Anachronism, chronological inconsistency, is seen inJ. R. R. Tolkien's fantasy world ofMiddle-earth in the juxtaposition of cultures of evidently different periods, such as the classically inspiredGondor and the medieval-styleRohan, and in the far more modernhobbits ofthe Shire, a setting whichresembles the English countryside of Tolkien's childhood. The more familiar lifestyle and manner of the hobbits, complete with tobacco, potatoes, umbrellas, and mantelpiece clocks, allows them to mediate between the reader and the far older cultures of Middle-earth. They were introduced forThe Hobbit, a children's story not planned to be set in Middle-earth; their anachronistic role is extended inThe Lord of the Rings.
Tolkien's books are at oncemedieval in style andmodern in many ways, such as appealing to a diverse modern readership and possessing a modern novelistic "realism". TheOne Ring, too, embodies a strikingly modern concept, that power corrupts; in medieval thought, power just revealed how a person already was. The combination of medieval and modern is echoed inPeter Jackson'sfilms ofThe Lord of the Rings, introducing further anachronistic elements such asskateboarding during a battle scene.
Scholars have commented that the cultures ofMiddle-earth, such as the classically inspiredGondor and the medieval-styleRohan, are evidently of different eras, creating a built-in element ofanachronism in the narrative. Those heroic cultures are, in turn, clearly quite unlike that of the home-loving hobbits of the Shire. Gondor is rooted inancient Rome, while Rohan echoes many aspects of the culture of theAnglo-Saxons.[2] The Tolkien scholarSandra Ballif Straubhaar writes that "the most striking similarities" for Gondor are with the legends ofancient Rome:Aeneas, fromTroy, and Elendil, from Númenor, both survive the destruction of their home countries; the brothersRomulus and Remus found Rome, while the brothers Isildur and Anárion found the Númenórean kingdoms in Middle-earth; and both Gondor and Rome experienced centuries of "decadence and decline".[5]
Bilbo Baggins's comfortable home inThe Hobbit, on the other hand, is inTom Shippey's words[4]
in everything except being underground (and in there being no servants), the home of a member of theVictorian upper-middle class of Tolkien's nineteenth-century youth, full of studies, parlours, cellars, pantries, wardrobes, and all the rest... hobbits are, and always remain, highlyanachronistic [italics in original] in the ancient world of Middle-earth.[4]
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| Culture | Period | Dates | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Gondor | Classical antiquity | 800 BC–500 AD | Parallels withAncient Rome include origin-figures who survive wreck of their home countries; brother founders; and centuries of decline and decadence.[5] |
| Gondor | Middle Ages | 500–1500 AD | Parallels withByzantine Empire (until 1453) include an older state, a weaker sister kingdom, enemies to East and South, and final siege from the East.[6] |
| Rohan | Middle Ages | 500–1500 AD | Tolkien stated that the equipment shown in theBayeux Tapestry, for the 1066Battle of Hastings, would suit the Rohirrim "well enough".[T 1] |
| The Shire | Victorian era | 1837–1901 | Tolkien dated the Shire to theDiamond Jubilee, 1897[2] |
Tolkien scholars including Shippey andDimitra Fimi have stated that the hobbits are misfits in Middle-earth's heroic world.[2] Tolkien placedthe Shire not somewhere heroic, but in a society he had personally experienced, "more or less aWarwickshire village of about the period of theDiamond Jubilee [of Queen Victoria, in 1897]".[2][T 2] Shippey described the hobbits' culture, complete with tobacco and potatoes,[7] as a "creative anachronism" on Tolkien's part.[8] In his view,anachronism is the "essential function" of hobbits, enabling Tolkien to "bridge the gap" by mediating between readers' lives in the modern world and the dangerous ancient world of Middle-earth.[7]Robert Tally notes that Bilbo is the anachronism inThe Hobbit as he enters the otherwise consistently "distant, legendary, or mythic past", meeting the wizardGandalf, the DwarfThorin,Elves, andthe dragon.[9] This mediating function was, back in 1957, said to be essential byDouglass Parker in his review ofThe Lord of the Rings,Hwaet We Holbytla....[10]
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Fimi comments that this applies both to the style of language used by the hobbits, and to theirmaterial culture of "umbrellas, camping kettles, matches, clocks, pocket handkerchiefs and fireworks", all of which are plainly modern, as are thefish and chips thatSam Gamgee thinks of on his journey toMordor.[2][T 3] Most striking, in her view, however, is Tolkien's description of the enormous dragon firework at Bilbo's party which rushed overhead "like an express train".[2] Tolkien's drawing of the hall of Bilbo's home,Bag End, shows both a clock and abarometer (mentioned in an early draft), and he had another clock on hismantelpiece.[1][T 4][T 5] To arrange a party, the hobbits rely on a dailypostal service.[4] The effect, the scholars agree, is to bring the reader comfortably into the ancient heroic world.[12][2]
