This is who I am

“The woods on either side became denser; the trees were now younger and thicker; and as the lane went lower, running down into a fold of the hills, there were many deep brakes of hazel on the rising slopes at either hand.”

The above sentence comes from page 80 of the Houghton Mifflin one-volume paperback edition of The Lord of the Rings, by J. R. R. Tolkien.

I have included it here because it is a beautifully crafted sentence, an ideal example of the art that can be created via writing.

First, I must point out the exquisite use Tolkien makes of the semi-colon. The average American doesn’t even know how to use them, but here are two of them used correctly in one sentence. Brilliant.

Second, we have alliteration. I will bold the words that start with the same letters, thus the same sounds.

“The woods on either side became denser; the trees were now younger and thicker; and as the lane went lower, running down into a fold of the hills, there were many deep brakes of hazel on the rising slopes at either hand.”

Third, there is his beautiful use of assonance. I will bold the words that use similar vowel sounds.

“The woods on *either side became denser; the trees were now younger and thicker; and as the lane went lower, running down into a fold of the hills, there were many deep brakes of hazel on the rising slopes at *either hand.”

(*Here the word ‘either’ is pronounced with ‘ei’ sounding like the word ‘eye.’ I’m pretty sure this is the way the British say it.)

What really gets to me, gives me chills, and brings the tiniest bit of salt water to my eyes, is the use of meter in this sentence. It’s insane. I have done a rudimentary metric/poetic foot analysis on the sentence, which I will attempt to somehow show on this blog. It may not work too well, but anyway, here we go. The bold-italic letters indicate a stressed syllable, while regular type indicates an unstressed syllable. The vertical lines “|” show where the feet are located. A horizontal slash in a syllable indicates a filler syllable that has been inserted to create a meaningful sentence, but is otherwise not associated with the meter. I have broken the sentence down into poetic lines based on natural pauses observed in reading the sentence aloud.

“The woods | on ei | ther side | became dens | er; (3 feet: tetrameter, plus one syllable filler)

the trees | were now young | er and thick | er; (3 feet: trimeter, plus one syllable filler)

and as | the lane | went low| er, (3 feet: trimeter, plus one syllable filler)

running | down in | to a fold | of the hills |, (3 feet: trimeter)

there were man | y | deep brakes | of haz | el | (3 feet: trimeter, plus one syllable filler)

on the ris | ing slopes | at ei | ther hand.|” (4 feet: tetrameter)

The meter is mirrored.

Here are the foot patterns:

da da = iambic

da da da = anapestic

da da = spondaic

da da = trochaic

Line 1: 3 iamb, 1 anapest

Line 2: 1 iamb, 2 anapest

Line 3: 2 iamb, 1 spondee

Line 4: 2 trochee, 2 anapest

Line 5: 1 anapest, 1 spondee, 1 iamb

Line 6: 1 anapest, 3 iamb

with lines 1 and 6 mirroring each other.

This may not be a completely correct analysis of the meter. People speak and read things differently from one another, so the metric analysis depends on the reader. I do not know exactly how Tolkien meant for the meter to read, but I do know that a meter of some sort is present.

Seeing so many layers to one seemingly unimportant sentence in a 1,000-page book full of sentences is what amazes me about Tolkien’s writing, aside from all the other genius things he built into his great work (the plot, the character development, the languages, the glossary, etc.). I aspire to write sentences that are as intrinsically beautiful, and at the same time as easy to read, as the sentence Tolkien wrote.