Here's the articles comparing the styles of Morris, Eddison, and
Tolkien to which I referred upthread.
Note that this is quoted from two much earlier posts, and ought all
tohave >s in front of it, but I was too lazy to put them all in.
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From holly-***@home.com.xxx Tue May 22 16:13:35 PDT 2001
[remaining headers snipped]
After replying in the original thread mentioning that I'd argued for
Tolkien as having a plain style, I decided to dig up the section in my
dissertation where I made that argument.
Here I'm discussing the use of language in "classic" fantasy, and taking
examples from Morris, Eddison, and finally Tolkien to illustrate a shift
in style over time. I define what I mean as "classic fantasy" elsewhere
-- suffice for the purposes of this section to say that I'm talking
about early fantasy set in a secondary world.
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In the primary world, one of the main signs of being in a different
country is that the inhabitants speak a different language, or at least
speak one's own language with a different accent. It follows suit that
one of the most natural ways to show the reader that he or she is in a
different place-whether a different part of the world in a realistic
novel, or a secondary world in a fantasy-is to give the inhabitants of
that place a characteristic style of speech. The early classic
fantasists went one step further and cast not just the characters'
speech, but also the narrative itself, in a style distinct from
contemporary usage. In this way, the language of the story serves as a
strong marker that the reader is no longer in the everyday world.
Morris' style serves as the best example of the early classic
fantasists' narrative style. Drawing on his interest and knowledge of
ancient language and literature, Morris used language that was nearly as
archaic to his late-nineteenth-century readers as it is to readers a
century later. A brief passage of description and dialogue from early in
The Well at the World's End illustrates the distinct sound of Morris'
prose:
Ralph rode straight up to the house of a man whom he knew, and had often
given him guesting there, and he himself was not seldom seen in the High
House of Upmeads. This man was a merchant, who went and came betwixt
men's houses, and bought and sold many things needful and pleasant to
folk, and King Peter dealt with him much and often. Now he stood in the
door of his house, which was new and goodly, sniffing the sweet scents
which the morning wind bore into the town; he was clad in a goodly long
gown of grey welted with silver, of thin cloth meet for the summer-tide:
for little he wrought with his hands, but much with his tongue; he was a
man of forty summers, ruddy-faced and black-bearded, and he was called
Clement Chapman.
When he saw Ralph he smiled kindly on him, and came and held his stirrup
as he lighted down, and said: "Welcome, lord! Art thou come to give me a
message, and eat and drink in a poor huckster's house, and thou armed so
gallantly?"
Ralph laughed merrily, for he was hungry, and he said: "Yea, I will eat
and drink with thee and kiss my gossip, and go my ways." (9-10)
In his discussion of Morris' language in Fantasy: The Liberation of
Imagination, Richard Mathews explains that "the key words are of Saxon
rather than Latin derivation. ... Anglo-Saxon, with its Germanic-Nordic
origins, has a vocabulary primarily of short, active, colloquial words
... and a different sound and rhythm than the Frenchified and Latinate
language that dominated upper-class and scholarly vocabulary" (46). Even
in the short passage above, the reader encounters the distinct rhythm of
short words that Mathews mentions, as well as unfamiliar syntax ("he
himself was not seldom seen"; "little he wrought with his hands"), and
archaic vocabulary: guesting, betwixt, goodly, meet, lighted down,
gossip, and the use of "thou."
Mathews goes on to point out that this narrative style affects the
reader's perception of the secondary world: "The language helps to
create a different reality and sets Morris's world apart from the
inheritors of the road-building Romans, the hierarchical, artificial
Latin of the Church, or even the romantic French, the refined language
of society and diplomacy" (46). Brian Attebery likewise stresses the
"distancing" effect of Morris' language: "Morris invented a storytelling
language to match his imaginary worlds: grand, but severe sometimes to
the point of stiffness. Such a style gives his stories a distant quality,
like faded tapestries, but they are lovely and often quite moving" (8).
