Tolkien was, in almost every sense, an ancient. He never wanted to live in the present, rather in times of yore—and eternity. He cherished the Western Tradition of the medieval, but saw in modernity a perversion of all that was good and sacred. This preference for the medieval over the modern is apparent in Tolkien’s books, short stories, essays, and personal life. This paper will attempt to contrast the medieval and modern worlds, explain why Tolkien preferred the old to the new, and why we as his modern-day readers should admire and appreciate the middle ages as well.
Arguably, the most distinct difference between medieval man’s understanding of life and that of modern man is their contrasting views on human limitations. “For the medieval, since the world is finite and human desire infinite, logic dictates that human desire must limit itself in order to conform to the natural world” (Grote: C.S. Lewis’ Medieval Critique of Modernity) In contrast, the modern man believes quite the opposite; he attempts to form the natural world to his desires.
Any student of Tolkien understands that it is hard to know Tolkien completely without mentioning C.S. Lewis. Although I believe that Tolkien grasped the errors and dangers of modernity as capably as Lewis. Indeed, Lewis certainly wrote about the subject in a more straightforward manner. In The Abolition of Man, Lewis writes, “For the wise men of old, the cardinal problem of human life has been how to conform the soul to reality, and the solution has always been knowledge, self-discipline, and virtue. For [the modern mind] the problem is how to subdue reality to the wishes of men and the solution is technique [i.e. technology]” (Lewis: The Abolition of Man)
Like Lewis, Tolkien also “celebrated the arduous human adventure of conforming the soul to reality and feared the moral and environmental consequences of a mindset bent on conforming reality to human desire.” (Grote: C.S. Lewis’ Medieval Critique of Modernity)
As a staunch Roman Catholic, Tolkien understood that a human’s refusal to accept limitation was indicative of the same destructive evil that originally induced the fall of man in the Garden of Eden. In addition to his religious beliefs, many of the medieval stories Tolkien loved so much often concerned the destruction of a man who refused to accept limits.
Yet, modern man deems weak someone who accepts limitation but praises the man who possesses the ambition and so-called “strength” to “have it all.” In his poem, Mythopoeia, Tolkien declares his independence from modernism when he writes:
I will not walk with your progressive grapes
Erect and sapient. Before them gapes
The dark abyss to which their progress tends-
If by God’s mercy their progress ends
And does not ceaselessly revolve
The same unfruitful course with the changing of a name (Lines 117-122).
In other words, Tolkien foresees the emptiness and doom of a man who accepts no limitations; therefore, Tolkien refuses to accept the fruitless mentality of modern man.
Perhaps the most physical, though no less philosophical manifestation of man living with no limits, is the rapid growth of technology over the past century. The modern world’s wealth of technology contrasts starkly with that evident in the medieval world, which lacked almost all material comforts. Unlike most people who view technology and events such as the Industrial Revolution as positive changes, Tolkien believed that these “advancements” would eventually lead to the self-destruction of mankind. Especially as a soldier in WWI, Tolkien witnessed firsthand the evil of mechanized warfare. However, it wasn’t just war technology that Tolkien despised, but automobiles, trains, planes, and even voice recorders.
One of the most amusing Tolkien stories I’ve heard took place in 1952 when a student of Tolkien’s came to him and asked if he could record Tolkien reading some of his poetry. Tolkien had never seen a voice recorder before and because of his medieval hesitation and skepticism of technology, Tolkien refused to allow the recorder in his presence until he had blessed it with the Lord’s Prayer in Old German.
Another great example of Tolkien’s disgust with anything mechanized took place during an interview with Harvey Briet from the New York Times. Briet asked Tolkien, “What makes you tick,” to which Tolkien replied, "I do not tick. I am not a machine. If I did tick, I should have no views on it, and you had better ask the winder.” And that was it; Tolkien ended the interview right there. (Bizer: Lecture: The True King)
Tolkien feared that the ever-increasing glorification of technology would lead to the loss of human value and dignity. Tolkien’s shire from the Lord of The Rings serves as his best representation of an ideal pre-modern, agrarian society; an antipode to modern industrialized society. The Hobbits of the shire simply live the good life, free from the evils of technology. In the prologue to the Fellowship of the Ring, Tolkien writes, “Hobbits are unobtrusive but very ancient people…they love peace and quiet and good tilled earth…They do not and did not understand or like machines more complicated than a forge-bellows, a water-mill, or a hand loom…” (Tolkien: Fellowship of the Ring)
In a sense, the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy is an elegy for the past; a longing for a better age in which the world seems to be moving ever further away. Tolkien’s melancholic longing for days gone by can be heard clearly through the Elf, Legolas, when he mourns, “Alas for us all. And for all that walk in the world after these days.” (Tolkien: Fellowship of the Ring)
Tolkien’s view of technology as being evil derived partly because of technology’s dramatic and damaging effect on nature. The medievalist’s view of nature is virtually the opposite of that held by modern man, and Tolkien believed that this shift in views was certainly a shift for the worse. Modern advancements in technology have resulted in the conquest and destruction of many natural things at the hands of men.
