Tolkien's How and Why problems in 'framing' his Legendarium for a modern audience - reflections on re-reading Interrupted Music by Verlyn Flieger (2005)

As Verlyn Flieger clarifies in her 2005 book Interrupted Music; Tolkien had two main problems in providing a 'frame' within-which to present his entire Legendarium (Hobbit, Lord of the Rings, Adventures of Tom Bombadil and material from his unfinished Silmarillion). These can be summarised as clarifying How and Why the reader has these stories in his hand...


The How refers to the provenance of the text; that is the process by which a story or history from a remote (and fictional-mythic) past came-down the many generations to reach JRR Tolkien, who is presenting it to the modern reader. Starting with the 'Lost Tales' from the late World War I period, Tolkien tried many explanations.

One idea was of an ancient mariner who visited Fairyland, heard and brought back the stories - sometimes he also participated in the subsequent history; these original manuscripts were translated from Elvish into some other language such as Old English, and handed down between scribes and in libraries in a normal historical fashion - Tolkien being the latest translator and adaptor.

Another idea was that a  modern man - or several people - visited the undying lands in a dream or meditative trance - and brought-back the material. He, or someone else expert in ancient languages, was then inspired by such dreams to learn and translate the ancient languages.

In the end, Tolkien actually framed Lord of the Rings with an apparatus which presents his material as being derived from a book called The Red Book of Westmarch, which is a collection of translations from Elvish legends heard by Bilbo i Rivendell; plus the diaries of Bilbo Frodo and Sam and some other material such as a book on the herblore of the Shire by Merry. Somehow, a copy of The Red Book came down the ages to Tolkien who (somehow) translated it, and used the material to write his various books.

There are some holes in Tolkien's eventual, actual solution to the How problem - but on the whole it seems to work satisfactorily for most readers; although Tolkien was not altogether happy with it, and he kept 'niggling' at it through the editions of The Lord of the Rings and his introductory words to The Adventures of Tom Bombadil.


The Why is a much more difficult problem - and Tolkien never really got further with solving this problem than the lecture On Fairy Stories - which provides a general justification for Fantasy fiction, rather than a specific reason for why his own legends were important. In particular, Tolkien was never able to explain something important to him - which is why his stories were specifically important for England.

There is, in fact, an answer to this Why problem - and I am sure that Tolkien knew exactly what that answer was, but was (for various reasons, good and not good) reluctant to use that particular answer.

The answer is to refer to divine destiny, and to imply or assert that the mythic text that came across many generations to emerge into modern times in the form of Tolkien's books were enabled to do so because modern people need them. In other words that God made it possible; that God preserved and protected the knowledge; and made modern people able to get access to it. For example, God provided the intuitive insights to modern scholars that enabled them to translate ancient lost languages, and to correctly fill-in gaps in surviving texts, and to do so with sufficient literary quality to engage and influence modern readers.

Of course, such a claim would mean making explicit reference to Christianity - putting Tolkien's books into an explicitly Christian frame; which he was clearly reluctant to do. It would furthermore have entailed Tolkien putting himself forward as an instrument of divine destiny (a mere instrument, as he humbly understood it) - which he was willing to do in private among friends, but not in public; because the mainstream atheistic public would surely have regarded such a claim as insane, idiotic or arrogant.

But we ourselves can, if we wish, frame Tolkien's work in this fashion - and I certainly do!


Note: Verlyn Flieger's Interrupted Music is well worth reading for its detailed and accurate scholarship - although it is significantly flawed by fairly frequent intrusion  of mainstream academic deference to political correctness and materialism - 'virtue signalling' and reductionism (eg. repeatedly and wrongly stating that Frodo's mental state at the end of LotR is Post Tramatic Stress Disorder; and that LotR is essentially about war: A War Book). This prejudicial and corrupting leftism crept into this author's later work; as happened to almost-all authors over recent decades; except in some instances when the work was explicitly - non-liberal - Christian.)