J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit, or What’s in a Name? Roberto Di Scala IPSC “Paolo Belmesseri” Villafranca in Lunigiana (MS)

Name: The Hobbit, or There and Back Again Written by: J.R.R. Tolkien Year of publication: 1937 Published by: Allen & Unwin, London

A hobbit is involved into a quest for an ancient treasure. He will travel to foreign lands together with 12 dwarves and a wizard. He will learn how to fight dragons and how to survive harsh battles. He will taste adventure and find out that he likes it, after all. And, by the way, he will get his share of the loot.

What literary genre does the book belong to? What are its major themes? But, most of all… …what is a hobbit?!?

The hobbit is a literary creation. It is a fictional character which appears for the first time ever in this novel.

First occurrence of the name. Tolkien was correcting some tests and he jotted down the following words: In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.

Tolkien had to answer this question: What is a hobbit? It was an original creature, never seen before in literature. Tolkien had to give the name a shape.

Tolkien created the hobbit as if it was a representative from the landed gentry with deep roots and ties to the idea of rural England, which Tolkien was so keen of.

Tolkien created a social and historical background for the hobbit as well as the linguistic origin of the word hobbit.

Origin of the word hobbit according to Tolkien: Old English holbytla. No historical record of this Old English form exists. Union of two OE words: hol (‘hole’) + bytlian (‘to live’). Therefore, hobbit = hole dweller.

The play on words goes on: in the book, Tolkien says that the hobbits call themeselves kuduk, from their ancient term kud-dukan, i.e. ‘hole dweller’.

Therefore, the first line of The Hobbit can be seen as a tautology: In a hole in the ground there lived a hole dweller.

Readers of The Hobbit may not be aware of the pun. To the general public, the word hobbit will remind them of hobgoblin.

Readers who are more familiar with Tolkien’s philological issues may be aware of the deeper meaning of the word hobbit.

From the single word hobbit, two kinds of readership may derive: 1) the general public, unaware of the linguistic pregnancy of the word. This public will love the book in itself, for the story it tells and the adventures it contains.

From the single word hobbit, two kinds of readership may derive: 2) The ‘educated’ public, aware of the linguistic meaning of the word. These readers will love the book also for its deep linguistic significance and the pleausere it brings about.