Memories of (Ancient Roman) War in Tolkien’s Dead Marshes
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.34679/thersites.vol4.36Keywords:
classical reception studies, J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings, William Morris, Tacitus, war, landscape, memory, fantasy literatureAbstract
The dark, malodorous wetland called the Dead Marshes ranks among the most memorable and enigmatic landscapes in fantasy literature. While one influential line of scholarship connects the passage to Tolkien’s experiences in the Great War, this article argues that the Marshes should also be read as a reception of Tacitus’s depiction of the Teutoburg Forest. The link between the two texts is both simple and complex. Tolkien read Tacitus, and the latter’s influence has been detected elsewhere in The Lord of the Rings; yet Tolkien identified William Morris as an even more important source for the Marshes than the Great War, and the relevant passage in Morris is also a reception of Tacitus. It will be shown that Tolkien comes closer to Tacitus than Morris in his vision of the way landscapes manifest—to sight, hearing, and touch—the memory and meaning of military losses. Recognizing this reception both explains Tolkien’s ascription of such importance to Morris and offers an important example of a modern author reaching outside his own era and genre to participate in a distinctly Roman tradition of representing war-dead, landscape, and memory.
Le marécage malodorant et sombre appelé les Marais Morts se classe parmi les paysages les plus mémorables et énigmatiques de la littérature fantastique. Bien qu’une tendance influente de la recherche rattache ce passage à l’expérience de Tolkien pendant la Grande Guerre, cet article soutient que les Marais devraient également être interprétés comme une réception de la représentation de la forêt de Teutoburg chez Tacite. La connexion entre les deux textes est à la fois simple et complexe. Tolkien a lu Tacite, et l’influence de ce dernier a été détectée ailleurs dans Le Seigneur des anneaux; mais Tolkien a identifié William Morris comme une source encore plus importante pour les Marais que la Grande Guerre, et le passage en question chez Morris est également une réception de Tacite. On verra que Tolkien se rapproche de Tacite plus que de Morris dans sa vision de la façon dont les paysages rendent sensible à la vue, à l’ouïe et au toucher, le souvenir et la signification des morts militaires. La mise en évidence de cette réception explique l’importance que donne Tolkien à Morris tout en offrant un exemple important d’incursion d’un auteur moderne hors de son époque et de son genre, pour participer à une tradition nettement romaine dans la représentation des victimes militaires, des paysages et de la mémoire.
References
http://www.lordoftherings.net/index_explore_deadmarsh.html (last accessed 21.11.2016).
http://tolkiensring.proboards.com/post/6110 (last accessed 21.11.2016).
Adams (2011). – Edward Adams, Liberal Epic: The Victorian Practice of History from Gibbon to Churchill (Charlottesville 2011).
Arduini/Testi (2012). – Roberto Arduini/Claudio A. Testi (eds.), The Broken Scythe: Death and Immortality in the Work of J.R.R. Tolkien (Zurich 2012).
Bakogianni/Hope (2015). – Anastasia Bakogianni/Valerie M. Hope (eds.), War as Spectacle: Ancient and Modern Perspectives on the Display of Armed Conflict (London 2015).
Benario (2003). – Herbert W. Benario, Teutoburg, CW 96 (2003) 397–406.
Bloom (2008). – Harold Bloom (ed.), Bloom’s Modern Critical Interpretations: ‘The Lord of the Rings’, new ed. (New York 2008).
Bonechi (2012). – Simone Bonechi, ‘In the Mounds of Mundburg’: Death, War and Memory in Middle-earth, in: Arduini/Testi (2012) 133–154.
Boos (1984). – Florence Boos, Morris’s German Romances as Socialist History, Victorian Studies 27 (1984) 321–342.
Bost-Fiévet/Provini (2014). – Melanie Bost-Fiévet/Sandra Provini (éds.), L’Antiquité dans l’imaginaire contemporain. Fantasy, science-fiction, fantastique (Paris 2014).
Brinton (1930). – Anna Cox Brinton, Maphaeus Vegius and his Thirteenth Book of the Aeneid: A Chapter on Virgil in the Renaissance (Stanford 1930).
Caesar (2006). – Judith Caesar, Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings and Dante’s Inferno, The Explicator 64 (2006) 167–170.
