Tolkien, Tom Bombadil, and the Creative Imagination

T O LK IEN , TOM B O M B A D IL , AND THE C R EA T IV E IM A G IN A T IO N GORDON E. SLETHAUG University of Waterloo S o m e critics, in discussing The Lord of the Rings, sidestep the question of Tom BombadiTs person and function, because, although he is a mythically powerful character, his purpose is not altogether clear.1 Those who do talk about him sometimes maintain, in the words of Peter S. Beagle, that he "belongs to no race, no mission, and no age," or they see him as the embodiment of the beauty or sometimes the amorality of nature.2 So it is that Daniel Hughes calls him "the Pan of Middle-earth" and "innocent, prelapsarian Nature" which may not survive man's destructiveness;3 R.J. Reilly believes him to be "a kind of archetypal 'vegetation go d '";4 Richard Helms terms him "one of the 'spirits' of nature" who embodies "nature's moral neutrality or ambiguity";5 and Thomas J. Gasque considers him a poorly contrived allegorical figure of "life or nature."6 The view of Tom as Pan or as nature - innocent or amoral - is somewhat misleading, for Tolkien strongly suggests that Tom is not himself nature: he is the Eldest, originating before objects of nature in Middle-earth.7 But Tolkien provides the reader with no certainty as to what Tom is; he may be a sort of elf, one of the frolicsome and mysterious beings encountered in fairyland, an unfallen Adam, or a demi-god or allegorical representation of Genius or Nature of the sort found in such medieval writings as the Roman de la Rose, De Planctu Naturae, and Confessio Amantis. His dress - blue jacket, yellow boots, green girdle, and tall hat with a swan-feather - does suggest a kind of Rumpelstiltskin or elf creature out of Grimm. But there the analogy ceases, for we know that Tom is no elf and we also know that he acts in no manner similar to a Rumpelstiltskin. Being the Eldest and maintaining a marvelous rapport with nature, he can plausibly be viewed as an adamic figure. His proprietary attitude towards the trees lends credence to such a view, as does the way he lives within a carefully circumscribed area, a sort of Eden. Yet to say that Tom is simply an allegorization, symbolization, or embodiment of Adam and prelapsarian inno­ cence somehow clashes with Tolkien's handling of him. And, after all, the original Adam fell as a result of being tempted with knowledge and power; Tom is not tempted by the ring, although aware of its power. One such figure in medieval literature, often identified with the powers of Adam but revealing an E n g l is h S t u d ie s in C a n a d a , rv, 3 , F all 19 7 8 342 awareness of the folly of man's history, is the character of Genius, to whom Amans must confess in John Gower's Confessio Amantis, a work from which Tolkien quotes in his essay “ On Fairy-Stories."8 In the Confessio Amantis, Genius serves as spiritual guide to the aging Amans, who, responding to his cupidinous desire, will have the favours of Venus bestowed upon him. Genius and Venus together tell Amans about those who, throughout history, have behaved unwisely in love, morals, and politics, and have consequently ne­ glected the view that "Richesse upon the comun good / And noght upon the singuler / Ordeigned was ..." 9Amans is given to understand that by abusing the laws and fruits of nature - particularly procreation - man raises havoc with God's world and neglects his own talents. At the beginning of the Confessio Amans acts “ willful" against nature - his age and personal ability as a poet-but at the conclusion he puts himself in tune with what is "natural" and agrees to use his talent for the "comun good." By unfolding to Amans what has been unnatural in history, legend, and myth, Genius leads Amans to an awareness of public duty and to new personal, internal awareness of the right and responsible use of his talent. Genius...