What Two Towers?

[NordoftheRings]

Does anyone have the source for Tolkien himself explaining what two tower are The Two Towers? Before you answer, I've looked up many theories and explanations. Not looking for why this tower or that tower but for Tolkien's own words.

In my recent read through, in chapter III The Black Gate is Closed, it's says, "upon them stood the Teeth of Mordor, two towers strong and tall." Perhaps saying "two towers" isn't enough to warrant this being the source for the tittle but I think there's (maybe) more. The Teeth of Mordor were built by the men of Gondor "in pride and power" but then "the strength of Gondor failed". I seems a fitting source for the tittle as a nice contrast with the final book where men's strength does not fail. Many franchise's go this route. Infinity War(war-bad), Endgame(end-good). Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi. The Dark Knight, The Dark Knight Rises. Etc Etc.

So again, now I'm looking for the source of Tolkien himself explaining The Two Towers as something other than The Teeth of Mordor. Thanks

 

[Squint-eyed Southerner]

Without going into a long and complex story, the titles were a source of frustration for Tolkien, stemming from the publisher's decision to break the book into three volumes. He suggested a number of different titles, but I'll give quotes from a couple of his letters to them:

Letter 140, 17 August 1953:

The Two Towers gets as near as possible to finding a title to cover the widely divergent Books 3 and ; and can be left ambiguous-- it might refer to Isengard and Barad-dur, or to Minas Tirith and B; or Isengard and Cirith Ungol.

Letter 143,22 January 1954

I am not at all happy about the title 'the Two Towers'. It must if there is any real reference in it to Vol II refer to Orthanc and the Tower of Cirith Ungol.
But since there is so much made of the basic opposition of the Dark Tower and Minas Tirith,, that seems very misleading. There is, of course, no real connecting link between Books III and IV, when cut off and presented separately as a volume.

 

[Erestor Arcamen]

Here's what Tolkien said about the title:

143 From a letter to Rayner Unwin 22 January 1954
I am sending now Book III, first half of Vol. II, carefully corrected. Book IV is nearly done and
shall follow on Monday.
I have also revised Vol. III and can let you have the MS. of that (as far as the end of the story)
as soon as you wish. The matter for the extra 50 pages1

I shall not be able to do just yet.

I am not at all happy about the title 'the Two Towers'. It must if there is any real reference in it
to Vol II refer to Orthanc and the Tower of Cirith Ungol. But since there is so much made of the
basic opposition of the Dark Tower and Minas Tirith, that seems very misleading. There is, of
course, actually no real connecting link between Books III and IV, when cut off and presented
separately as a volume.

edit: SES beat me to it!

 

[Squint-eyed Southerner]

But yours looks better! 😁

Just to add to the confusion, the illustration Tolkien submitted for possible use for the dust jacket shows Orthanc and the Tower of Minas Morgul.

I'll just add that the Towers of the Teeth form a part of the structure of imagery that runs throughout the whole work -- but that's a subject for a separate thread.

And welcome to the forum, NordoftheRings! If you'd like to introduce yourself "formally", and say something about your particular interests, don't forget our New Members forum:

https://thetolkien.forum/forums/new-members.58/

 

[Erestor Arcamen]

There's also a decent old discussion here on the same topic.

 

[Squint-eyed Southerner]

Digging deep there, EA. 😃

 

[Erestor Arcamen]

🤓

 

[Olorgando]

When will people start realizing that the following hypothetical interview with JRRT (except for the likelihood that he was probably too polite to give such an answer) would run like this:

Interviewer:
"Professor, many readers have inquired about scene XY, which they feel to be too ambiguous, leaving too may possible solutions as equally probable. Could you clarify which of these potential solutions is the right one?"

JRRT:
"No." (add Cheshire Cat grin or not at your pleasure) 😁

 

[Squint-eyed Southerner]

You're talking about intentional ambiguity, which I don't think was necessarily the case, in this instance; rather it was the result, as I mentioned, of the awkward splitting up of the story.

