ABSTRACT
Tolkien’s experiences in the Great War not only enhanced his disgust with an ultra-technological modernity and reinforced his apparently reactionary nostalgia for pre-industrial bliss; it also paved the way for an angry and eloquent literary revolt against the machines. In The Lord of the Rings, the trees awake and strike back against political oppression and industrial blight in the shape of vengeful Ents, who combine reason and emotion in spite of their radical separation from humankind. However, Tolkien’s portrayal of trees and forests in this work is not one of misty-eyed nostalgia, nor is it escapist; just like Men and Elves, trees are capable of both good and evil. At the same time, the anthropocentric world-view is subverted, and the very notion of good and evil is complicated by the fact that Ents and trees have their own agenda, based on both reason and emotion, in which the needs of other species are peripheral at best. In this paper, I look at Tolkien’s portrayal of this process in The Lord of the Rings: from dormancy to an awakening, which triggers a response that in turn achieves a recovery of a more balanced and non-anthropocentric relationship with the natural world.
