'synopsis' Tolkien doodled there affected me, even tough it will never be possible to read the whole story.

[littlemanpoet]

Wow, Mark, thanks for the kindness! You represent my thought well, of course.

But the quality of the effect will be different.

Reading the synopsis alone gives one the skeleton of the fairy tale: the plot, hero, villain, main artefact, the heroic task to be achieved, the denoument.

Reading a snapshot, such as the doodles on the back of a page of minutes, give you a flavor, or something - - - but if you did not know the story, wouldn't the flavor be different? You know who Gandalf was, and what a Hobbit is. Tolkien knew Gandalf as a Norse dwarf when he wrote that line, though it obviously sparked some deep creative thing in him; and he had no idea what a Hobbit was - yet - at that time.

Reading an entire chapter (perhaps one may call it a panoramic snapshot), which was how I was introduced to Tolkien, gives one a different taste. This is what happened to me. My older brother read Riddles in the Dark to me when I was age 8 -in the dark, as a bedtime reading. I was hooked! But my experience was quite different from Tolkien's, obviously

I immediately began reading the book for myself. Desire with a capital "D" hit me for the first time during a mere description of traveling (doesn't that say volumes about me?) - from the Shire to the Ettenmoors. It was meant by Tolkien to be a recounting of moving from pleasant, recognized, homely environs to inhospitable wilds, but I remember seeing the blowing leaves in the trees, the lonely hills, the endless miles of wild land with just a single road passing through its vastness, with old ruined castles built by kings long ago that some said were evil. - - A world was opened up to me in that single passage, a world I wanted enter.

So in my estimation, The Hobbit has mythic elements. So I agree in general with point #1, and entirely with point #2, that the pleasure of mythic fairy tale is not in suspense, etc.

Point #3, that human sympathy is at a minimum..... well, in thoroughgoing myth, quite. In traditional fairy tale, I think this also holds. Consider the tales collected by the brothers Grimm as an example. But in mythic fantasy, something that is unique to the 19th through 21st centuries, human sympathy is absolutely essential.

Mythic fantasy is a new entity, first developed by such folks as William Morris and Lewis Carroll (Tolkien liked "Sylvie and Bruno"). Davem is correct that the Silmarillion and the Lays of Beleriand, etc., were myth. Tolkien designed them that way. But LotR and the Hobbit (as well as Leaf by Niggle and Smith of Wootton Major) are mythic fantasy. It contains the stuff of myth, legend, and fairy tale, but renders it in a modern novel or short story.

The Hobbit, by the way, most definitely contains the fantastic. There's a Ring that endows its wearer with invisibility, there are Elves who can disappear from view in the flash of a moment, there is a dragon, there is an oracle and prophecy, a special keyhole that can only be seen by moonlight. Very mythic and folkloric.

[Tuor of Gondolin]

I imagine if an elf was asked he would say both no and yes.

It was originally written, of course, as a child's story originally
unconnected to greater Middle-earth,

...my mind on the 'story' side is really preoccupied with the 'pure' fairy tales or mythologies of the Silmarillion, into which even Mr Baggins got dragged against my original will...

Letters # 31

...not until the book was finished and published-indeed not until he began to write the sequel-did he realize the significance of hobbits-and see that they had a crucial role to play in his mythology. In itself The Hobbit began as merely another story for amusement. Morover it nearly suffered the fate of so many others and remained unfinished.

Biography (HC), p. 176-177.

So it rather depends on ones perspective whether to view it as originally
conceived or as later incorporated (philosophically and some crucial elements)
into Middle-earth mythology.