 Cover of first edition, designed by Lester Adams | |
| Editor | Jared Lobdell |
|---|---|
| Author | see text |
| Language | English |
| Subject | Tolkien studies |
| Genre | Scholarly essays |
| Publisher | Open Court |
Publication date | 1975 |
| Publication place | United States |
| Media type | Print (paperback) |
| Pages | 201 |
| ISBN | 0-87548-303-8 |
| 823/.912 | |
| LC Class | PR6039.O32 Z69 1975 |
A Tolkien Compass, a 1975 collection of essays edited byJared Lobdell, was one of the first books ofTolkien scholarship to be published; it was written without sight ofThe Silmarillion, published in 1977. Some of the essays have remained at the centre of such scholarship. Most were written by academics for fan-organised conferences. The collection was also the first place where Tolkien's own "Guide to the Names inThe Lord of the Rings" became widely available.
The Tolkien scholarTom Shippey described the essays as written in an innocent time before Tolkien studies became professionalised, and as such they offer "freshness, candor, and a sense of historical depth"[1] that cannot be repeated. Other scholars have stated that two of the essays aboutThe Hobbit have become frequently-cited classics in their field.
J. R. R. Tolkien (1892–1973) was an EnglishRoman Catholic writer, poet,philologist, and academic, best known as the author of thehigh fantasy worksThe Hobbit andThe Lord of the Rings.[2]
The Lord of the Rings was published in 1954–55; it was awarded theInternational Fantasy Award in 1957. The publication of theAce Books andBallantine paperbacks in the United States helped it to become immensely popular with a new generation in the 1960s. It has remained so ever since, judged by both sales and reader surveys.[3] The literary establishment was initially largelyhostile to the book, attacking it in numerous reviews.[4][5]
The first and second editions contain the following essays:
I.Jared Lobdell. "Introduction". Aside from introducing the essays, he notes that none of them attemptQuellenforschung, the search forTolkien's sources, but suggests that the matter is worthy of study.
II. Bonniejean Christensen. "Gollum's character transformation inThe Hobbit". She finds the "fallen hobbit" Gollum immediately interesting, even apart from Tolkien's changes to the second edition of the novel to make the story fit better withThe Lord of the Rings, which make Gollum "fascinating". The key changes are to chapter 5, "Riddles in the Dark": Gollum becomes a far darker character, and the riddle competition becomes deadly serious, as Bilbo will be eaten if he loses.
III. Dorothy Matthews. "ThePsychological Journey ofBilbo Baggins", provides an earlyJungian approach to Tolkien, suggesting thatGandalf fits theWise Old Man archetype, and Gollum the Devouring Mother, while Bilbo sets out on his quest "out of balance and far from integrated".
IV. Walter Scheps. "The Fairy-tale Morality ofThe Lord of the Rings". He argues that Tolkien's morality, revealed in his Middle-earth books, is "radically different from our own" and indeed much like that offairy tales, so it is not a concern thatorcs are black, thattrolls are working class, or that enemiescome from the south and east. Further, "nobility is inherited rather than acquired".
V. Agnes Perkins and Helen Hill. "TheCorruption of Power" examines what power, especially that of theOne Ring, does to those who have it. "And the answer is unequivocal: The desire for power corrupts." Of the three wise and ancient characters inThe Lord of the Rings, Gandalf andGaladriel see the temptation, and reject it.Saruman succumbs to it. Of the men ofGondor,Boromir tries to seize the Ring;Faramir "understands the danger".
VI. Deborah Rogers. "Everyclod and Everyhero: the image of man in Tolkien" argues that both theHobbits andAragorn represent Man. Rogers notes that she knows Hobbits are important, as Tolkien wrote her a letter in 1958 confessing "I am in fact a hobbit."[6] TheHobbits are in her view "small, provincial, and comfort-loving" but notJohn Bull English: in short, they are cloddishantiheroes. Aragorn, however,is definitely a hero; together, he and the Hobbits form a composite picture of man, a clod with a hero trying to get out.
VII.Richard C. West "TheInterlace Structure ofThe Lord of the Rings" shows that the novel has a complex medieval organisation, in which story threads are interwoven to create a subtly cohesive narrative. It mirrors "the perception of the flux of events in the world around us, where everything is happening at once". The technique allows events to be seen, too, from different points of view. West notes thatthis is also modern, as writers likeJames Joyce andMarcel Proust "once again began experimenting" with the medieval technique.
VIII. David Miller. "Narrative pattern inThe Fellowship of the Ring" looks at other story structures, noting that with the road as a setting, the "there and back again" novel (he includesThe Hobbit) ispicaresque. Miller analyses the journey in the first volume as a sequence of "conference[s] in tranquillity", "blundering journey[s]", dangers, and "unexpected aid", as for example the party venturing into theOld Forest, becoming entrapped byOld Man Willow, only to be rescued byTom Bombadil. He identifies nine such cycles.
