I just started reading JRR Tolkien’s novels. hobbit adventure To my daughter. Although many of Tolkien’s nuances and references to deep time are lost on her, she easily captures the unique charm of the characters, the nature of their journeys, and the dangers and wonders they have encountered along the way, as well as their elven friends. She was familiar with fairy tale dwarfs and mythical wizards, but not with the archetype of the insular, adventure-averse middle-class aristocracy, so the hobbits themselves took some time to explain.
While reading this book and discussing it with her, I wondered about the possible historical connections between Tolkien’s fairy tale characters and the Walt Disney Company characters who appeared around the same time. a group of dwarves hobbit adventure perhaps they share a common ancestor snow white’s Dwarfs appear in German fairy tales first published in 1812 by the Brothers Grimm. But the similarities between Tolkien and Disney begin and end here.
In fact, Tolkien hated most of Disney’s works and made his feelings very clear. snow white Debuts in just a few months hobbit adventureCoincidentally, Tolkien went to see this film with his literary friend and sometime rival, C.S. Lewis. I didn’t really like either of them. In a 1939 letter, Lewis admitted that “the scary parts were good and the animals were really moving.” But he also called Disney a “poor guy” and lamented, “If this guy had been educated, or even brought up in a decent society, this might not have happened.”
tolkien’s notes atlas obscura“I thought Snow White was lovely, but I wasn’t happy with the rest of the dwarfs. To both Tolkien and Lewis, Disney’s dwarfs seemed like a gross oversimplification of a concept they held as precious: the idea of fairy tales.” Some may scoff at their opinions, like a pair of Oxford University dons looking down their noses at American popular entertainment. Tolkien scholar Trish Lambert says: [Disney] They were commodifying something they considered almost sacred. ”
“surely,” Stephen D. Greydanus writes in the National Catholic Register:“It would be impossible to imagine these two writers being anything other than appalled by Disney’s silly dwarfs, with their slapstick humor, nursery-like nicknames, and sing-song musical numbers.” One might object that Tolkien’s dwarfs (as he insists on making the word plural) also have funny names (though of Old Norse origin) and also begin to sing. However, he has a hard time separating his dwarfs from the dwarfs of common fairy tales.
Tolkien later expressed his respect for fairy tales in his 1947 academic essay “On Fairy Tales,” in which he attempted to define the genre and analyzed its differences from other types of great fiction, writing with reverence that “the realm of fairy tales is wide, deep, and high.” These stories should be taken seriously and not ridiculed or infantilized as he believed. “The association of children with fairy tales is an accident of our domestic history,” he writes.
Tolkien wrote: hobbit adventure Although it is a book for young people, he did not write this book as a “children’s book.” There is nothing in this book that panders to the language, complex characters, or adult themes. Tolkien, on the other hand, represented the cheapening of ancient cultural artifacts, and Tolkien likely thought Disney’s approach to children’s films was particularly condescending and cynical.
He described Disney’s production as a whole as “vulgar”, which he himself said: 1964 letteras “just a con artist” who was “hopelessly corrupted” by the pursuit of profit (though he himself admits that he is “not innocent of the profit motive”).
…I recognize his talent, but it always seemed hopelessly depraved to me. There’s something admirable or fascinating about most of the “pictures” that come out of his studio, but the impact of all of them is disgusting to me. Some people feel nauseous…
This explanation of Tolkien’s distaste for Disney goes beyond mere gossip to important practical consequences. In other words, Tolkien did not allow his work to be treated as Walt Disney. When his publisher approached the studio about a problem, lord of the rings Adaptation (which was rejected at the time), but most scholars believe this happened without the author’s knowledge, which seems like a safe assumption to say the least.
Tolkien’s long history Expressing negative opinions about Disney later led to him banning his films from being produced by Disney Studios “to the extent possible” (all of which I have a genuine aversion to). Astute readers of Tolkien know his serious intentions even in the most ridiculous characters and situations. Or, as Vintage News’ Martin Charakoski writes, “There’s not a hint of Disney on any page.”
Note: An earlier version of this post appeared on our site in 2018.
Related content:
J.R.R. Tolkien dismisses German publisher who wanted proof of his ‘Aryan descent’ (1938)
110 Drawings and Paintings by JRR Tolkien: About Middle-earth and Beyond
JRR Tolkien wrote and spoke in Elvish, a language he invented. lord of the rings
When JRR Tolkien worked oxford english dictionary and “I learned more than at any other similar time in my life” (1919-1920)
josh jones I’m a writer and musician based in Durham, North Carolina.
Source: Open Culture – www.openculture.com