OT, but since you brought it up, the kind of ambiguity I think you mean is discussed by Northop Frye, in his essay on symbolic meaning. I highly recommend a reading of the entire essay, but I'll quote a bit of it here:

The failure to make, in practice, the most elementary of all distinctions in literature, the distinction between fiction and fact, hypothesis and assertion, imaginative and discursive writing, produces what in criticism has been called the "intentional fallacy", the notion that the poet has a primary intention of conveying meaning to a reader, and that the first duty of a critic is to recapture that intention. The word intention is analogical: it implies a relation between two things, usually a conception and an act. Some related terms show this duality even more clearly: to "aim at" something means that a target and a missile are being brought into alignment. Hence such terms properly belong only to discursive writing, where the correspondence of a verbal pattern with what it describes is of primary importance. But a poet's primary concern is to produce a work of art, and hence his intention can only be expressed by some kind of tautology.

In other words, a poet's intention is centripetally directed. It is directed towards putting words together, not towards aligning words with meanings.If we had the privilege of Gulliver in Glubbdubdrib to call up the ghost of, say, Shakespeare, to ask him what he meant by such and such a passage, we could only get, with maddening iteration, the same answer: "I meant it form part of the play."

I recognize this seems to contradict my use of "intentional" at the top of the post, and that some ambiguity comes to be seen as intentional only in retrospect-- even by the author-- but I see I noted in the margin "literal" and "formal" intention, in the senses that Frye uses those terms elsewhere in the essay, and which I won't attempt to get into here.

Sorry for digressing from your topic, Nord.

May I call you Nord? 😄

 

[Olorgando]

You're talking about intentional ambiguity, which I don't think was necessarily the case, in this instance; rather it was the result, as I mentioned, of the awkward splitting up of the story.

Point taken. But what would that mean? JRRT often left things ambiguous intentionally, yes. But if the ambiguity had been forced on him as in this case - well, I guess the facial expression wouldn't have been a grin of any sort, but a rather grumpy scowl ... 🤬

 

[Squint-eyed Southerner]

That's fair enough. 😆

 

[NordoftheRings]

Call me whatever you like. Nord works.

 

[Squint-eyed Southerner]

They usually refer to me as SeS here.

Or "Squinty". 😄

 

[Elthir]

Does anyone have the source for Tolkien himself explaining what two tower are The Two Towers? Before you answer, I've looked up many theories and explanations. Not looking for why this tower or that tower but for Tolkien's own words.

The Tolkien (published by Tolkien) source is The Fellowship of the Ring. . . and in my copy the answer (Orthanc and Minas Morgul) appears a bit before the words . . .

. . . "The End"

 

[Elthir]

Here's the part, representing the italic font and capital letters used in the (at least my) book.

"The second part is called THE TWO TOWERS, since the events recounted in it are dominated by ORTHANC, the citadel of Saruman, and the fortress of MINAS MORGUL, that guards the secret entrance to Mordor; it tells of the deeds and perils of all the members of the now sundered fellowship, until the coming of the Great Darkness."

JRRT, The Fellowship of the Ring

 

[Elthir]

By the way, I note too that the description agrees with Tolkien's own book cover

 

[Squint-eyed Southerner]

Well, that at least simplifies things. 😅

Two questions:
Did this little teaser appear in the first printing?
Was it added later -- say, after TT was published?

And do we know it was actually written by Tolkien?

Three -- three questions.

 

[Elthir]

Did this little teaser appear in the first printing?
Was it added later -- say, after TT was published?
And do we know it was actually written by Tolkien? Three -- three questions.

It's in my first edition (Allen and Unwin). I don't own a first impression though -- but anyway it appears to have been sent to Tolkien for approval in February 1954 (thus before Fellowship was published), and re-written by JRRT in some measure: "He provides an alternate text to that suggested by Rayner Unwin for the final page of The Fellowship of the Ring . . ."

As I read Hammond and Scull's Chronology that is, entries for 22 and 23 February, 1954.

 

[Squint-eyed Southerner]

Well, I guess that settles it, then.

Or at least, he settled on it. The letters quoted above do suggest he was conflicted on the subject.