Middle-earth Minstrel This page intentionally left blank 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. This page intentionally left blank 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