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- Publisher: Del Rey
- Edition: Paperback (August 1994)
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Fantasy for Adults! Poetry Corner.
- `The Lays of Beleriand' by J. R. R. Tolkien, edited by son, Christopher Tolkien is by far the most obscure and difficult yet of the postumous volumes starting with `The Silmarillion' and continuing with `Unfinished Stories' and `The Book of Lost Tales'. This is Volume III of `The History of Middle Earth' which will grow to twelve (12) volumes, to be completed by the editor, after almost twenty years, just before the release of the first of the three `The Lord of the Rings' movies in 2001.
From my brief examination of later `History' volumes, I suspect this may actually be the most difficult of them all. For starters, all the original material is in verse. And, with a very few exceptions, Tolkien was not a very good poet. I am not an accomplished critic of poetry, but my exposure to the epic verse of the ancients, Shakespeare, and modern `epic' poets such as Ezra Pound (`The Cantos') leads me to say that Tolkien, in these works, was primarily writing for himself and a very small circle of philologists and colleagues such as C. S. Lewis, with whom Tolkien created the club, The Inklings, who dwelled on such writings.
Even an ardent Tolkien fan could be excused for passing by this volume, as most of the substance of the long poems is repeated in prose, primarily in `The Silmarillion'. However, before giving up on it entirely, I suggest the reader sample some of the Cantos herein to see if the sense they give of the magical elven land of Beleriand may just be a bit more than what you get in the prose stories.
I am constantly amazed, in looking through this history, at how much of this was written in the 1920s and early 1930s, before even starting on `The Hobbit'. I am also thankful to Tolkien's primary publisher, Stanley Unwin, for pushing for another work including hobbits. Of all of Tolkien's writings, the tales in this book and all the stories between the time the Noldor left the undying lands and the sinking of Beleriand after the last battle with Morgoth tend to leave me pretty cold. They just seem to have none of the zip of the story beginning with the founding of Numenor. Leading to the wars against Sauron and the stories surrounding the rings of power.
This volume is composed of multiple versions of two major poems, `The Lay of the Children of Hurin' and `The Lay of Leithian', both of which involve the conflict between the elves of Beleriand and Morgoth. I have read both and find little about which to get excited unless you are a serious language junkie. Unfortunately, my interest in language is based more on semantics than on philology, so I am more in tune to the linguistic tricks of Lewis Carroll than to Tolkien's inventions.
But, if you love invented languages or you are a serious Tolkien trivia maven, this book is definitely for you.
Tolkein as a poet has a little bit of weakness
- J.R.R. Tolkien wrote a variety of poems, most of which he abandoned before they were complete, and almost none of which were published in his lifetime. As part of the process of publishing his father's papers, Christopher Tolkien has published a series of books collectively titled the History of Middle Earth, among which is a collection of poetry entitled, The Lays of Beleriand.
The Lays of Beleriand contains a number of poems in multiple version, including The Lay of Leithian (in octosyllabic couplets) and the Children of Hurin (in alliterative verse.) The book is worth buying if only for the final version of the Lay of Leithian which, had Tolkien finished it, would have been a poem well worth reading. But the majority of the poems in the book are unfinished drafts, often drafts that Tolkien abandoned and never attempted to rework or to publish. Most of them should have been left in the drawer where Tolkien put them, and never seen the light of day. They are not finished poems, and they are often poems that Tolkien clearly felt not to be worthy of publication: few of them come to the level of the poetry that Tolkien included in The Lord of the Rings
Tolkien had several weaknesses as a poet. One of them was his love for archaic language, which he often indulged far beyond the tolerance of a modern audience. When he wrote alliterative verse, he sometimes succumbed to all the temptations the alliterative form offers to a literary scholar: the opportunity to use archaic words to meet the alliterative requirements, the temptation to distort the syntax to meet the rhythmic demands of Anglo-Saxon alliterative meter, and various other sins less besetting, such as the temptation to include filler material for the sake of the meter. The following sample from Tolkien's alliterative Children of Hurin illustrates Tolkien at the level his alliterative verse often sank to:
To the throne of Thingol were the three now come;
there their speech well sped, and he spoke them fair,
for Húrin of Hithlum he held in honur,
whom Beren Ermabwed as a brother had loved
and remembering Morwen, of mortals fairest,
he turned not Turin in contempt away.
There clasped him kindly the King of Doriath,
for Melian moved him with murmured counsel
and he said: "Lo, O son of the swifthanded,
the light in laughter, the loyal in need,
Húrin of Hithlum, thy home is with me,
and here shalt sojourn and be held my son."
There are some pieces which rise to a far higher level. Alliterative poetry is often at its best in set piece descriptions: presentations of scenes and landscapes evocative of a mood. We find some short pieces in which Tolkien succeeds magnificently in this kind of description (in a prose form, it is one of the strengths of The Lord of the Rings.) For example:
With winding horns winter hunted
in the weeping woods, wild and ruthless;
sleet came slashing and slanting hail
from glowering heaven grey and sunless,
whistling whiplash whirled by tempest.
