Episode 194: D. J. Taylor on J. R. R. Tolkien

Yeah, and that seems to me that that applies to the politics as well.

At one stage, you quote somebody saying that the politics of the Lord of the Rings is a messy pluralism held together by pragmatism and strained alliances.

I found that very striking, not least because pluralism, pragmatism, these almost seem alien concepts to us in our contemporary politics.

It's an interesting one, isn't it? Yes.

If you look at it sort of politically and systemically to see how the various parts of Middle Earth actually function in a political sort of way, well, then, you know, the dwarfs have their kingdom.

Then you've got a kind of sort of projection of Anglo-Saxon politics.

kingship in the Riders of Rohan.

That's very interesting.

The critic Tom Shippey has written very interestingly about this, about how this was Tolkien's attempt to create an Anglo-Saxon world.

The only difference being that the principle, the mechanism is the horse, where there weren't so many of those in Anglo-Saxon.

That's very interesting.

Then you've got Minas Tirith, which always seems to me a kind of, almost like an Italian city-state, really.

from the 14th century you've got a sort of hobbit republic going on in the west and then you've got the brigands you know you've got the goblins of the orcs and then you and then in the east you've got the you know you've got a sort of oriental caliphate going on you know the uh the harrod rim you've got a mercenary you've got a mercenary navy the corsairs of umber you know they they sort of turn up And so there are all these sort of different contending political and military systems which have to find some kind of accommodation if alliances are to be formed.

Then, of course, you've got the elves who are absolutely fascinating.

I'm fascinated by what Tolkien thought of the elves because there is a kind of... decadence to them and you can see that they've they've opted out of contemporary middle earth they've given up and they're off and even when the bat even when the battle has been against saron has been won they're still receding from the world and you can tell that they're not off the present age they're they're a kind of throwback and atavism from a bygone sort of way of life and this is interesting too and all this has to be boiled up to you know to produce the solution that will get Middle Earth back on track by the end of the book.

So this is all very interesting.

There's not one way of behaving.

There's not one sort of political system that is seen to be superior to any other.

And the way in which they all intersect and the mosaics which they produce are very, very interesting, I think.

Yeah, and the other thing that's kind of struck me is the nature of power as well, because one of the lessons you point out in the book is that heroes are needed, but they can never have ultimate power, that Gandalf and Galadriel both understand that.

It's the difference between power and authority.

That's very true.

I think that's a very good distinction.

In fact, one of the really telling things about The Lord of the Rings is that you realise that the good characters display and sometimes extend their goodness by refusing the things that are offered to them or by... looking at them and then deciding no I mean obviously the great it was very well filmed I think the scene in Peter Jackson's film where Galadriel sort of contemplates the ring and says no you know and sort of looks terrifying in all from and then sort of puts it down I will go and so she will go into the west it's the same with Aragorn he doesn't want the ring because he knows it will nothing good will come of it the same with Gandalf too you know so it's it's left to it's left to the little people it's left to the hobbits to dispose of this thing so that uh the big serious people can't be morally compromised by the by the having of it.

It's another example of just how instrumental hobbits are in bringing that world to fulfilment and its schemes.