Carpenter (1977). – Humphrey Carpenter, J.R.R. Tolkien: A Biography (London 1977).
Chance (2004). – Jane Chance (ed.), Tolkien and the Invention of Myth: A Reader (Lexington 2004).
Chance/Siewers (2005). – Jane Chance/Alfred K. Siewers (eds.), Tolkien’s Modern Middle Ages (New York 2005).
Coco (1995). – Gregory A. Coco, A Strange and Blighted Land. Gettysburg—The Aftermath of a Battle (Gettysburg 1995).
Creasy (1852). – Edward Sheperd Creasy, The Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World: From Marathon to Waterloo, 3rd ed. (London 1852).
Creighton/Wilson (1999). – J.D. Creighton/R.J.A. Wilson (eds.), Roman Germany: Studies in Cultural Interaction (Portsmouth, RI 1999) (=Journal of Roman Archaeology Supplementary Series 32).
Croft (2002). – Janet Brennan Croft, The Great War and Tolkien’s Memory: An Examination of World War I Themes in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, Mythlore 90 (2002) 4–21.
Damon (2006). – Cynthia Damon, Potior utroque Vespasianus: Vespasian and His Predecessors in Tacitus’s Histories, Arethusa 39 (2006) 245–279.
Drout (2007). – Michael D.C. Drout (ed.), J.R.R. Tolkien Encyclopedia: Scholarship and Critical Assessment (New York 2007).
Eilmann (2015). – Julian Eilmann, Weltkrieg in Mittelerde. Die literarische Verarbeitung des Ersten Weltkriegs in J.R.R. Tolkiens „Der Herr der Ringe”, GWU 66.7/8 (2015) 402–414.
Fonstad (1991). – Karen Wynn Fonstad, The Atlas of Middle-earth, rev. ed. (Boston, 1991).
Friedman (1982). – Barton Friedman, Tolkien and David Jones: The Great War and the War of the Ring, Clio 11 (1982) 115–136.
Garth (2003). – John Garth, Tolkien and the Great War: The Threshold of Middle-earth (Boston 2003).
——— (2008). – John Garth, ‘As under a green sea’: Visions of War in the Dead Marshes, in: Wells (2008) 9–21.
Giorcelli (1995). – Silvia Giorcelli, Il funus militare, in: Hinard (1995) 235–242.
Harnecker (2004). – Joachim Harnecker, Arminius, Varus and the Battlefield at Kalkriese: An Introduction to the Archaeological Investigations and Their Results, tr. Erika Strenski (Bramsche 2004).
Heubner (1994). – Heinz Heubner (ed.), P. Cornelii Taciti libri qui supersunt, vol. 1, 2nd ed. (Stuttgart/Leipzig 1994).
Hinard (1995). – François Hinard (éd.), La mort au quotidien dans le monde romain (Paris 1995).
Hooker (2006). – Mark T. Hooker, Tolkien and Haggard: The Dead Marshes, in: Mark T. Hooker, A Tolkienian Mathomium: A Collection of Articles on J.R.R. Tolkien and His Legendarium (Morrisville, NC 2006) 147–151.
Hope (2003). – Valerie Hope, Trophies and Tombstones: Commemorating the Roman Soldier, World Archaeology 35 (2003) 79–97.
——— (2015). – Valerie M. Hope, Bodies on the Battlefield: The Spectacle of Rome’s Fallen Soldiers, in: Bakogianni/Hope (2015) 157–177.
Ihm (1907). – Maximilian Ihm (ed.), C. Suetoni Tranquilli opera, vol. 1 (Leipzig 1907).
Joseph (2012). – Timothy A. Joseph, Tacitus the Epic Successor: Virgil, Lucan, and the Narrative of Civil War in the ‘Histories’ (Leiden 2012).
Kyle (1998). – Donald G. Kyle, Spectacles of Death in Ancient Rome (London/New York 1998).
Lee/Solopova (2005). – Stuart D. Lee/Elizabeth Solopova, The Keys of Middle-earth: Discovering Medieval Literature through the Fiction of J.R.R. Tolkien (Basingstoke 2005).
Lennon (2014). – Jack J. Lennon, Pollution and Religion in Ancient Rome (Cambridge 2014).
