A Hobbit, a Wardrobe, and a Great War: How J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis Rediscovered Faith, Friendship, and Heroism In the Cataclysm of 1914–1918

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A Hobbit, a Wardrobe, and a Great War: How J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis Rediscovered Faith, Friendship, and Heroism In the Cataclysm of 1914–1918 Page 22

by Joseph Loconte


  103. Kilby and Mead, eds., Brothers and Friends, 284.

  104. Lewis, The Four Loves, 104.

  105. Alister McGrath convincingly argued that Lewis joined the Somerset Light Infantry so that he could serve alongside his friend Paddy Moore. See McGrath, C. S. Lewis, 65–66.

  106. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings, 105.

  107. Ibid., 104.

  108. Carpenter, ed., The Letters, 88.

  109. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings, 87.

  110. Ibid., 940.

  111. Members of the Inklings included Lewis and his brother Warren, Tolkien, Charles Williams, Owen Barfield, and Hugo Dyson.

  112. Carpenter, ed., The Letters, 94.

  113. Hooper, ed., Collected Letters, Vol. 2, 501.

  114. Carpenter, ed., The Letters, 303.

  115. Hooper, ed., Collected Letters, Vol. 3, 249–250.

  116. In his letter to Tolkien, dated November 13, 1952, Lewis does not explicitly refer to the First World War in his mention of “the war” as among the things that Tolkien’s work had helped to make permanent. But it seems unlikely that he would have the Second World War in mind, which had come to an end seven years earlier.

  117. Hooper, ed., Collected Letters, Vol. 3, 1458.

  118. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings, 694. Italics are mine.

  119. Carpenter, ed., The Letters, 341.

  120. Lewis, The Chronicles of Narnia, 216.

  121. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings, 870.

  122. Ibid., 500.

  123. Spacks, “Power and Meaning in The Lord of the Rings,” in Zimbardo and Isaacs, eds., Understanding The Lord of the Rings, 60.

  124. Ward, ed., World War One British Poets, 25.

  125. Carpenter, ed., The Letters, 78.

  Conclusion: The Return of the King

  1. “November 11th 1918,” History Learning Site, http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/november_11_1918.htm

  2. Thomas Hardy, “And There Was a Great Calm,” in Ward, ed., World War One British Poets, 58.

  3. Meyer, A World Undone, 486.

  4. Hooper, C. S. Lewis: Companion and Guide, 444.

  5. Lewis, The Chronicles of Narnia, 717.

  6. Walmsley, ed., Faith, Christianity and the Church, 46.

  7. Carpenter, ed., The Letters, 111.

  8. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings, 962.

  9. Ibid., 950.

  10. Carpenter, ed., The Letters, 252.

  11. Tolkien, Tree and Leaf, 68–69.

  12. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings, 255–56.

  13. Carpenter, ed., The Letters, 253.

  14. Ibid., 69.

  15. Lewis, The Chronicles of Narnia, 185.

  16. Ibid., 737.

  17. Ibid., 759.

  18. In his essay “On Fairy-Stories,” Tolkien leaves no doubt about his understanding of the central meaning of Christianity. “The Birth of Christ is the eucatastrophe of Man’s history. The Resurrection is the eucatastrophe of the story of the Incarnation. This story begins and ends in joy.” Tolkien, Tree and Leaf, 72.

  19. Isaacs and Zimbardo, eds., Tolkien and the Critics, 248.

  20. Tolkien, Tree and Leaf, 69.

  21. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings, 954.

  22. Ezra 3:11–12.

  23. Churchill, The World Crisis, 3–4.

  24. Meyer, World Undone, 260.

  25. Quoted in Dan Rodricks, “The Sad, Senseless End of Henry Gunther,” Baltimore Sun, November 11, 2008, http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2008–11–11/news/0811100097_1_henry-gunther-11th-month-war-i.

  26. Overy, The Twilight Years, 12.

  27. T. S. Eliot, The Wasteland and Other Poems (Orlando: Harcourt Brace & Company), 33.

  28. Remarque, All Quiet on the Western Front, 294.

  29. Lewis, The Chronicles of Narnia, 339.

  30. Ibid., 766.

  31. MacDonald, Phantastes, 188.

  32. C. S. Lewis, ed., George MacDonald: An Anthology (New York: HarperCollins, 2001), xxxv.

  33. Lewis, The Chronicles of Narnia, 557–558.

  34. Lewis, ed., George MacDonald, xxxv.

  35. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings, 968.

