The Hobbit ,The Inklings And The New Middle Ages

In 1994 the BBC 2s nightly cultural round up show The Late Show produced its own program on the new middle ages fronted by journalist Benjamin Wooley who has recently published a book on Doctor Dee Elizabeth the firsts Merlin.The Late Show was the kind of program that has been removed from the BBCs major  channels as part of the dumbing down process and now confined to its cultural ghetto BBC 4.In this program Wooley looked forward to the new millennium as part of a return to medievalism.Part of the doomier predictions made in the program was mention of the Black Death which was linked to various 1990s bogies such as AIDs ,SARs and avian flu.In the nearly twenty years since the  program was broadcast global pandemics have been conspicuous by their absence so in that respect there has been no return to medieval conditions.Likewise the feared rise in global temperatures and melting ice caps has failed to materialize.The most interesting prediction in the program and one which proved correct was that of the demise of the printed word in the wake of the internet.As the Internet had only been open to the general public for a few years at that point this was quite an accurate prediction.

The Hobbit ,The Inklings And The New Middle Ages.

In the 20th century the medievalists always cut a slightly absurd figure as their ideology seemed incongruous in the face of the then modern world as it was with its strong nation states,industrialism ,secularism and ideology of progress.Now in the 21st century articles on what has been dubbed the new middle ages are quite frequent.The  rise of China the old middle kingdom and the resurgence of Islam has produced a world that resembles the late middle ages in many ways. Science fiction novels in the 20th century frequently depicted future worlds which combined high technology with feudal social structures.Nowadays the idea of a technological society in which large chunks of the population are semi-literate and semi numerate has been realized.The wealth that the population is surrounded by seems to appear as if by magic divorced from human effort and manufactured in distant continents which they would be hard put to identify on a map.As in the middle ages the clerisy which still has some   actual  some understanding of the world and how it functions make up only a small proportion of the population.

The Hobbit, The Inklings And The New Middle Ages.

The medievalism of the Inklings was the tail end of a long tradition dating back to the Romantic movement of the early 19th century taking in along the way the novels of Sir Walter Scott and his various imitators,the philosophy of historian Thomas Carlyle,the Gothic architecture of Pugin who designed the Houses Of Parliament ,the paintings of the Pre- Raphaelites ,Tennyson's Idylls of The King ,the operas of Richard Wagner and the socialism of William Morris.The term Middle Ages was coined in the 17th  century to describe the period of western history between the ancient world of Greece and Rome and the modern world which is dated from the 16th century or thereabouts.The intellectuals of the modern period have always felt uncomfortable about the Middle Ages preferring to think of themselves  as being the heirs of Greece and Rome.Of course in a roundabout way this is true but the legacy was passed on through the civilization of the medieval period.The late medieval period of the 15th century saw the rise of strong national states in Spain England and France ,capitalism and technological developments such as gunpowder ,the printing press, the magnetic compass and the ocean going sailing ship.All Chinese inventions admittedly but developed by Europeans to a more advanced level than their originator.So in effect the late medieval period was more innovative and intellectually curious than the Classical period which was fairly stagnant culturally in comparison. The modern world still continues to misunderstand the Middle Ages in many respects.Frequently in modern film adaptions it is portrayed as a drab dun coloured world whereas the medievals in fact loved bright colours and used plant and mineral dyes and paints to achieve them.Likewise medieval armies eschewed the idea of camouflage and burnished their armour so that the sun would flash on it announcing their arrival from a distance. along with the noise from their drums and trumpets .Their love of spicy food had even more momentous consequences as it was the spice trade that inspired explorers such as Columbus in their search for a sea route to the Indies.

The Hobbit,The Inklings And The New Middle Ages.

As well as JRR Tolkien,C S Lewis and Charles Williams other Inklings who were authors were Warnie Lewis the brother of C S Lewis,Roger Llancelyn Greene,Neville Coghill  and the philosopher Owen Barfield. Barfield is the one I am least familiar with at the moment though I dare say I shall get round to his work eventually.I have recently been reading Warnies book on the social history of the France of Louis XIV which was first read to the Inklings and thought it quite good.Roger Llancelyn Greene is famous for his children's books retelling myths and legends Norse and Classical.He did a particularly good book retelling the Arthurian legends marvelously illustrated with wood cuts.This is still in print in a Puffin classics edition I believe.Neville Coghill produced Penguin classics renditions of Chaucer both The Canterbury Tales and Troilus And Cressida in modern English verse translations, He aslo collaborated on a film version of Marllowes'  Dr Faustus with Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor the only time this work has ever been filmed and is worth catching to see Burton in full classical mode.

The Hobbit,The Inklings And The New Middle Ages

C S Lewis claimed that reading  one of Chesterton's works The Everlasting Man 1925 was pivotal on his own journey from atheism to Christianity.The Everlasting Man was written by Chesterton as a rebuttal to his friend H G Well's Outline Of History which was an influential best seller in the 1920s.Well's history was essentially a scientific one which offended those of a religious bent such as GKC and his friend Hilaire Belloc both apologists  for Catholic Christianity.In the film of The Maltese Falcon Sidney Greenstreet tells Humphrey Bogart the story of the falcon and remarks "This is history sir,not Mr Wells History but history nonetheless" The Everlasting Man which told the story of Christianity in the late Roman world has the same message that there is more to history than Wells scientific rationality.George Orwell in his essay Wells,Hitler and The World State.made  a similar claim that to Wells history was essentially a series of victories of the scientific over the romantic man with his highest scorn reserved for conquerors such as Alexander and Napoleon.

The Hobbit ,The Inklings And The New Middle Ages

A key text of Chesterton's with regard to the Inklings was the chapter entitled The Ethics of Elfland from his 1908 book Orthodoxy.In this chapter Chesterton defended the role of fairy stories as part of traditional culture in the upbringing of children.He is able to point out the moral content of the traditional fairy story and also the role of the fantastic element in stimulating the youthful imagination.Chesterton's defense of the fairy tale was later taken up and expanded by Tolkien in his long essay on Fairy Stories.The use of fairy tales in the work of C S Lewis is too obvious to need pointing out as is his debt to G K Chesterton of which I will expand on later.

The Hobbit,The Inklings And The New Middle Ages.

Charles Williams novels with their 20th century English settings could not be more different than the invented worlds of Middle Earth and Narnia.However they do have something in common with the works of an author who died in 1936 and who can be described as the father and inspiration of the Inklings G K Chesterton.
G K Chesterton was one of the giant figures of early 20th century English a friend of H G Wells and Bernard Shaw despite his not sharing their socialist politics.Chesterton's Christianity,his medievalism his small is beautiful hostility to the Big State and Big Business ,his anti-imperialism .his distrust of what is now called scientism and  his love of fantasy and fairy tale all mark him out as the ancestor and inspiration for the Inklings.