Passage from the text:
“There he wandered long in a dream of music that turned into a running water, and then suddenly into a voice. It seemed to be the voice of Bilbo chanting verses. Faint at first and then clearer ran the words.
Earendil was a mariner
that tarried in Arvernien;
he built a boat of timber felled...”
Pg#: 227
Commentary: [Response]
Earlier year this year dear Mrs.Clifford pedagogically posed this question to me:
“Why do you think the author includes so many songs in the text?”
I’d like to take a moment to answer this question.
I’ve mused a bit on why Tolkien decided to include written verse in his first installment of the Lord of the Rings. I think there are multiple reasons why he choose to do this. The expanse of characters that sing throughout the novel is impressive: Frodo, Sam, Strider, the Elvin peoples, Tom Bombadil; I think even Gandalf manages a line or two of song. But why does almost everyone sing? Well, logic will tell us that if many characters in the book sing then many persons within the same fictional setting probably also sing. It’s commonplace for hobbits and elves, but for who else is it commonplace for? If we went back to the times of the Jewish people we would find that there were persons that memorized whole stories of ancestry and recited them for the preservation of history. The songs that the characters in Lord of the Rings sing are not wholly reserved to relationship woes or other painful topics [as today’s modern music is], they usually have something to do with a story or some history. Tolkien is consistently using rhythmic oration to set the mood of the novel as one of an older- more traditional time.
I also think that prose is not enough for Tolkien. He’s all about the subtle hinting and whatnot. What better place to do that than in a well-placed poem? That’s right, there is no better place. By the way,
Frodo, Sam, Strider, Tom Bombadil and Gandalf are men. And they sing songs.
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