One of the effects on the story of this linguistic distancing of the
secondary world from the primary world is to give the fantasy novel
"some of the range and dignity of myth" (Attebery 9). Mathews goes a
step further and takes Morris' use of Saxon vocabulary as a
philosophical as well as a literary statement, claiming that "Through
his choice of words, which sound quaint and almost awkward to modern
ears, Morris affirms philosophical and linguistic roots within a tribal,
"uncivilized" past that values a more active, communal, nonhierarchical,
noncompetitive lifestyle" (46). This interpretation of Morris' choice of
a Saxon vocabulary relies rather heavily on a romanticized notion of the
ancient Saxons, but it is certainly true that Morris looked to the past
for models of the ideal community that he hoped could be created in the
future.
Morris' use of archaic language in his secondary world found favor among
later classic fantasists. The best of these later authors adopted the
idea of using a distinct style to evoke a distinct world, but made that
style their own. E.R. Eddison's The Worm Ouroboros is a useful example.
Here we have a passage of description and dialogue, as in the quoted
passage from The Well at the World's End, from early in Eddison's novel:
When Gro came to the Witches' booths he found them guarded even as the
Red Foliot had said, and the booths of them of Demonland in like manner.
So went he into the royal booth where the King lay in state on a bier of
spear-shafts, robed in his kingly robes over his armour that was painted
black and inlaid with gold, and the crown of Witchland on his head. Two
candles burned at the head of King Gorice and two at his feet; and the
night wind blowing through the crannies of the booth made them flare and
flicker, so that shadows danced unceasingly on the wall and roof and
floor. On the benches round the walls sat the lords of Witchland sullen
of countenance, for the wine was dead in them. Balefully they eyed Lord
Gro at his coming in, and Corinius sate upright in his seat and said,
"Here is the Goblin, father and fosterer of our misfortunes. Come, let
us slay him."
Gro stood among them with his head erect and held Corinius with his eye,
saying, "We of Witchland are not run lunatic, my Lord Corinius, that we
should do this gladness to the Demons, to bite each at the throat like
wolves [...] If ye have aught against me, let me hear it and answer it."
(53-4)
Eddison makes less use of archaic vocabulary than Morris, but he works
similarly with unfamiliar sentence structure, archaic turns of phrase,
and formal speech in dialogue to create a narrative style that is
distinct from that of the reader's primary world. As with Morris, the
narrative style has both literary and philosophical implications, both
of which were noticed by contemporary readers. James Stephens, in the
introduction to an early edition of the novel, hits on the connection
between Eddison's worldbuilding and his narrative style:
[Eddison] needed a whole cosmos to play in, and created one; and he
forged a prose to tell it in that is as gigantic as his tale. In reading
this book the reader must a little break his way in, and must surrender
prejudices that are not allowed for. He may think that the language is
more rotund than is needed for such a tale, but, as he proceeds, he will
see that only such a tongue could be spoken by these colossi. (xx)
The larger-than-life characters of Eddison's fantasy not only speak and
are narrated about in an epic style, but hold values that are native to
the ancient heroic epics. And, as Orville Prescott points out in his
introduction to the novel, "Eddison himself, who had no love for the
twentieth century, believed passionately in the ideals which inspired
Lord Juss and Lord Brandoch Daha, those very great warriors and gallant
gentlemen. So in these ringing pages courage and nobility and loyalty
are almost taken for granted; women are beautiful and to be served; and
glory is worth striving for" (xvi). While Eddison's tale contains no
implications of how to apply his ideals to the modern world, it is
nonetheless similar to Morris' approach in that the writing style is
consonant with the author's philosophical as well as artistic beliefs.
The last example of style that we will look at is Tolkien's in The Lord
of the Rings. Making a break from the archaic, distant style of Morris
and Eddison, Tolkien opted to write in a plain, accessible,
straightforward English. Tolkien's language is never pedestrian in its
simplicity, however; it carries the story's rich, poetic, dramatic
vision without strain. One of the noteworthy aspects of Tolkien's style
is in dialogue. Characters speak in the most natural and "realistic"
manner yet seen in classic fantasy, and dialogue is important to the
narrative. Tolkien also uses styles of speech to differentiate among
characters and situations: for the most part, the hobbits speak in a
more colloquial and informal way than royalty, while the pressures of
dramatic moments can spark greater eloquence in any of the characters.
This technique adds a flexibility to his narrative style and may help to
explain why The Lord of the Rings conveys a variety of moods as the
story plays out, while the works of Morris and Eddison typically sustain
one mood or tone throughout.