Lewis/Short (1879). – Charlton T. Lewis/Charles Short, A Latin Dictionary: Founded on Andrews’ Edition of Freund’s Latin Dictionary (Oxford 1879).
Livingston (2006). – Michael Livingston, The Shell-shocked Hobbit: The First World War and Tolkien’s Trauma of the Ring, Mythlore 25.1/2 (2006) 72–92.
Lynch (2008). – Andrew Lynch, Archaism, Nostalgia, and Tennysonian War in The Lord of the Rings, in: Bloom (2008) 101–115.
Madsen (2013). – Catherine Madsen, Theological Reticence and Moral Radiance: Notes on Tolkien, Levinas, and Inuit Cosmology, Mythlore 32 (2013) 111–126.
Makins (2013). – Marian W. Makins, Monumental Losses: Confronting the Aftermath of Battle in Roman Literature (Ph.D. dissertation University of Pennsylvania 2013).
Manni/Bonechi (2008). – Franco Manni/Simone Bonechi, The Complexity of Tolkien’s Attitude Towards the Second World War, in: Wells (2008) 33–51.
Manolaraki (2005). – Eleni Manolaraki, A Picture Worth a Thousand Words: Revisiting Bedriacum (Tacitus Histories 2.70), CPh 100 (2005) 243–267.
McLoughlin (2011). – Kate McLoughlin, Authoring War: The Literary Representation of War from the ‘Iliad’ to Iraq (Cambridge 2011).
Morgan (1992). – M. Gwyn Morgan, The Smell of Victory: Vitellius at Bedriacum (Tac. Hist. 2.70), CPh 87 (1992) 14–29.
Morris (2003a). – William Morris, A Tale of the House of the Wolfings and All the Kindreds of the Mark Written in Prose and in Verse (Seattle 2003).
——— (2003b). – William Morris, The Roots of the Mountains (Seattle 2003).
Morse (1986). – Robert E. Morse, Evocations of Virgil in Tolkien’s Art: Geritol for the Classics (Oak Park, IL 1986).
Ober (1982). – Josiah Ober, Tiberius and the Political Testament of Augustus, Historia 31 (1982) 306–328.
Oberg (1978). – Charlotte Oberg, A Pagan Prophet: William Morris (Charlottesville 1978).
Obertino (2006). – James Obertino, Barbarians and Imperialism in Tacitus and The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien Studies 3 (2006) 117–131.
O’Gorman (2000). – Ellen O’Gorman, Irony and Misreading in the Annals of Tacitus (Cambridge 2000).
Pagán (1999). – Victoria E. Pagán, Beyond Teutoburg: Transgression and Transformation in Tacitus Annales 1.61–62, CPh 94 (1999) 302–320.
Pelling (1993). – Christopher Pelling, Tacitus and Germanicus, in: Woodman/Luce (1993) 59–85.
——— (1997). – Christopher Pelling, Tragical Dreamer: Some Dreams in the Roman Historians, G&R 44 (1997) 197–213.
Peretz (2005). – Daniel Peretz, Military Burial and the Identification of the Roman Fallen Soldiers, Klio 87 (2005) 123–138.
Perry (2007). – Michael W. Perry, Morris, William, in: Drout (2007) 439–441.
Pillemer (1998). – David B. Pillemer, Momentous Events, Vivid Memories: How Unforgettable Moments Help Us Understand the Meaning of Our Lives (Cambridge, MA 1998).
Riley (2013). – Tom Riley, William Morris as Inspiration for Tolkien’s Literary Art, Crisis (2 July 2013) n.p. http://www.crisismagazine.com/2013/william-morris-as-inspiration-for-tolkiens-literary-art (last accessed 21.11.2016).
Rogers/Stevens (2017). – Brett M. Rogers/Benjamin Eldon Stevens (eds.), Classical Traditions in Modern Fantasy (Oxford 2017).
Salmon (2001). – Nicholas Salmon, A Study in Victorian Historiography: William Morris’s Germanic Romances, Journal of the William Morris Society 14 (2001) 59–89.
Schlüter 1999. – Wolfgang Schlüter, The Battle of the Teutoburg Forest: Archaeological Research at Kalkriese near Osnabrück, in: Creighton/Wilson (1999) 125–159.
Scoville (2005). – Chester N. Scoville, Pastoralia and Perfectability in William Morris and J.R.R. Tolkien, in: Chance/Siewers (2005) 93–103.