The floods were freed, and fallow waters
sweeping seaward, swollen, angry,
filled with flotsam, foaming, turbid,
passed in tumult. The tempest died.
Tolkien was capable of excellent alliterative poetry, as many of the short verses in Lord of the Rings illustrate. But he does not seem to have been able to sustain a long narrative in alliterative verse; the only poem he continued to work on throughout his life was the Lay of Leithian in rhyming couplets. Even with these flaws, however, The Lays of Beleriand is worth reading for evocative flashes suggestive of his better, published work, and of course, for the fan or the scholar interested in the world of Middle Earth, there is much material available nowhere else.
A real Silmaril in the making
- This is the third book in the Histories of Middle-Earth, compiled and commented on by Tolkien's son Christopher. The first two, titled The Book of Lost Tales I & II, were the earliest writings that became the Silmarillion. Their basic premise was that an Englishman named Eriol finds a lost island populated by Elves who tell him a series of stories or "Lost Tales". These were loosely divided into chapters, each ending with a few or more pages of commentary by Christopher. By the end though we learn that Tolkien is not truly satisfied with the delivery or the full content of the tales, so he embarks upon rewriting them in different styles. One style was a narrative prose that is partially covered in book IV called The Shaping of Middle-Earth and which eventually becomes the Silmarillion. He also tried them in a style of epic poetic metre, the sum of which is known as The Lays of Beleriand.
Introductions aside, the book itself is divided into four major sections, beginning with the Lay of the Children of Hurin. Alas, this is probably the saddest and most tragic tale that Tolkien ever penned, and this is deepened when he translates it into verse. It should also be said here that it is written in alliterative verse meaning that at least two but usually more words have the same beginning sound. I shall give here the first seven lines that not only show you the style and how the words flow, but also they are a brief synopsis of the story itself:
Lo! The golden dragon of the God of Hell,
The gloom of the woods of the world now gone,
The woes of Men and the weeping of Elves
Fading faintly down forest pathways,
Is now to tell, and the name most tearful
Of Níniel the Sorrowful, and the name most sad
Of Thalion's son Turin o'erthrown by fate.
It continues in this style for about 2270 more lines, going through the history of Turin's father, Hurin, and how he came to be Morgoth's prisoner, doomed to helplessly watch everything that befalls his cursed children. It then details Turin being fostered by the elves of Doriath, to the tragic story of his friendship with the elf Beleg, who he accidentally slays by his own hand. The final part translated into verse is about Failivrin, and the beginnings of their tragic love for each other. It ends here, little more than half of the full tale, sadly abandoned so that he could work on other projects.
The second section is only thirteen pages long, composed of a few brief starts at setting some of the earlier tales to verse. The Flight of the Noldoli details the beginning of the first kinslaying on the shores of Valinor. This is very short (146 lines) with much unreached potential. Next are 38 lines about Earendil, and then an even shorter start to the Fall of Gondolin.
The Lay of Lethien, the third section of this book, is where Tolkien's heart truly was. Here we are given 4223 lines written in octosyllabic couplets (meaning that each line is made up of eight syllables) for which I shall give an example:
A king there was in days of old:
Ere Men yet walked upon the mould
His power was reared in cavern's shade,
His hand was over glen and glade.
It continues on in this fashion, most brilliantly, rarely bogging down. This story is carried most of the way through, abruptly stopping with Beren losing his hand after wresting a Silmaril from Morgoth's crown. The beauty of this story is enhanced by Tolkien's skill as a poet, making it, even though unfinished, one of his brightest gems in a dazzling array of works.
We are then left with the fourth and final section, The Lay of Lethien Recommenced. Here we are taken through about 700 lines of rewritten bits. Not many changes happen to the story, but there are some interesting technical changes to the wording, giving us an idea of how devoted Tolkien was to this tale, constantly coming back to it, until he gives his full weight to the writing of the more popular Lord of the Rings.
Throughout the book we are given some special treats as well. There are a few reprints of Tolkien's original manuscripts that are written quite beautifully in English, but we are also given two pages of The Lay of Lethien written in Elvish! Also there are 14 pages of commentary by C. S. Lewis, written as if he were a group of ancient scholars each with their own say on the text. A very fun read.
To say that this book is worth reading is an understatement. Not only does Tolkien write wonderful and inspiring verse, but his son Christopher does an outstanding job of going over everything and giving a step by step of his father's writings and their many changes. Personally this is one of my favorite Tolkien books, in some ways even more so than LOTR, just because of the effort that was put into these lays almost eclipses his much longer effort to write the novels. These were the stories that consumed his mind from the beginning of his writing career until his much-lamented death.
Enjoy and cherish this book.
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