  36. Joel 3:14.

  37. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings, 953.

  38. Revelation 22:5.

  A Remembrance

  1. The Story of the 91st Division (San Francisco: H.S. Crocker Co., Inc., 1919), 19.

  2. Ibid., 32.

  INDEX

  Abbott, Lyman, 45

  The Evolution of

  Christianity, 14

  Aiello, Giuseppe, xi

  Ambrose, Stephen, Band of

  Brothers, 174

  American Genetic

  Association, 16

  Angell, Norman, The Great

  Illusion, 3–4

  anthroposophy, 126

  Antwerp, German

  takeover of, 80

  Aragorn, 151, 171–172, 195

  Aravis, 154–155, 175

  Armenians, deaths, 106–107, 216n7

  armies, 23

  Armistice Day, 107

  Arras, Battle of, 96

  artillery, 64

  Askins, John, 111, 115–116

  Aslan, 10, 21, 139, 147, 148, 153, 154–155, 189–190, 194

  Asquith, Herbert Henry, 33

  atheism

  communism and, 112–113

  Lewis and, 87–88, 110

  Lewis’s shift from, 128–129

  Mussolini and, 114

  war reinforcement in

  Lewis, 93

  Auden, W.H., Tolkien letter

  to, 74–75

  Austro-Hungarian Empire, collapse, 123

  Ayres, Harry, 99

  Baggins, Bilbo, 6–7, 22, 135, 145

  Baggins, Frodo, 145–147, 150–151, 152

  anguish after leaving

  Shire, 65

  vs. Aragorn, 171–172

  defeat, 189

  determination to travel

  alone, 177

  as foot soldier, 52

  friendship and, 177–178, 181

  resigned to final defeat, 188

  reunion with Bilbo, 22

  and Ring, 155–156, 160

  Baker, Leo, 128

  Balrog, 151

  Barfield, Owen, 126–127

  Barnsley, Thomas Kenneth

  “Tea Cake,” 72

  Barth, Karl, Epistle to the

  Romans, 124

  Batten, Samuel Zane, 39

  Beeching, H.C., 43

  Beowulf, xvii, 72–73, 223n81

  Beregond (soldier in

  Gondor’s army), 65

  Bloomsbury Group, 125, 219n75

  The Book of Lost Tales,

  121–122. See also The

  Silmarillion

  books published after

  WWI, 108

  Boromir, 156

  Bradley, Henry, 109

  Brest-Litovsk Treaty, 94

  Britain

  in 1890s, 4–5

  Bryce Commission, 42

  casualties, 123

  declaration of war, 79

  as nation chosen by

  God, 36

  public school system, 30

  role in defending

  Western ideals, 32–33

  technological advances, 5–6

  British Expeditionary Force

  (BEF), 58

  casualties, ix

  as citizen soldiers, 75

  resolve and discipline

  in, 70

  Britain, Vera, 10

  Bull, Paul, 47

  Burleigh, Michael, Earthly

  Powers, 34, 40

  Cain and Abel, 164

  Cairns, David, 45

  Carpenter, Humphey, 6, 118

  casualties of WWI, ix, 106

  catastrophe, overcoming, 189–191

  cemeteries, in Europe, 107

  chaplains, 48

  Cherry, Conrad, God’s New

  Israel, 38

  choices, 151–152, 182

&nbs
p; Christian nationalism, 34

  Christianity, 12, 115

  Lewis and Tolkien

  discussion on, 132–133

  as mythology, 14, 88–89

  rejection in 1920s and

  ‘30s, 125

  writers as Lewis’s

  friends, 134

  The Chronicles of Narnia, xii, 21, 136, 139, 143, 147–148, 170–171

  friendship in, 174, 175

  popularity, 144

  role for animals, 9

  chronological snobbery, 127

  Church of England, 16, 35

  churches

  alliance with state, 34

  eugenics sermon

  contest by, 19

  and fascism, 114

  Churchill, Winston, 61, 63, 95, 100, 192

  on battles, xiii

  in House of Commons, 1

  on Treaty of Versailles, 104

  view of warfare, 1–2

  The World Crisis, 76

  in World War I, xi

  Cirith Ungol, 152–153

  city on a hill, America as, 37–39

