However, when the Wizard Gandalf outwits them, the scholar Christina Fawcett writes, these Trolls are seen as "monstrous, a warning against vice, captured forever in stone for their greed and anger". In The Hobbit, the hill-trolls are initially comic they are carnivorous but not particularly malevolent, have vulgar table manners, and speak, with Cockney accents. Tolkien was not consistent in his allocation of monsters to these categories. Dragons are mentioned only in passing in The Lord of the Rings, but dragons that can speak but which are certainly not humanoid are important characters in both The Silmarillion and The Hobbit. preternaturally evil monsters" separately. Įvans notes that Tolkien's dragons, "an especially important monstrous type", do not fit either of these categories, and he treats those "extraordinarily large, reptilian creatures. Tolkien never names them, though he describes them as "fell beasts", and describes them in a letter as " pterodactylic". The featherless winged steeds of the Nazgûl are monstrous in the second way, gigantic but evidently based on nature, and "apt to evil". The first includes Trolls, Orcs, and Balrogs, which are humanoid, but distorted in various ways the second consists of malevolent beasts which resemble those of the natural world, but are much larger, such as the wolflike Wargs, the giant evil spiders – Ungoliant and her brood including Shelob – and the tentacled Watcher in the Water. Tolkien Encyclopedia, Jonathan Evans initially identifies two categories of monster in Tolkien's legendarium. Humanoid, bestial, and beyond Evil in mind or body Tolkien's later, wordless trolls have been compared to Grendel, a monster in Beowulf. Commentators have noted that Tolkien clearly preferred the epic's monsters to the critics. In his famous 1936 lecture, " Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics", Tolkien described the poem's monsters as central to its structure, changing the course of Beowulf scholarship. The poem, too, speaks of Orcs, with the Old English compound orcneas, meaning "demon-corpses". Some of Tolkien's monsters may derive from his detailed knowledge of the Old English epic poem Beowulf Gollum has some attributes of Grendel, while the dragon Smaug in The Hobbit shares several features with the Beowulf dragon. Tolkien followed both paths in creating his own monsters. Monsters in Medieval Europe were often humanoid, but could also resemble wild beasts, but of enormous size J. The word "monster" has as its origin the Latin monstrum, "a marvel, prodigy, portent", in turn from Latin monstrare, "to show". Scholars have noted that the monsters' evil nature reflects Tolkien's Roman Catholicism, a religion which has a clear conception of good and evil.įurther information: Beowulf and Middle-earth Some scholars add Tolkien's immensely powerful Dark Lords Morgoth and Sauron to the list, as monstrous enemies in spirit as well as in body. The European medieval tradition of monsters makes them either humanoid but distorted, or like wild beasts, but very large and malevolent Tolkien follows both traditions, with monsters like Orcs of the first kind and Wargs of the second. Tolkien was an expert on Old English, especially Beowulf, and several of his monsters share aspects of the Beowulf monsters his Trolls have been likened to Grendel, the Orcs' name harks back to the poem's orcneas, and the dragon Smaug has multiple attributes of the Beowulf dragon. Tolkien's monsters are the evil beings, such as Orcs, Trolls, and giant spiders, who oppose and sometimes fight the protagonists in J.
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