IX. Robert Plank. "'The Scouring of the Shire': Tolkien's view offascism" looks at a single chapter – Book 6, Chapter 8 ofThe Lord of the Rings, in which the Hobbits return home victorious from their adventures like the heroOdysseus toIthaca, only to have to "scour" their home of enemies. Plank comments that "the outstanding characteristic of [the chapter] is that miracles do not happen, the laws of nature are in full and undisputed force, [and] the actors in the drama are all human [mortals, whether men or Hobbits]." Thus the chapter is "notfantasy", unlike the rest of the novel. Plank is surprised that Tolkien thinks of the "overthrow of a tyrannical government as a quick and easy job."
X.Charles A. Huttar. "Hell and the city: Tolkien and the traditions of Western literature" looks atthe novel's debt to the literary tradition concerning the Christian Hell. TheFellowship's journey throughMoria is likened to adescent intoHell, part of a hero'smonomyth, while Gandalf's struggle with theBalrog echoes the hero "overcoming a monster of 'the deep'". Frodo's journey to Mordor, too, is such a descent. Huttar considers, too, the various cities with their towers:Minas Tirith of Gondor;Barad-Dûr, the Dark LordSauron's fortress;Orthanc, the fallen wizard Saruman's fastness within the industrial Isengard; and either Minas Morgul, home to the nineNazgûl, or the nearby Cirith Ungol, the watchtower that becomes Frodo's prison. All have become hellish, except for Minas Tirith, the Tower of Guard, which stands against them: "a great city" with its seven walls and seven levels, "but it is dying." This would seem desperate: but "Tolkien sees hope."
XI. U. Milo Kaufmann. "Aspects of the paradisiacal in Tolkien's work" picks out two features of Tolkien's writing: "his uncanny capacity for making us see ordinary objects and actions bursting with the value of wholeness and finality", and "his talent for creating intransigently mysterious landscape." He finds these in "Leaf by Niggle" and inThe Lord of the Rings.
The first edition also contains:
XII.J. R. R. Tolkien. "Guide to the names inThe Lord of the Rings". Tolkien explains how to translate both personal names like "Treebeard" (by sense) and placenames like "Bag End" (again, by sense), individually listed and explained, and asks that all other names be left untranslated.
The second edition has in addition:
A Tolkien Compass was published in paperback byOpen Court in 1975. They brought out a second edition in 2003, adding a scholarly foreword byTom Shippey.[1] The essays consisted mainly of Lobdell's selections from the first and second Conferences on Middle-earth.[8] The book has been translated into French, Swedish, and Turkish.[9] There are no illustrations.
Tom Shippey commented thatA Tolkien Compass appeared "at a time when, in the United Kingdom at least, professing an interest inTolkien was almost certain death for any hopeful candidate seeking entrance to a department of English".[1] The first edition included Tolkien's "Guide to the Names inThe Lord of the Rings"; Shippey called this "immensely valuable" and "deplored" the fact that theTolkien Estate had demanded it be omitted from later editions. Shippey described the essays as written in the "Age of Innocence" before Tolkien studies became professionalised, and as such offer "freshness, candor, and a sense of historical depth" that cannot be repeated.[1] He noted that some of the early predictions, made beforeThe Silmarillion appeared in 1977 orThe History of The Lord of the Rings in 1988–1992, were wrong. For instance, Tolkien had not written much ofThe Lord of the Rings before the Second World War; but many other predictions have been substantiated, such asRichard C. West's account of Tolkien's use of medieval-styleinterlacing as anarrative structure.[1]
The Tolkien scholarJanet Brennan Croft has written that West's essay "has proven to have particularly long-lasting impact",[10] while the medievalistGergely Nagy called the book "a significant early collection".[11]
The librarian and Tolkien scholarDavid Bratman described the book as "the first commercially published collection of scholarship from theTolkien fan community."[12] He commented that the essays were originally papers for conferences organised by fans, but were for the most part written by scholars, and that two of the chapters were seen by scholars as "classics in the field": Richard C. West's essay on "The Interlace Structure ofThe Lord of the Rings, and Bonniejean Christensen's on "Gollum's Character Transformations inThe Hobbit".[12]
The librarian Jean MacIntyre, regretting that scholars have paid relatively little attention toThe Hobbit compared to Tolkien's other novels, has noted thatA Tolkien Compass takes the children's book seriously with two frequently-consulted essays, namely Matthews's psychological interpretation ofThe Hobbit (MacIntyre notes thatRandel Helms had "mocked" this), and Christensen's account of Tolkien's revisions ofThe Hobbit as he updated Gollum's character.[13]
