I love the Bathsong, when the Hobbits make it to Frodo's New House and they are all having baths. I can just SEE Pippin and Merry make a Mess while Fordo is trying not to get his new home swamped with water. Or the time in the Movies when the Hobbits Jumps on the Tables in Meduseld and dance and sing, and everybody is laughing about their anticks
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Hey dol! merry dol! ring a dong dillo! Ring a dong! hop along! fal lal the willow! Tom Bom, Jolly Tom, Tom Bombadillo!
More annoying than funny to me. I can't stand chatty people. I'm a make your point and be done with it kinda' gal. In the movies when Gimli went rolling out across the green was hilarious to me.
Filli, lomoduin, Lady Arwen, Mr. Baggins, mouth of sauron, Much more eloquently than I, Michael Stanton wrote the following piece on humor which I found in editor Michael Drout's "J.R.R. Tolkien Encyclopedia, Scholarship and Critical Assessment." While I agree with much of Mr. Stanton's analysis I found humor scattered throughout Tolkien's works. Pieces that Mr. Stanton did not include in his analysis are many elements in the opening chapter in The Fellowship of the Ring; "A Long Expected Party"; Bilbo's after dinner speech, the labeling of Bilbo's bequests (example: For the collection HUGO BRACEGIRDLE, from a contributor: on an (empty) book-case. Hugo was a great borrower of books, and worse than usual at returning them), and the whole incident of Lobelia Sackville Baggins rummaging around in BagEnd, and the general observation about hobbits and meals, amusements, and pipe-weed. The bath house scene at Crickhallow and the mushrooms brings a smile to my face every time. .These are scattered throughout The Lord of the Rings; Fangorn the Ent has comic elements, the chatty woman as Minas Tirith, Gimli's breathing at Lothlorien, are just a few. Even the tongue in cheek deciphering inscription on the Gate to Moria has elements intermixed with the drama and horror. There are so many more throughout all of his works.
The quote from the "Encyclopedia";
"If for the purposes of discussion humor can be divided into situational humor, acts and deeds, and verbal humor, or words, Tolkien's humor falls largely into the verbal category, as might be expected from a writer whose life was language. There are notable situations, especially perhaps in The Hobbit - a flustered Bilbo dashing out without a handkerchief, Dwarves floating down river in barrels, encounters with irritable dragons - with humorous content, but when we think of humor in Tolkien, we think mostly of what people say.
Thus even in The Hobbit there is verbal humor, if riddles may be considered humor. They provide amusement for onlookers at the puzzlement of those trying to guess them and at the defeat of conventional expectations. And they are of course a mainstay of the tale.
In The Lord of the Rings, situations do not permit much humor, but there are partial exceptions: we think of the running joke or contention between Gimli and Eomer about the beauty of Galadriel. It recurs seldom enough to retain some edge and is used no humorously to mark the growing respect between these two warriors. Rather different in tone is the "purely Bywater joke" about New Row's being locally known as Sharkey's End: verbal humor arising out of grim situation.
Throughout Tolkiens work, however, the major modes of humor are two: comic verse and exaggeratedly elevated speech.
Light verse and nonsense verse occur often enough to merit mention. Nonsense verse, of course, is a misnomer: the nonsense is only repeated syllables or in comic (usually double) rhymes ("Tinbone, thinbone, shinbone"). The collection of verse called The Adventures of Tom Bombadil includes comic poems that reappear in The Lord of the Rings, such as Sam Gamgee's "Oliphaunt" and "The Stone Troll," a poem that creates an interesting transposition of humorous effects since the Trolls themselves, with their comic accents, appear only in The Hobbit.
If riddles can mark the affinities of Tolkien's humor with Old English literature, the cozy whimsicality of this sort of poetry can mark the similarities of his humor to that of Victorian fantasists like Edward Lear. (I am not sure what this paragraph implies...perhaps one of our kind neighbors from Great Britain could enlighten us about "Edward Lear" and what "similarities" Mr. Stanton is talking about?)
Tolkien deploys elevated diction and exaggeratedly elaborate rhetoric to comic effect on several occasions. Bilbo's knowing how to address, and flatter, dragons, is a clear example. Less obvious, perhaps, are Merry and Pippin's speeches when other members of the Company find them at Isengard smoking contentedly amid the ruins. Their style of speech is both self-deprecating and meant to provoke.
Tolkien's short work, Farmer Giles of Ham, operates on the use of high styles of speech. It features bilingual, macaronic language, both Latin and "the vulgar tongue," English, for things like book titles. One may say that Farmer Giles is in part the comic explanation of how various English places got their names.
Rapartee or witty retorts are rarely part of Tolkien's humor. But here is a notable exception: on the Hobbits' second day out of Hobbiton, Frodo is munching Elvish leftovers, and Pippin is plaguing him with questions about Gildor. Frodo says sharply, "I don't want to answer a string of questions while I am eating. I want to think!" "Good heavens!" said Pippin. "At breakfast?" (Stanton, M.N. author "Humor" J.R.R. Tolkien Encyclopedia. , Michael Drout editor, Scholarship & Critical Assessment ed. 2007.)
So as the discussion continues I think that relative comic figures such as Barliman Butterbur, and Sam's quick flict of an apple at the eye of Bill Ferny, followed by the quip; "waste of a good apple" can be a lead to the humorous elements which Forum members can recall from all of Tolkien's works. It would brighten my day. Especially while I sit on my front porch smoking my pipe, one of "the few well earned comforts" after "my valient efforts". (burp!)
-- Edited by Bear on Sunday 26th of July 2009 11:56:10 PM
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Vocatus atque non vocatus, Deus aderit Called or uncalled, God is present
I've chuckled at quite a few of the things Gandalf has said, or cheered silently while reading.
I enjoy when he berates Pippin for being a troublemaker, and when he tells off Wormtongue. While these are not necessarily hilarious to everyone, they showcase Gandalf's wit.
LOTR isn't really a book that's reknowned for humor, but under the surface in a lot of places there is an undercurrent of dry wit.
I was on holiday, years ago. My favourite Greek Island, Rhodes!
Anyway, I was reading the LOTR on my hotel balcony at night with a fine cigar and whiskey. The couple who were below me started having....em...you know...er sexy times.
Well I got a bit distracted from the book, and was basicaly leaning out from my ballcony , to make sure they were doing OK or needed assistance...when my book fell off and landed on the guys backside.
I think I could have got away with it, if it weren't for my laughing Well I got caught by the guy at breakfast, when I saw him reading it at his table, I nearly choked to death laughing.
-- Edited by Filli on Tuesday 28th of July 2009 08:39:59 AM
As much of a shame as it is to lose a copy of LOTR, I don't think I would have had the nerve to ask for it back.
I second Bilbo about the films being much funnier. I had mixed feelings about that at first, but I grew to appreciate it. Gimli has some good moments (Legolas: "Shall I describe it to you or would you like me to get you a box?" and "NOBODY TOSSES A DWARF!") but sometimes it can get a little cheesy I suppose.
I really liked the banter between Merry and Pippin as well:
Aragorn: Gentlemen, we do not stop till nightfall. Pippin: What about breakfast? Aragorn: You've already had it. Pippin: We've had one, yes. What about second breakfast? Merry: I don't think he knows about second breakfast, Pip. Pippin: What about elevenses? Luncheon? Afternoon tea? Dinner? Supper? He knows about them, doesn't he? Merry: I wouldn't count on it.
-- Edited by The Secret Fire on Sunday 9th of August 2009 11:27:29 AM