Scull/Hammond (2006). – Christina Scull/Wayne G. Hammond, The J.R.R. Tolkien Companion and Guide, Volume 1: Chronology (Boston 2006).
Seidman (2014). – Jessica Seidman, Remembering the Teutoburg Forest: Monumenta in Annals 1.61, Ramus 43 (2014) 94–114.
Sheldon (2003). – George Sheldon, When the Smoke Cleared at Gettysburg: The Tragic Aftermath of the Bloodiest Battle of the Civil War (Nashville 2003).
Shippey (2000). – T.A. Shippey, J.R.R. Tolkien: Author of the Century (London 2000).
Simonis (2014). – Annette Simonis, Voyages mythiques et passages aux Enfers dans la littérature fantastique contemporaine. Le Seigneur des Anneaux et À la croisée des mondes, in: Bost-Fiévet/Provini (2014) 241–252.
Sinex (2005). – Margaret Sinex, ‘Tricksy Lights’: Literary and Folkloric Elements in Tolkien’s Passage of the Dead Marshes, Tolkien Studies 2 (2005) 93–112.
Stevens (2017). – Benjamin Eldon Stevens, Ancient Underworlds in J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit, in: Rogers/Stevens (2017) 121–144.
Straubhaar (2004). – Sandra Ballif Straubhaar, Myth, Late Roman History, and Multiculturalism in Tolkien’s Middle-earth, in: Chance (2004) 101–117.
Tolkien (2000a). – J.R.R. Tolkien, The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, ed. Humphrey Carpenter and Christopher Tolkien, rev. ed. (Boston/New York 2000).
——— (2000b). – J.R.R. Tolkien, The War of the Ring: The History of ‘The Lord of the Rings,’ Part Three, ed. Christopher Tolkien, The History of Middle-earth, vol. 8 (Boston/New York 2000).
——— (2004). – J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings, 50th anniversary ed. (Boston/New York 2004).
Van Broeck (2016). – Leen Van Broeck, Wily Wetlands: Imperialism and Resistance in Tacitus’ Batavian Landscapes, presented at the 9th Celtic Conference in Classics, Dublin, June 2016.
Vaninskaya (2010). – Anna Vaninskaya, William Morris and the Idea of Community: Romance, History and Propaganda, 1880–1914 (Edinburgh 2010).
VV.AA. (2009). – 2000 Jahre Varusschlacht: IMPERIUM – KONFLIKT - MYTHOS (Darmstadt 2009).
Watt (1988). – W.S. Watt (ed.), Vellei Paterculi historiarum ad M. Vinicium consulem libri duo (Leipzig 1988).
Weber (2000). – Gregor Weber, Kaiser, Träume, und Visionen in Prinzipat und Spätantike (Stuttgart 2000) (=Historia Einzelschriften 143).
Wells (2008). – Sarah Wells (ed.), The Ring Goes Ever On: Proceedings of the Tolkien 2005 Conference, vol. 1 (Birmingham 2008).
West/Woodman (1979). – David West/Tony Woodman (eds.), Creative Imitation and Latin Literature (Cambridge 1979).
Whitla (2004). – William Whitla, William Morris’s Translation of Homer’s Iliad 1.1–214, Journal of Pre-Raphaelite Studies 13 (Fall 2004) 75–121.
Williams (2009). – Kathryn F. Williams, Tacitus’ Germanicus and the Principate, Latomus 68 (2009) 117–130.
Woodman (1979 = 1998). – Tony Woodman, Self-Imitation and the Substance of History: Tacitus, Annals 1.61–5 and Histories 2.70, 5.14–15, in: West/Woodman (1979) 143–156; repr. in: A.J. Woodman, Tacitus Reviewed (Oxford 1998) 70–85.
Woodman/Luce (1993). – A.J. Woodman/T.J. Luce (eds.), Tacitus and the Tacitean Tradition (Princeton 1993).
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2017 Marian W. Makins
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
Authors who publish with thersites agree to the following terms:
- Publishing in thersites is free of any charges.
- Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication.
- Users are allowed to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of the articles, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without asking prior permission from the publisher or the author, so long as the original work is properly cited and is not used for commercial purposes. The journal is published under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. More information about this license is available at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
- Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).