Nature, in medieval times, was viewed as a sacrament. Nature itself was not viewed as being divine but was a product of divine activity, i.e. creation. Like a sacrament, creation reveals and conceals God. For the modern man, however, nature has no spiritual value but is seen merely as raw material or energy to be used for the “relief of man’s estate.” (Bacon: The Advancement of Learning and New Atlantic)
Tolkien believed that through nature man could experience a relationship with the sacred. However, the modern man’s view of nature, Tolkien feared, would turn man into creatures similar to T.S. Eliot’s “Hollow Men” or Lewis’s “Men Without Chests.” Tolkien believed that as men stray further away from the medieval model—the belief that nature contains the divine—and move towards the modern model in which nature contains no divine, man’s view of human nature will follow the same pattern and humans will no longer see the divine in themselves or in others. Tolkien believed that any attack on nature was an attack on man himself.
In a passage from That Hideous Strength, Lewis writes, “You know as well as I do that Man’s power over Nature means the power of some men over other men with Nature as the instrument.” (Lewis: That Hideous Strength) Tolkien also understood that this modern view of nature would lead to the eventual defeat and enslavement of some men over others, with nature as their means.
Though the Middle Ages certainly had its share of barbaric moments, the medievals did not possess the evils of technology that we have today, including the ability to destroy the world with a single bomb.
This impious, modern view of nature may be partially attributed to modern scientific discoveries. Medieval science was a study which, as Aristotle wrote, “…yielded a contemplative appreciation of nature…everything which is by nature, bears in itself something divine” (Aristotle: Nicomachean Ethics).
Tolkien certainly agreed with Aristotle, believing everything natural to be living, animated, and containing some aspect of the divine. I often wonder if when Tolkien and Lewis went out on their frequent walks they saw the same things we see. Where we see bark, leaves, and branches, they seem to have seen the face of the Lord.
Tolkien’s medieval love of nature is evident throughout his books and writings.
To see what Tolkien saw in the trees takes a certain kind of imagination, a more medieval imagination. In the modern world, however, such imagination seems to be rarely encouraged or appreciated. The medieval’s ability to see past the physical has been hindered by modern technology and science. Karl Marx brilliantly explains this dilemma:
“Is the conception of nature and of social relations which underlies [medieval] imagination…possible when there are self-acting mules, railways, locomotives and electric telegraphs? What is a Vulcan compared with Roberts and Co., Jupiter compared with the lightning conductor…? All mythology subdues, controls and fashions the forces of nature in imagination and through imagination, it disappears therefore when real control over these forces is established” (Marx: A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy).
To Tolkien, imagination was the most important and valuable human quality. For him, by invoking one’s imagination, he could escape into the world of Faerie. Tolkien describes Faerie like this:
“The realm of the fairy-story is wide and deep and high and filled with many things: all manner of beasts and birds are found there; shoreless seas and stars uncounted; beauty that is an enchantment, and an ever-present peril; both joy and sorrow as sharp as swords. In that realm a man may, perhaps, count himself fortunate to have wandered, but its very richness and strangeness tie the tongue of a traveler who would report them. And while he is there it is dangerous for him to ask too many questions, lest the gates should shut and the keys be lost.” (Tolkien: On Faerie Stories)
Tolkien believed that Faerie allows one to see things for what they really are and to come close to discovering the true beauty of a thing as God intended it. Lewis, G.K. Chesterton, and George MacDonald all agreed with Tolkien on the necessity of Faerie stories.
“When properly understood and explored, faerie allows one to escape the drabness of the mechanized world of modernity. It allows one, for example, to see bread and wine as much more than bread and wine.The perilous realm of Faerie reveals truth and beauty beyond normal comprehension; the true and the beautiful lead us to the Good and the One.” (Bizer: J.R.R. Tolkien and the Reclamation)
However, modern society mocks this type of thinking, deeming it primeval or superstitious. Unlike the medieval, modern man has come to equate the word “myth” with the word “false.” Tolkien would disagree vehemently with the modern man in this regard.
This fallacy in modern thinking leads me to what I believe Tolkien considered modernity’s most grave and consequential mistake: separating the cult from the culture; i.e., divorcing religion from culture. Without the cult—the belief in the divine—there is no culture.
Tolkien saw the breakup of religion from society as humanity’s saddest trend; in fact, he longed for the reformation of Christendom. He hoped that his mythology of middle earth would serve as a wakeup call to the West to return to its pre-modern phase. He even wrote in a letter once that the return of King Aragorn to his rightful throne “was far more like the re-establishment of an effective Holy Roman Empire with its seat in Rome.” (Carpenter: Letters of J.R.R. Tolkein)
For me, Tolkien serves as a role model and teacher. In his writings, he has “preserved the best of Western civilization in a century that mocked tradition, desecrated the human person, and ignored the Author of Creation.” (Bizer: J.R.R. Tolkien and the Reclamation) Tolkien longed to return to the traditions of the Medievals. Though he believed it unlikely, he clung somehow to the hope that light will shine through the dark shadow of modernity’s wing. While speaking to a Dutch audience in 1958, Tolkien once said, “I look to the East, West, North, South, and I do not see Sauron. But I see that Sauron has many descendents. We Hobbits have against them no magic weapons. Yet, my gently hobbits, I give you this toast: To the Hobbits. May they outlast the Sarumans and see spring in the trees again.” (Tolkien: Tolkien’s Exceptional Visit to Holland)
Though the Sarumans of the world may outnumber us, we can rest assured that we will outlast them. For those of us who live in the modern world but still follow the One True King, the King whom Tolkien followed, we can be confident that we will also “see spring in the trees again.”
