jahedaaos: Tolkien, Religion, and Popular Culture Part I of VI ? SPC Humanities ...

Editor?s Note: The article was inspired by years of research on Tolkien and Biblical history as well as a recent article from EW.com?s (?Entertainment Weekly?) Emily Rome who wrote an article covering the inspiration for New Zealand songwriter? Neil Finn?s ?Song of the Lonely Mountain,? which played during the credits of the 2012 Hobbit movie directed by Peter Jackson. This article will tie together some of the exilic and post-exilic writings from the Hebrew Bible and both Tolkien?s story of the Dwarves from the?Hobbit and Finn?s moving lyrics, tying together scholarship, fiction, and popular culture. This article will be published over the next week in five chunks, as it is too long to publish in one sitting. Please wait for each part to be posted between 1/19/13 and 1/24/13, thank you. This is a great opportunity for us to understand what the Humanities discipline is and why it is so important that we become exposed to the Fine Arts in today?s world.? I hope this article, in all its chunks does honor to our Saint Petersburg College Humanities and Fine Arts department and our fine faculty and student body.? Please enjoy.

Introduction

One of my favorite tunes to run to after teaching in the past few weeks has been ?The Song of the Lonely Mountain? by Neil Finn.? It is also the song I am currently listening to while writing this article; the song has a way of making you run faster, no matter how tired you are. You feel the force of history and the beauty of poetry pressing upon your back, pushing you onward to your goal.? Today?s article will cover the relationship between this song, Tolkien?s ?Misty Mountains? poem, and Psalm 137?an exilic poem written by an anonymous Jew living in Babylon c. 586 B.C.E. I want to highlight the similarities in tone and content as well as point out a meeting of popular culture, fiction, and ancient history which is what the Humanities is all about. If any readers have any doubts about this connection, look no further than the following quote from one of Tolkien?s letters and the article below from Entertainment Weekly.? As C.S. Lewis pointed out in my previous article on Tolkien and his religion, one of the greatest strengths of fiction lies in its ability to cause us to think more critically about things we claim to already know so well.? Tolkien once wrote, ?I do think of the ?Dwarves? like Jews,? (Letters, 229) who are ?at once native and alien in their habitations.?? After the expulsion of the Jews from Jerusalem by the Babylonians in 586 B.C.E., they were forced to live either in a broken city (Jerusalem) or in an alien and distant country (Babylon, Iraq) and had to contend with rival religions, languages, and customs as they fought to maintain their own beliefs and traditions; it was not an easy task.
Today?s article will be divided up into sections correlating with the stanzas of Neil Finn?s ?Song of the Lonely Mountain,? Tolkien?s ?Misty Mountains Poem,? (found in Chapter 1 of the Hobbit) and Psalm 137. I will explore the similarities and dissimilarities between the three and attempt to show how useful the Humanities discipline can be in teaching us to reflect more frequently and deeply on our humanity.? It?s great fun when our favorite pop culture songs or fads borrow from the pages of history or works of fiction; I believe I combine all three in a unique way that will encourage our readers to see these topics from a fresh point of view.? Here?s the hoping you all get something out of it.

?Far Over the Misty Mountains??

?The first stanza of Neil Finn?s ?Song of the Lonely Mountain? perfectly captures the end of the first part of the Hobbit film accurately, but it also paints with words a heroic picture of the dwarves? quest for Erebor, the Lonely Mountain.? The opening words are enchanting and bring us soaring up to an eyrie: ?Far over the Misty Mountains rise, leave us standing upon the heights, what was before, we see once more, our kingdom a distant light.? Here we get the first part of the song I?d like to analyze.? Thorin and the Dwarves are standing upon the Carrock (for the book fans, that?s Beorn?s ?look-out rock?) gazing at the distant Lonely Mountain, and instantly we see a grim irony with the dwarves? situation and the song?s lyrics. The Dwarves once lived under this mountain in peace and prosperity but have since been sent into exile by Smaug the dragon, forced to work for other peoples in distant lands, which now lay behind them. It is a crossroads for the Dwarves: here they are brought back into sight of their ancestral home while also leaving their new lives literally behind them. They worked on the same types of things in exile that they did while living under the Lonely Mountain, but what was before (what they?ve been accustomed to doing in exile) is colliding together for an incredible feeling of longing and nostalgia with what literally was before: their ancestral homeland.? At the same time, many of the dwarves were happy in the Blue Mountains west of the Shire where they had forged (sorry) a new life for themselves; what was before, we see once more: do we want to return to our homes in exile or return to our ancestral home?? What was ?before? is a pun; their new lives are before and their old lives are before at the same time; they see ?once more? a choice: exile or restoration.? We see how we can play with that creatively a little.? ?Our kingdom, a distant light,? is literally the mountain but it could also be the homes they?ve left behind in exile.? You see, the Jews had this choice, too: many didn?t return to Israel after the Persians rescue them because they had made themselves a new life in exile. Their old lives (Erebor) are now new and their new lives (exile in the Blue Mountains) are old. ??At the end of the article, we will see that in the book of Ezra, some Jews were dissatisfied with the ?new? Jerusalem.? When Thorin and the Dwarves later arrive at Erebor, it?s not quite the same either.
?Far over the Misty Mountains cold, to dungeons deep and caverns old, we must away, ere break of day, to seek our pale enchanted gold,? sing Thorin and the Dwarves in the dark quiet of Bilbo?s home before setting out on their quest.? One can see how Tolkien?s poetry correlates with Finn?s lyrics here.? What might not be so apparent is the connection to Psalm 137: ?By the rivers of Babylon we sat and wept when we remembered Zion,? writes the anonymous Psalmist in Babylon.? Here the Dwarves and the Psalmist are in distant, foreign lands and ?far over Misty Mountains? and ?by the rivers of Babylon we sat? tells us that there are boundaries separating them from their ancestral homes?boundaries that must be traversed.? Both the Jews and the Dwarves are declaring their yearning to return, no matter what separates them.