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  • Source and Comparative Studies
  • Edith L. Crowe (bio)

Study of Tolkien’s potential sources is fraught with danger. Coincidence is not causality, and rarely is there a “smoking gun” to prove conclusively that a particular item actually influenced Tolkien. Nonetheless, scholars forge ahead.

Among potential literary sources studied this year, Milton and Dante are the most notable. In “The Fallen: Milton’s Satan and Tolkien’s Melkor” (Kowalik 115–43), Katarzyna Blacharska argues that Milton’s view of Satan was so pervasive that its influence was still present in Tolkien’s time in both scripture and literature. Similarities between Melkor and Satan are noted: the sin that causes their Fall (mainly pride, with no small touch of envy) is evident from the beginning. Among various comparisons, Blacharska notes that the origin of Ungoliant is “strangely analogous to the birth of Sin in Paradise Lost” (127). More interesting are the ways Tolkien chooses not to utilize the Miltonian model. Following Brian Rosebury, Blacharska argues that the faults of Eru’s creation are a result of the creative, artistic streak with which he endowed his creations. Satan appears to possess no such thing, but Morgoth, Fëanor, Aulë (and Elves and Dwarves in general) share the fault of problematic attachment to their creations (122).

Dante is the next major literary figure to be examined. Alison Mil-bank’s “Tolkien and Dante’s Earthly Paradise: Enculturing Nature” (Conrad-O’Briain and Hynes 154–66) differs from existing research. [End Page 257] According to Milbank, such research focuses on topography or guide figures. Here, Dante’s Earthly Paradise of Purgatorio is set against Lothlórien. Both are beautiful but lacking. Purgatorio’s inhabitants are short of the vision of God, while Lothlórien’s remember and mourn lost Valimar. The city and the forest are brought together in Minas Tirith with its White Tree; the New Jerusalem is a garden city; and Dante’s City of God is a flower. Dante explicates Tolkien’s artifice and his way of enculturing nature. Tolkien is unique because he gives both culture and ethnography to everything from animals to trees. Moral growth results from awareness of difference and the discovery of relation to these other beings.

The influence of more recent literature in the same genre is the subject of “Recovering the Effects of Lord Dunsany on J.R.R. Tolkien” by Skye Cervone (Critical Essays on Lord Dunsany, ed. S. T. Joshi [Lanham, MD: Scarecrow, 2013], 265–80). Cervone sees Dunsany and Tolkien as kin in their masterful use of language to create their worlds and sees Dunsany as the one whose fantasy made this possible. Beyond that, Tolkien and Dunsany are alike primarily in the similarity of their worldviews. They share great concern for the destruction of nature, man’s increasing estrangement from it, and the ugliness of modern machines. Dunsany was a significant influence on fantasy writers, and Tolkien was aware of his work (evidenced by his reading of “Chu-Bu and Sheemish”). One wonders, however, how many of these examples indicate influence and how many arise from similar personalities with some of the same experiences.

Jane Suzanne Carroll, in “A Topoanalytical Reading of Landscapes in The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit” (Hunt 121–38), interestingly applies this methodology to show the importance of landscape in Tolkien’s work. Such analysis shows the influence of both medieval literature and children’s books. Topoi in question are sanctuaries; green space; roads and rivers; lapsed spaces; and wastelands and wilderness. The sanctuary concept comes to Tolkien from Heorot in Beowulf. “The motif of the sanctuary under threat and the sanctuary re-consecrated is repeated many times through Lord of the Rings” (127). The influence of children’s literature is seen mainly in the Shire and the Hobbits. A pattern of finding in the sanctuary a comforting “home away from home” is characteristic in such literature.

Following a suggestion by C. N. Manlove, Mizuki Sumiya seeks to specify “George MacDonald’s Influence on J.R.R. Tolkien” (Evergreen 35: 23–47). Taking examples of divine characters and sacrifices from The Golden Key, the Curdie books, and The Lord of the Rings, Sumiya finds that both...

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