Living Literature
Recently in my ninth grade Grammar and Composition class, we were reviewing clauses using a passage of prose. As a lover of grammar, this sort of exercise always delights me, but not all of my fourteen-year-old students felt the same. Yet as we started to examine a selection from J.R.R. Tolkein’s The Two Towers, what began as an exercise in recognizing clauses turned unbidden into a discussion of Tolkein’s masterful use of language. We talked about how he employs sight and sound and touch, motion and stillness, energy and rest, and even varying lengths of clauses to paint a powerful picture of a deep-set human longing for community.
In the passage we were examining, King Théoden of Rohan has decided to oppose the dark wizard Saruman and has gathered his troops to ride against Isengard, leaving his niece Éowyn behind.
The trumpets sounded. The horses reared and neighed. Spear clashed on shield. Then the king raised his hand, and with a rush like the sudden onset of a great wind the last host of Rohan rode thundering into the West.
Far over the plain Éowyn saw the glitter of their spears, as she stood still, alone before the doors of the silent house.
The stark contrast between the departure of the Rohirrim and the depiction of Éowyn lies not just in the juxtaposition of chaos with stillness, noise with silence, and teeming energy with solitude. Tolkein underscores this contrast with the sentence structure he uses. He controls the pace of his writing by beginning with four short and direct clauses, which emphatically create the sense of motion even as they describe it. He then ends with the single longest clause in the passage, which slows the pace and creates a feeling of stillness. Without understanding the structure of the passage, a reader might still experience the effect Tolkein sought to create, but he would not be able to describe it, let alone use this technique in his own writing.
The implications of this discussion, however, go far beyond simply developing writing techniques. They also help develop virtue in our students because they reveal a connection between form and meaning. Good writers know and use this fact, for the very reason that God Himself first did so. Scripture tells us that creation reveals much of God’s character. For example, Paul says in Romans 1 that God’s invisible attributes are clearly seen in nature. So, how God created was based on why God created–on the message He wished to convey, which is His own character. The form reflects the meaning. In a similar vein, we have recently been reminded in assembly that how we speak is as important as what we speak. In the Christian life, if we speak or write in one way and mean something else, we have become no better than the son in the parable who says to his father, “I will go” and does not go (Matt. 21:28-32). Virtue dictates that we remember both what we wish to communicate and how we ought to do so. Do we disagree with respect? Condemn with courage? Praise with sincerity? As we study the works of skilled wordsmiths, we are reminded that what they do with language, we ought to do with our lives.
Laurel McLaughlin
Upper School Teacher
