Minor Works -- 1 - Farmer Giles of Ham - The Barrow-Downs Discussion Forum

littlemanpoet · 06-06-2021, 05:58 AM

I've been meaning to post about this for a few days. I've been thinking about Tolkien's treatment of animals in FGoH, which has been commented on by others on this thread.

When Tolkien wrote and published Giles, it was the time between Darwin and Goodall, when the scientific viewpoint was that animals were little more than machines. We may forget how much this viewpoint dominated intellectual opinion.

Tolkien's evocation of the Mare and Garm with so much personality was a radical departure from the norm, and for him I think that it was natural because of his Catholic sensibility.

Although Lewis' The Discarded Image was not published until 1964, I think the evidence is clear that Tolkien and Lewis shared the viewpoint of that image, which can be called "Incarnational."

That the evocation appeared in a comical work like Giles may have given leave to Tolkien's listeners to regard the animal personalities as 'of the times,' but I don't think Tolkien regarded it so. We know that he loved horses from experience, having worked with them during WW1. His knowledge and love of dogs is shared by most of us.

So I just wanted draw attention to Giles as a radical departure from the accepted norm of how one might write about animals. I have not looked into how other writers of Tolkien's time wrote them, which would be an interesting comparative study. Maybe it has already been done.

06-06-2021, 05:58 AM	#6
littlemanpoet Itinerant Songster Join Date: Jan 2002 Location: The Edge of Faerie Posts: 7,066	The Discarded Image I've been meaning to post about this for a few days. I've been thinking about Tolkien's treatment of animals in FGoH, which has been commented on by others on this thread. When Tolkien wrote and published Giles, it was the time between Darwin and Goodall, when the scientific viewpoint was that animals were little more than machines. We may forget how much this viewpoint dominated intellectual opinion. Tolkien's evocation of the Mare and Garm with so much personality was a radical departure from the norm, and for him I think that it was natural because of his Catholic sensibility. Although Lewis' The Discarded Image was not published until 1964, I think the evidence is clear that Tolkien and Lewis shared the viewpoint of that image, which can be called "Incarnational." That the evocation appeared in a comical work like Giles may have given leave to Tolkien's listeners to regard the animal personalities as 'of the times,' but I don't think Tolkien regarded it so. We know that he loved horses from experience, having worked with them during WW1. His knowledge and love of dogs is shared by most of us. So I just wanted draw attention to Giles as a radical departure from the accepted norm of how one might write about animals. I have not looked into how other writers of Tolkien's time wrote them, which would be an interesting comparative study. Maybe it has already been done.