Two Rings to Rule Them All: A Comparative Study of Tolkien and Wagner (J.R.R Tolkien) (Richard Wagner)

THE PARALLEL BETWEEN THE LORD OF THE RINGS and Der Ring des Nibelungen has been drawn many times and studied a few; in 1992 it was already described as having been "a matter of debate for many years" (Morgan 16), and the debate has shown no signs of abating since. Initially, the suggestion of "influence" was dealt a (seemingly decisive) blow by Tolkien himself when his (evidently incompetent) Swedish translator asserted that the One Ring was in effect identical with "der Nibelungen Ring"; with a brusque finality characteristic of him when nettled, he retorted "Both rings were round, and there the resemblance ceases" (Letters 306). His biographer Humphrey Carpenter uses this example to support his claim that "comparison of his Ring with the Nibelungenlied and Wagner always annoyed Tolkien" (202); Carpenter also alludes to Tolkien, while still a schoolboy, making "a passing jibe at Wagner whose interpretation of the myths he held in contempt" (46). Some subsequent commentaries have taken this at face value; Giddings, for example, sees any Wagnerian associations with Tolkien as a "taint" derived from his mixing "with the rabid Wagnerite C.S. Lewis" (14). The shift towards a more objective and informed appraisal really begins with Tom Shippey, who points out that Tolkien had an intense dislike for people noticing superficial resemblances between his works and others, especially when this tended to obscure what really mattered about them. Shippey is the first to directly challenge Tolkien's dismissal of any Wagnerian connection: