J. R. R. Tolkien

1
J. R. R. Tolkien

• Short Stories
• Leaf by Niggle
• Smith of Wootton Major
• Farmer Giles of Ham

2
Leaf by Niggle Plot

• Niggle painting picture, helping Parish
• Niggle goes on trip
• Work house
• Sent to Tree
• Works with Parish to improve Niggles Parish
• Heads over the mountains

3
Leaf by Niggle Dystopia story

• Atkins, Thompkins, Perkins
• Inspector of Houses, of Gardens
• Art not valued
• Practical use of all resources
• Responsibility to others paramount
• No imagination
• Leaf by Niggle put in museum

4
Leaf by Niggle Christian Allegory

• Responsibility to neighbors
• Preparation for afterlife
• Purgatory
• 1st and 2nd Voice
• Perfection of world beyond death
• Imagination / art / creativity as introduction to
  heaven

5
Leaf by Niggle Allegory of art

• Niggle as subcreator provides fantasy, recovery,
  escape, consolation
• Concept of tree grows, Niggle adds other canvases
• Practical world interferes with imagination
• Niggle takes painting material with him
• Reality of tree as imagined but better
• Tree in context with forest, station, Parishs
  garden, explore time and space
• Creation ongoing

6
Leaf by Niggle Tolkien connection

• Middleearth created as separate stories and later
  connected
• Ambitious project, not just tree but world it
  fits into
• Tolkiens design to show wind, light reflected
• Niggle and Parish both necessary

7
Smith of Wootton Major -- plot

• Master Cook on holiday, Alf is Prentice
• Smith chosen at 24-feast
• Smith sings, slaps star on forehead
• Smith visits Faerie, several times
• Smith dances with Fairy Queen, takes message to
  King, time to pass on star
• Alf leaves, Nokes gets wish to become thin

8
Smith of Wootton Major

• Nature of Faerie
• Part of our world, but star needed to enter
• Extremes of joy / sorrow
• Declining world
• Explore time and space
• Glimpse of Faerie in our world, Queen

9
Smith of Wootton Major

• Why my favorite story
• Representative of what Tolkien provided for us
  with Middleearth
• Suggests Faerie, hobbits still here, just not
  visible to us
• Idea of passing on ability to see wonder

10
Smith of Wootton Major

• Still round the corner there may wait
• A new road or a secret gate,
• And though we pass them by today,
• Tomorrow we may come this way
• And take the hidden paths that run
• Towards the Moon or to the Sun.
• FOTR

11
Farmer Giles of Ham -- plot

• Giant comes rampaging, Giles hits with
  blunderbuss
• King sends Caudimordax
• Chrysophylax Dives shows up
• Farmer Giles confronts dragon who promises
  payment
• Giles and knights go to collect
• Dragon carries treasure back
• Giles made king of Ham, Tame (Thame)

12
Farmer Giles of Ham

• Tolkiens original impetus for writing this story
  was to explain place names
• Like exploration of MiddleEarth as linguistic
  exercise
• Like mythology answers origin questions

13
Farmer Giles of Ham -- themes

• Reluctant heroism
• Tradition
• Declining world

14
Tolkiens view of Fantasy

• On Fairy Stories
• Fantasy, Recovery, Escape, Consolation
• Exploration of time and space
• Interaction with other beings

15
Tolkien Other Stories

• Roverandom
• Father Christmas Letters
• Adventures of Tom Bombadil
• The Cottage of Lost Play
• The Notion Club Papers