  civilization, threat to, 108

  civilizational confidence, 115

  clergy, messages against

  Germany, 43

  combat zone, clergy and, 48–49

  communications, on

  British line, 66–67

  communism, 158

  atheism and, 112–113

  confidence, in human

  progress, 2–3

  conflict, Tolkien and Lewis

  ambivalence toward, 50

  conscription, 58, 81

  Cooke, Richard, 44

  courage, 74–77, 156

  Crafer, T.W., 37

  Crystal Palace, 5

  cultural renewal,

  expectation of, 45

  cynicism, 117

  The Dark Knight Rises, 188

  Darrow, Clarence, 162–163

  Darwin, Charles, 12

  Darwin, Leonard, 17

  Day, James, 44

  “De Profundis” (Lewis), 93

  Dearmer, Percy, 44

  death

  Lewis on, 110, 111

  Phantastes and, 82

  “Death in Battle,” 122

  defeat, possibility of, 182

  democratic capitalism, 113

  destiny, and free will, 150–155

  Devine, Dick, 149

  dignity of human life, 138

  disillusionment, 105–107, 117

  after WWI, 107–111

  with West, 115

  Divine Providence, 38

  Dix, Otto, 145

  doubt, 126

  duty, 30

  Dyson, Hugo, 130

  Edward VII (King of

  England), 208n7

  Eksteins, Modris, 115

  Eliot, T.S., 124–125, 193

  Elrond, 50, 151, 177

  empires, collapse, 123

  Engall, J., 32

  Ents (humanoid trees), 9, 10

  environment, judgment

  against man’s assault, 10

  Éomer, 164

  Éowyn, 187

  epic hero, xvi

  escapism, accusations of, xv

  eucatastrophe, 189, 190

  eugenics, 15–19, 158

  Eugenics Education

  Society, 16

  Europe

  loss of moral norms, 124

  response to Wilson’s

  leadership, 103–104

  Evers, Mervyn, 71

  evil, 145, 149–150, 158, 190

  humanity’s struggle

  with, 41, 187

  power of, 148, 159, 188

  Ezra, 192

  fairy tales, MacDonald

  objectives in using, 83

  faith

  crisis of, 115–117

  in trenches, 47–49

  World War I and, xviii

  “The Fall of Gondolin,” 166

  Fall of Man, 7, 21, 150

  fantasy, realism of, 165–170

  Faramir (Captain of

  Gondor), xix, 187–188, 204n30

  fascism, 113–114, 158

  The Fellowship of the Ring, 50, 155

  Lewis review of, 143

  relationships in, 176–178

  Ferguson, Niall, 5, 22, 32–33, 84

  Ferry, Abel, 58

  First World War. See Great

  War

  Flieger, Verlyn, 171

  Forster, L.W., 74

  France, combat losses, ix

  Francis, Ernest, 53–54

  free will, and destiny, 150–155

  freedom, threat to, 158

  “French Nocturne” (poem), 92–93

  Freud, Sigmund, 115, 116

  friendship, gift of, 174–181

  Frodo. See Baggins, Frodo

  Fussell, Paul, 123

  Galadriel, xv, 151

  Galton, Francis, 15

  Gamble, Richard, 25

  The War for

  Righteousness, 45, 46

  Gamgee, Sam, xix, 73–74, 75, 147, 151, 152, 177

  Gandalf, 18, 51, 77, 139, 145–146, 150–151, 182

  on being chosen, 154

  on march against

  Sauron, 9

  Garth, John, 30, 170

  Tolkien and the Great

  War, 66

  George, Lloyd, 95

  Germany

  Allied blockade of, 106

  chemical weapons

  use, 42

  combat losses, ix

  empire collapse, 123

  as evil, 41–44

  mortality rate in 30

  Years War, 28

  political claims, and

  Divine Will, 39–41

  Protestant clergy

  support of, 35

  Western Front

  offensive, 1918, 94–97

  Gibbs, Philip, 67, 76, 137

  Gilbert, George Holley, 43–44

  Gilbert, Martin, 23, 62, 65, 74

  Gilson, Rob, 58–59

  death in battle, 63

  Tolkien learning of

  death, 68–69