This extract from early in the first book of The Lord of the Rings
presents an identical scene to the one in the extract from Morris' The
Well at the World's End: a traveler approaches an inn. But even without
considering the quite different contexts of each scene, the style itself
is markedly different from that of Morris' novel:
Even from the outside the inn looked a pleasant place to familiar eyes.
[...] Above the arch there was a lamp, and beneath it swung a large
signboard: a fat white pony reared up on its hind legs. Over the door
was painted in white letters: THE PRANCING PONY by BARLIMAN BUTTERBUR.
Many of the lower windows showed lights behind thick curtains.
As they hesitated outside in the gloom, someone began singing a merry
song inside, and many cheerful voices joined loudly in the chorus. They
listened to this encouraging sound for a moment and then got off their
ponies. The song ended and there was a burst of laughter and clapping.
They led their ponies under the arch, and leaving them standing in the
yard they climbed up the steps. Frodo went forward and nearly bumped
into a short fat man with a bald head and a red face. He had a white
apron on, and was bustling out of one door and in through another,
carrying a tray laden with full mugs.
"Can we-" began Frodo.
"Half a minute, if you please!" shouted the man over his shoulder, and
vanished into a babel of voices and a cloud of smoke. In a moment he was
out again, wiping his hands on his apron. (168-169)
The Prancing Pony is clearly not the same kind of inn that Ralph visits
in Morris' colorful yet stylized world, a world in which "goodly" might
be as specific as Morris gets in his description. Here details abound.
The inn has a name, and the bustle going on before Frodo and his
companions even arrive shows us that this world has a life of its own,
apart from the concerns of the narrative. Fat, distracted Barliman
Butterbur is no archetypal innkeeper, but an individual personality, as
we are shown both in the vivid details of his description and in his
speech.
Tolkien's style would end up being very influential, though not so much
as his other innovations, discussed in a later chapter. Later, less
original writers would show that while it is extraordinarily difficult
to reproduce Tolkien's clear, beautiful prose style well, the result of
imitating it badly is not quite as disastrous as the result of badly
imitating the dense archaism of Morris or Eddison. More importantly,
though, Tolkien's use of language showed a new route to the elusive goal
of fantasists, evoking secondary belief. The plain yet vivid style that
convinces the reader of the reality of such homely things as crowded
inns and busy innkeepers in Middle Earth is equally effective in
proposing the reality of elves, rings of power, and walking trees,
because the narrative and the characters themselves treat them no
differently.
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From ***@owlcroft.com Tue May 22 16:14:00 PDT 2001
"Holly E. Ordway" wrote:
[much of interest snipped for brevity]
In the primary world, one of the main signs of being in a different
country is that the inhabitants speak a different language, or at least
speak one's own language with a different accent. It follows suit that
one of the most natural ways to show the reader that he or she is in a
different place-whether a different part of the world in a realistic
novel, or a secondary world in a fantasy-is to give the inhabitants of
that place a characteristic style of speech. The early classic
fantasists went one step further and cast not just the characters'
speech, but also the narrative itself, in a style distinct from
contemporary usage. In this way, the language of the story serves as a
strong marker that the reader is no longer in the everyday world.
One of Tolkien's chief concerns is that his readers never forget that
the world they are seeing is *their* world, is Earth, is the world of
man under God, in which the rules--the moral rules--Tolkien displays
in that world are the same ones operative in our everyday lives. I
suspect that is a key reason this expert philologist chose to have
his proxy characters speak plain, unadorned, everyday English.
[...]
[...] Above the arch there was a lamp, and beneath it swung a large
signboard: a fat white pony reared up on its hind legs. Over the door
was painted in white letters: THE PRANCING PONY by BARLIMAN BUTTERBUR.
Many of the lower windows showed lights behind thick curtains. . . .
I find it interesting that you selected that passage as representative,
because, with the whole of that massive book to look through, it is one
of the few I also chose to exemplify Tolkien's prose in my own little
essay (http://owlcroft.com/sfandf/AUTHORS/JRRTolkien.html) on him. I
guess it is more memorable than it might seem in isolation.
--
Cordially,
Eric Walker, webmaster
Great Science-Fiction & Fantasy Works
http://owlcroft.com/sfandf
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--
Dorothy J. Heydt
Vallejo, California
djheydt at gmail dot com