Table Of ContentMiddle-earth Minstrel
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Middle-earth Minstrel
Essays on Music in Tolkien
Edited by
Bradford Lee Eden
McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers
Jefferson, North Carolina, and London
LIBRARYOFCONGRESSONLINECATALOGDATA
Middle-earth minstrel : essays on music in Tolkien / edited by
Bradford Lee Eden.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-7864-4814-2
softcover : 50# alkaline paper
¡. Tolkien, J.R.R. (John Ronald Reuel), 1892–1973—
Criticism and interpretation. 2. Tolkien, J.R.R. (John
Ronald Reuel), 1892–1973—Knowledge—Music.
3. Tolkien, J.R.R. (John Ronald Reuel), 1892–1973—
Knowledge—Middle Ages. 4. Music in literature.
5. Fantasy fiction, English—Medieval influences. 6. Middle
Earth (Imaginary place) I. Eden, Bradford Lee. II. Title:
Music in Tolkien.
PR6039.O32Z6964 2010
823'.912—dc22 2010006922
British Library cataloguing data are available
©2010 Bradford Lee Eden. All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form
or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying
or recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system,
without permission in writing from the publisher.
On the cover: (top) Detail from the Codex Manesse, f. 399r,
Meister Heinrich Frauenlob, early 14th century; (bottom)
Portion of Sumer is icumen in,British Library MS Harley 978,
f. ¡¡v, mid–13th century; (background 2010 Shutterstock)
Manufactured in the United States of America
McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers
Box 6¡¡, Je›erson, North Carolina 28640
www.mcfarlandpub.com
This book is dedicated to those people who have had the
most influence in my life, and those whom I love the most:
To Boo and Tar, my best friends and fellow Tar-babies,
who helped form a literary and scholarly fellowship early in
my life, and have since moved on into the next existence.
To Crystal, whose presence in my life as a daughter
has helped me to grow and learn, whom I love deeply and
continue to be exceptionally proud of.
To my wife Sonja and daughter Noëlle, the loves of
my life, who lift me up daily from the rigors of work and
my own inadequacies, to celebrate every moment of every
day as precious and wonderful with their smiles and their
laughter.
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Table of Contents
Introduction
BRADFORD LEE EDEN 1
Horns of Dawn: The Tradition of Alliterative Verse in Rohan
JASON FISHER 7
“Inside a Song”: Tolkien’s Phonaesthetics
JOHN R. HOLMES 26
Æ´fre me strongode longas: Songs of Exile in the Mortal Realms
PETER WILKIN 47
J.R.R. Tolkien: A Fortunate Rhythm
DARIELLE RICHARDS 61
Tolkien’s Unfinished “Lay of Lúthien” and the Middle English
Sir Orfeo
DEANNA DELMAR EVANS 75
Strains of Elvish Song and Voices: Victorian Medievalism,
Music, and Tolkien
BRADFORD LEE EDEN 85
Dissonance in the Divine Theme: The Issue of Free Will in
Tolkien’s Silmarillion
KEITH W. JENSEN 102
“Worthy of a Song”: Memory, Mortality and Music
AMY M. AMENDT-RADUEGE 114
vii
Table of Contents
“Tolkien is the Wind and the Way”: The Educational Value of
Tolkien-Inspired World Music
AMY H. STURGIS 126
Liquid Tolkien: Music, Tolkien, Middle-earth, and More Music
DAVID BRATMAN 140
Performance Art in a Tunnel: A Musical Sub-Creator in the
Tradition of Tolkien
ANTHONY S. BURDGE 171
Contributors 201
Index 205
viii
Introduction
Bradford Lee Eden
It is with great pleasure that I offer up this book of essays to Tolkien
scholars and enthusiasts. It is the culmination of thirty years of personal
interest, a discovery not unlike many others that happened during my
teenage years and has progressively and inevitably led to advanced educa-
tion, career directions and choices, and ultimately to this book.
In 2003, I received a grant from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas,
to visit the two major archives containing Tolkien-related materials, at
Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and the Bodleian Library
at the University of Oxford in England, to explore writing a book on musi-
cal allusions in Tolkien’s works. Having visited the Marquette archives in
1981 as an undergraduate student writing an honors religion paper on
Tolkien’s views regarding subcreation, it was a wonderful experience to go
back again a little older and more knowledgeable and re-examine Tolkien’s
materials. But the ultimate experience was my three-week visit to the
Bodleian Library in April 2003, something that many Tolkien enthusiasts
have dreamed of but have never been able to do. Having gone through
the extensive process of applying for a reader’s pass, then scheduling my
visit with the librarian in charge of the Tolkien archives, I can say that my
visit was truly enlightening. Not only did I get to touch and study man-
uscripts, notes, lectures, and various miscellanea that Tolkien himself
wrote, but I got to explore the city of Oxford as well, visiting all of the
sites associated with Tolkien, including his gravesite and his various homes.
As I examined the materials in the Bodleian, I came across Tolkien’s
various drafts of a lecture entitled “The Tradition of Versification in Old
English, with special reference to the ‘Battle of Maldon’ and its allitera-
1
Description:The twentieth century witnessed the dramatic rise of fantasy writing, but few works are as popular or enduring as the novels of J.R.R. Tolkien. Surprisingly, little critical attention has been paid to the presence of music in his novels. This collection of essays explores the multitude of musical-li