  Gimli, 151, 177

  Gladden, Washington, 15

  Glorious Revolution

  (1689), 36

  God

  case against, 86–89

  and country, 36–37

  Freud and, 116

  Germany as chosen by, 39–41

  mastery of nature

  without, 11–15

  obscenity of belief in, 125

  in Tolkien’s writings, 51

  Gollum, 74, 152, 189

  good and evil, psychology

  of, 162–165

  Grace, 189, 190

  Graves, Robert, 49

  Goodbye to All That, 120

  The Great Divorce, 133

  Great War, 10

  vs. all ancient wars, 192

  and battles in Prince

  Caspian, 169–170

  and democratic

  capitalism weakness, 113

  despair and disbelief

  from, 142

  destructiveness of, 106

  end of, 103

  and free will, 155

  as holy war, 44–47

  impact, xviii–xix

  impact on Tolkien and

  Lewis, 144–145

  last soldier to die, 185

  sea battle in North

  Sea, 53

  spiritual consequences

  of, xiv

  start, 23

  technology, 64

  Tolkien’s work as

  response to, 118–119

  views on war effort, 169–170

  Green, Roger, 83

  Greeves, Arthur, 84, 88, 93, 130, 133

  Grey, Edward, 26

  grief, 187

  after WWI, 107–111

  and joy, 191–192

  Gunther, Henry, 185

  Haig, Douglas, 49, 97

  Halfelven, Elrond, 181

  Hancock, John, God’s

 
Dealings with the British

  Empire, 36

  Hanson, Victor Davis, xvii

  Hardman, Donald, 85

  Hardy, Theodore, 48

  Hardy, Thomas, 165, 185–186

  Hastings, Max, 11, 60

  hedonism, 116

  helplessness, after WWI, 107–111

  Hemingway, Ernest, 117

  heroism, modern views, 188

  The Hobbit, xi, 75

  hobbits, 6–7. See also

  Baggins, Frodo

  Hobson, J.A., Imperialism, 35

  Holmes, Oliver Wendell, 13, 19

  Holy Spirit, vs. Volksgeist, 40

  Homer, The Iliad, Lewis

  reading of, 80–81

  honor, in The Lord of the

  Rings, 119

  Hooper, Walter, 83, 134, 187

  hope, 105

  loss of, 186–189

  and tragedy, 143

  The Horse and His Boy, 154–155, 175

  warfare in, 168

  Hubbard, Elbert, 41

  human dignity, 100

  humanity

  confidence in progress, 2–3

  eugenicists

  commitment to

  improving, 20

  and nature, 9

  truths about condition, 143–144

  humility, xix

  Huxley, Aldous, xi

  imagination, 128, 138–139

  individual responsibility, eroding, 162–163

  Industrial Revolution, 3

  industrialization, Lewis’

  views on, 8

  Inklings, 134, 179, 224n111

  innocence, loss of, 123

  Innocent X (pope), 28

  intellectual debate, 126–127

  International Eugenics

  Congress, 17

  international harmony, 4

  inventions, in early 20th

  century, 11

  Italy, fascism in, 113–114

  Jacobs, Alan, 174

  Jadis (Wicked Queen of

  Charn), 22, 147–148

  Jenkins, Philip, 41

  The Great and Holy

  War, 29

  Jesus, Lewis views on, 131

  Johnson, Laurence

  Bertrand, 91, 97–98

  Johnson, Paul, x–xi, 114, 163

  joy, and grief, 191–192

  Jünger, Ernst, Storm of

  Steel, 145

  justifying war, 29

  Jutland, Battle of, 53, 55

  Kant, Immanuel, 4

  Keegan, John, xii, 23, 59, 63

  The Face of Battle, 57, 75–76

  Kent, Susan Kingsley, 112

  King Caspian, 8

  King, coming of, 193–196

  Kirkpatrick, William

  Thompson, 79, 87–88, 110

  Kitchener, Lord (Secretary

  for War), 57

  Lancashire Fusiliers, 72

  The Last Battle, 186–187, 193

  grace in, 190

  Legolas, 151

  Lenin, Vladimir, 113

  Lewis, Albert, 96

 

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