The medievalist Lynn Forest-Hill writes that the plants mentioned are similarly anachronistic, whether the "nasturtians" growing over Bag End, the "taters" in its garden, or the "pipeweed" that the hobbits liked to smoke, each plant indicating a homely activity – gardening, cooking, smoking. In her view, the nasturtians "signal the specific relationship of [the] anachronistic [hobbits] to the present".[11] Characters, too, can be anachronistic, out of their time, as with the hobbit-become-monsterGollum, who after his five centuries hidden under the Misty Mountains is in the time of the War of the Ring, the end of theThird Age, but who is from an era of the distant past when hobbits still lived by theRiver Anduin.[11]
| Object | First available | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Tobacco | After 1492 | Columbian exchange brought it to Europe[13] |
| Potato | After 1492 | As for tobacco[13] |
| Nasturtium | 18th century | Familiar but modern[11] |
| Umbrella | 18th century | Folding umbrellas, Paris[14] |
| Camping kettle | After 1880s | Camping trips onRiver Thames;[15] Kelly Kettle from end of 19th century[16] |
| Safety match | 1850s | Lundström brothers, Sweden[17] |
| Clock | 13th century | First clocks in church towers[18] |
| Pocket handkerchief | 19th century | In pocket oftwo-piece suit[19] |
| Fireworks | 10th century | Made in Europe by 14th century[20] |
| Express train | 19th century | "certainly unimaginable in Middle-earth"[2] |
| Fish and chips | 1860s | First fish and chip shops in England[21] |
| Postal service | 1840 | Uniform Penny Post[22] |
Scholars agree that while Middle-earth has a strongly Medieval feeling and setting, books likeThe Lord of the Rings are certainly modern.[24] Tolkien, a philologist, was a professional medievalist; but his Middle-earth writings have attracted readers, in the words ofJane Chance and Alfred Siewers "globally across a wide political and cultural spectrum, from the postmodern counterculture to Christian traditionalists."[25] The scholar of humanitiesBrian Rosebury comments that Tolkien's writingshares several qualities with modernism, as well as having a modern novelistic "realism".[26]Anna Vaninskaya states that Tolkien was certainly "a modern writer"; he did not engage withmodernism, but his work was "supremely intertextual", interweaving and juxtaposing styles, modes, and genres.[27]
Shippey writes that a central aspect ofThe Lord of the Rings is strikingly non-medieval: theOne Ring. Tolkien depicts it as relentlessly evil, eating away at its possessor's mind. Shippey comments that "The most evident fact to note about the Ring is that it is in conception strikingly anachronistic, totally modern".[23] In his view, it embodies the modern maxim "Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely", where in medieval thought, power just revealed how a person already was. The whole idea thatpower is corrosive and addictive is thus a modern one.[23]
The illustratorTed Nasmith describes his ownTolkien artwork as embodying "appropriate anachronism", presenting the apparently medieval in the idiom of modernfantasy.[28]
Tolkien started writingThe Hobbit purely as a children's story, nothing to do withhis legendarium. By the time he had completed it, it alluded toSauron (as the Necromancer) and mentionedElrond,Esgaroth, andGondolin: it was being drawn into Middle-earth. All the same, in 1937 whenThe Hobbit was published, Tolkien expected that that would be as far as the interconnections would go. However, a month later, his publisher,Stanley Unwin, let him know that the public would want "more from you about Hobbits!" Tolkien started work on a sequel, which becameThe Lord of the Rings, and it necessarily contained bothheroic elements and hobbits. The story grew in the telling, and became a feigned history rather than aSilmarillion-like mythology, a fantasy complete with a sub-createdsecondary world, suitable for adults as well as children. Tolkien laboured to resolve the inconsistencies that the merger ofThe Hobbit and the mythology created, often successfully;[29] but the anachronism of the hobbits in a more ancient world turned out to be both inherent in the story, and necessary to mediate between the characters of the ancient world and the reader.[2]
Peter Jackson's 2001–2003film adaptation ofThe Lord of the Rings introduced further anachronistic elements. The scholar of literature Gwendolyn Morgan comments thatArwen is transformed into a "twenty-first centuryBuffy the Vampire Slayer", replacing Tolkien's "medieval courtly mistress", while theheroic Aragorn becomes an "angst-ridden, sensitive, existential '90s male", andSaruman's hatching of his Uruk Hai, a specially large breed oforcs, echoes modern concerns aboutgenetic engineering. Then, she notes, there are the jokes aboutdwarf-tossing, andLegolas'sskateboarding "down the stairs on a shield atHelm's Deep", this last becoming hugely popular, "evoking applause and verbal outbursts" in cinemas, things which Morgan suggests "may be more jarring".[30]
The chimney or volcano kettle, call it what you will, dates back to the late 1800's in western Ireland
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